He could have and did: factories and craftspeople from Adam Smith's world are the epitypes of capitalist activity. Giant corporations that half-merge with the government are Marx's final, dying and barely capitalist stage of capitalism, that hardly involves markets at all. He thought capitalism (factories and craftspeople) would reach the end of its lifespan and give birth to $THC or $HCA.

It is what he called late stage capitalism. He might have been wrong on the solutions, but he nailed the problem quite well.