Free Essays on Communist Manifesto

Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto â€Å"Capitalism is bad!† If Capitalism is so bad, why is it still used in today’s modern world? Although the book The Communist Manifesto has openly addressed many issues of ‘minimum wage’ and ‘exploitation’ the gap between the â€Å"bourgeoisie† and the â€Å"proletariat† has continued to widen. So how has a book, such as this, really impacted our lives? If anything, it hasn’t! Marx first proposed these ideas nearly two centuries ago, and since that time, society, moreover the world, has managed to drift further and further away from his radical ideas. In many of Marx’s works, namely The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, he expressed the belief that all civilizations throughout history had inevitably experienced class conflict between workers and the owners of productive property. He further argued that it was this division of classes, which created a conflict that drove civilization through multiple stages of history. Marx called the middle-class owners the bourgeoisie and the workers who did the actual labor the proletariat. Capitalism is a system in which a wealthy landowner (or owner of a factory) would utilize workers who had to sell their labor for a fraction of what the labor was worth. Marx foresaw the downfall of Capitalism in industrialized countries and saw the rise of Communism in its place. He strongly believed that capitalism would end with a workers’ revolution against the owners of factories and other properties used to produce goods and services. In the revolution, the workers would gain control of economic resources and the government. (Schneck) In the Communist Manifesto he proposed that in every historical epoch the prevailing economic system by which the necessities of life are produced determines the form of societal organization and the political and intellectual history of the epoch; and that the history of society is a history of struggles bet... Free Essays on Communist Manifesto Free Essays on Communist Manifesto Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto â€Å"Capitalism is bad!† If Capitalism is so bad, why is it still used in today’s modern world? Although the book The Communist Manifesto has openly addressed many issues of ‘minimum wage’ and ‘exploitation’ the gap between the â€Å"bourgeoisie† and the â€Å"proletariat† has continued to widen. So how has a book, such as this, really impacted our lives? If anything, it hasn’t! Marx first proposed these ideas nearly two centuries ago, and since that time, society, moreover the world, has managed to drift further and further away from his radical ideas. In many of Marx’s works, namely The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, he expressed the belief that all civilizations throughout history had inevitably experienced class conflict between workers and the owners of productive property. He further argued that it was this division of classes, which created a conflict that drove civilization through multiple stages of history. Marx called the middle-class owners the bourgeoisie and the workers who did the actual labor the proletariat. Capitalism is a system in which a wealthy landowner (or owner of a factory) would utilize workers who had to sell their labor for a fraction of what the labor was worth. Marx foresaw the downfall of Capitalism in industrialized countries and saw the rise of Communism in its place. He strongly believed that capitalism would end with a workers’ revolution against the owners of factories and other properties used to produce goods and services. In the revolution, the workers would gain control of economic resources and the government. (Schneck) In the Communist Manifesto he proposed that in every historical epoch the prevailing economic system by which the necessities of life are produced determines the form of societal organization and the political and intellectual history of the epoch; and that the history of society is a history of struggles bet... Free Essays on Communist Manifesto The Manifesto of the Communist Party was drafted as its party program by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in Brussels at the order of the second congress of the League of Communists (December 2-8, 1847) and was first published by the order of the central authority of the league in the German language in an anonymous booklet of twenty three printed pages in London at the end of February 1848, just prior to the outbreak of the French February revolution. The Manifesto marked the end of a year-long discussion within the League of the Just about the objectives and methods of proletarian emancipation and implied the conclusion of its transformation into the League of Communists. In Marxist literature this publication, which marked a milestone in the theoretical evolution of Marx and Engels and reflected the crucial principles of their world view in a relatively self-contained and complete form, is held to be the birth certificate of scientific socialism, which was fundamentally distinct fro m utopian socialism. Brought into its final version by Marx, it undoubtedly was the most brilliant and widely read writing of Marx and Engels; thanks to its down-to-earth analysis of society with its concise and cogent portrayal of a humanizing-liberating perspective for workers and the urgent demands for a revolutionary transformation of society. It was the most effective and most widely read publication of the modern working-class movement. The Manifesto was subdivided into four sections. Starting from the thesis that past history was a history of class struggles which have always ended either "in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes," the authors in the comprehensive first section outlined the historical genesis of modern capitalist society on the basis of economic processes; they assigned the "most revolutionary part" to the bourgeoisie in its efforts to transform productive forces and soc... Free Essays on Communist Manifesto Communist Manifesto Proletarians-the working class intended to â€Å"haunt† Europe and seize control of it. For these people as well as all the other European socialist and communist parties in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, The Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, eventually became one of the principal programmatic statements. The book was preaching for the fall of the ruling classes and the emergence of the workers. This being the main topic of the â€Å"Manifesto† inspired people to believe that the bourgeois exploited them as well as everything else only to benefit themselves. In four chapters and an introduction, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, develop the fall of bourgeoisie, the idea of communism and most importantly the rise of proletariat. The â€Å"Manifesto† opens with a phrase: â€Å"A spectre is haunting Europe-the spectre of communism.† The intention of it is the same as of the entire chapter, the acknowledgement of the spread of communism and its strength (â€Å"Communist Manifesto†). The role of the â€Å"Manifesto† is shown as promoting the communist beliefs. In the very next chapter â€Å"Bourgeoisie and Proletarians† some of these most radical beliefs are expressed. According to Marx and Engels, the struggle of classes is inevitable. Yet, by the working class taking over, there would be no more classes and humans would be equal. The main reason behind the bourgeois being the antagonist is that they are oppressors, the inheritors of the feudal system where they exploit their surrounding. Marx and Engels condemn free trade as a mean of exploitation, which demands the poorer people and nations to depend on the richer ones. â€Å"Universal interdependence of nations† is not seen as a beneficial factor, but just another symbol of the rich, taking all the wealth from the poor. One of the main points of the manifesto is that workers are just seen as machines, which bring power to the bou... Free Essays on Communist Manifesto NOTES†¦..COMMUNIST MANIFESTO Main Idea: The book was preaching for the fall of the ruling classes and the emergence of the workers. The â€Å"Manifesto† inspired people to believe that the bourgeois exploited them as well as everything else only to benefit themselves According to Marx and Engels, the struggle of classes is inevitable. Yet, by the working class taking over, there would be no more classes and humans would be equal. The main reason behind the bourgeois being the antagonist is that they are oppressors, the inheritors of the feudal system where they exploit their surrounding. Marx and Engels condemn free trade as a mean of exploitation, which demands the poorer people and nations to depend on the richer ones. â€Å"Universal interdependence of nations† is not seen as a beneficial factor, but just another symbol of the rich, taking all the wealth from the poor. One of the main points of the manifesto is that workers are just seen as machines, which bring power to the bourgeois, the industry. Thus, they should all unite, taking power into their own hands, â€Å"its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable Even though it is already introduced in the very beginning of the manifesto, communism and its purpose are shown later in the second chapter: the formation of the proletariat into a class, the overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, and the conquest of political power by the proletariat . The core of the communists is defined by a single sentence, â€Å"the abolition of private property†. The property, which has been a symbol of the power and the wealth of the bourgeois, had to be distributed to the workers supporting the previous chapter in its intent to overthrow the bourgeois. The workers deserved their land, it was hard won, self-acquired, self-earned. The loss of class in mentioned again, showing how it would destroy the hostility between the nations. The c...