Proletariat vs. Bourgeoisie in Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto

1064 Words3 Pages

Proletariat vs. Bourgeoisie in Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto

In The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels attempt to explain the reasons for why there is class struggle and suggest how to prevent class separation. According to Marx there are two different types of social classes: the bourgeoisies and the proletarians. The bourgeoisie are capitalists who own the means of production and the proletarians are the working classes who are employed by the bourgeoisies. Due to their wealth, the bourgeoisies had the power to control pretty much of everything and the proletarians had little or no say in any political issues. According to Marx, the proletarians population would increase and they would eventually rise above the bourgeoisie and hold a revolt against them. The proletarians would base this revolt with the help of 'faith and reason.' With the help from The Communist Manifesto, the proletarians realize the conditions they are in by being overpowered by bourgeoisies. The proletarians now have the reasons to ask questions about origin, order, and their purpose of life. Also, they could raise questions about meaning, truth, and value. Through 'faith and reason' the proletarians will be able to overthrow the empowerment of the bourgeoisies.1

Marx expressed many views about the over empowerment of the bourgeoisies in The Communists Manifesto. Marx believed that the working class was not getting paid what they deserved for the quality of work that they were producing. Marx thought that the all workers should be paid the same rather than by social position. For instance, Marx thought that a mineworker should be paid as much as a doctor. Marx states, ?The average price of w...

... middle of paper ...

...ower by the proletariat.2 Marx then tries to eliminate the power of the Bourgeois by eliminating property. Without private property the Bourgeois cannot control business and create capital.

Overall, the proletarians had very different and more dreadful lifestyles then the bourgeoisie. The proletarians had very bad working conditions and were paid low wages. On the other hand, the bourgeoisie were the social power and could control mostly everything to keep them at absolute power.

Works Cited

1 www.as.udayton.edu/hbase/themes.htm

2 Karl Marx. The Communist Manifesto

3 www.classicnotes.com

4 Dennis Sherman and Joyce Salisbury. The West in the World.

5 Briefs, Goetz A. The proletariat; a challenge to western civilizatoin

6 www.schoolhistory.org.uk/IndustrialRevolution/womenancchildren.htm

7 Sombart, Werner. Bourgeois.

Show More
Related

  • The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx

    872 Words  | 2 Pages

    Marx’s ideals of communism were drawn from the realization that the cycle of revolutions caused by the class struggles throughout history lead society nowhere. Society as a whole was more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes that were directly facing each other—bourgeoisie and proletariat. According to Marx, in order for society to further itself a mass proletarian revolution would have to occur. The bourgeois, who were the employers and owners of the means of production, composed the majority of the modern capitalists. It was these individuals that controlled the capitalist society by exploiting the labor provided by the proletariats. For example, the bourgeoisie make property into a right because they are the ones with the property. However, without their power force of labor behind them, the bourgeoisie class would crumple. To accomplish a revolution, the workers (proletariats) would need to rise up against the bourgeoisie and take back the factors of production. Marx believed that after the inevitable revolution of the proletariats against the oppressive force of the bourgeoisie, a communistic form of government would take hold.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Karl Marx's Writing Of The Communist Manifesto

    2472 Words  | 5 Pages

    Karl Marx 's writing of ‘The Communist Manifesto’ in 1848 has been documented by a vast number of academics as one of the most influential pieces of political texts written in the modern era. Its ideologically driven ideas formed the solid foundation of the Communist movement throughout the 20th century, offering a greater alternative for those who were rapidly becoming disillusioned and frustrated with the growing wealth and social divisions created by capitalism. A feeling not just felt in by a couple of individuals in one society, but a feeling that was spreading throughout various societies worldwide. As Toma highlights in his work, Marx felt that ‘capitalism would produce a crisis-ridden, polarized society destined to be taken over by

    Read More

  • Bastiat And Communist Manifesto Essay

    845 Words  | 2 Pages

    Both Bastiat and Marx believe that every person has individual rights and that every person should have an equal opportunity to lead a successful life. They believe that people should have the right to lead whatever life they chose to. Class structure and how individuals are placed into these classes is the biggest concept that Marx speaks about in Communist Manifesto. Marx believes that there should not be different social classes of people. During his time, there were two main classes of people; the bourgeois and the proletariat. The bourgeois were the modern Capitalist’s, who owned means of production and would employ wage-workers to operate these machines, generating huge profits for themselves. The proletariats were the wage-workers, who could not afford their own means of production, therefore relied on the bourgeois for work and income. The bourgeois had all the power in society. Marx believed that centralizing the means of production would take away the social power that the bourgeois had over the proletariats. He believed in the abolition of private property ...

    Read More

  • Marxist Theory and Class Relations in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

    870 Words  | 2 Pages

    Marxism is a method of analysis based around the concepts developed by the two German philosophers Karl Marx and Fredrich Engel, centered around the complexities of social-relations and a class-based society. Together, they collaborated their theories to produce such works as The German Ideology (1846) and The Communist Manifesto (1848), and developed the terms ‘’proletariat’ and ’bourgeois’ to describe the working-class and the wealthy, segmenting the difference between their respective social classes. As a result of the apparent differences, Marxism states that proletariats and bourgeoisie are in constant class struggle, working against each other to amount in a gain for themselves.

    Read More

  • The Struggle Between The Working Class And Communism In The Communist Manifesto?

    724 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Bourgeois emerged from “the ruins of feudal society” that once ruled Europe and went on to establish their rule the Industrial Revolution (textbook 708). The Industrial Revolution saw the innovation of the steam engine and machines that could do the same work skilled craftsmen did at half the price in factories. In his “Draft of Communist Confession of Faith” The Communist Manifesto co-author Friedrich Engels traces the development of the Proletariat

    Read More

  • Wealth and Poverty: Karl Marx

    1702 Words  | 4 Pages

    Marx, in The Communist Manifesto, exposes these five factors which the bourgeoisie had against the communist, and deals with each one fairly. As for the proletariat class, Marx proposes a different economic system where inequality between social classes would not exist. The bourgeoisie class was the class in control in the Gilded Age, yet Marx's views exposed the flaws in their social system and gave the proletariats a new social order. As the Gilded Age progressed, the bourgeoisie became more powerful and thus the proletariat class declined in their status.... ...

    Read More

  • Kuyper Against Marx

    1801 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Marx’s opinion, the cause of poverty has always been due to the struggle between social classes, with one class keeping its power by suppressing the other classes. He claims the opposing forces of the Industrial Age are the bourgeois and the proletarians. Marx describes the bourgeois as a middle class drunk on power. The bourgeois are the controllers of industrialization, the owners of the factories that abuse their workers and strip all human dignity away from them for pennies. Industry, Marx says, has made the proletariat working class only a tool for increasing the wealth of the bourgeoisie. Because the aim of the bourgeoisie is to increase their trade and wealth, it is necessary to exploit the worker to maximize profit. This, according to Marx, is why the labor of the proletariat continued to steadily increase while the wages of the proletariat continued to steadily decrease.

    Read More

  • Marx 's Theory Of Class Conflict

    1079 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to Marx class is determined by property associations not by revenue or status. It is determined by allocation and utilization, which represent the production and power relations of class. Marx’s differentiate one class from another rooted on two criteria: possession of the means of production and control of the labor power of others. The major class groups are the capitalist also known as bourgeoisie and the workers or proletariat. The capitalist own the means of production and purchase the labor power of others. Proletariat is the laboring lower class. They are the ones who sell their own labor power. Class conflict to possess power over the means of production is the powerful force behind social growth.

    Read More

  • The Impact of the Communist Manifesto During the Late 1800s and Early 1900s

    1053 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Communist Manifesto made the oppressed people aware of their status and called them to unite. It did this by outlining the history of classes and class struggle. The Communist Manifesto stated that society and history are shaped by class struggles and that two classes were present in 1848, the bourgeois and the proletariat. The document goes on to state that the bourgeois had created capitalism and were oppressing the proletariat.[1] Marx defines the proletariat as “an appendage of the machine”. [2] He recognized how the proletariats were being exploited and he brought it to the attention of the public. Not only does the Communist Manifesto point out that the proletariats were being exploited, it went a step further and called the proletariats to action. He called the working class the revolutionary class and told them that they had the power to fight the bourgeois.[3] The Communist Manifesto forced the Proletariats to recognize their exploitation. As a result the attitude of the proletariat was changed. Proof that the proletariats attitudes were changed comes from the widespread uprising of revolutions in Europe that followed the publication of the Communist Manifesto.

    Read More

  • Communist Manifesto Analysis

    970 Words  | 2 Pages

    Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ The Communist Manifesto explores class struggles and their resulting revolutions. They first present their theory of class struggle by explaining that “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” (Marx 14), meaning that history is a repeated class struggle that only ends with a revolution. Marx and Engels’ message in The Communist Manifesto is that it is inevitable for class struggles to result in revolutions, ultimately these revolutions will result in society’s transition to communism.

    Read More

  • Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and Simmel: The Relationship between Society and the Individual

    3473 Words  | 7 Pages

    In the Communist Manifesto it is very clear that Marx is concerned with the organization of society. He sees that the majority individuals in society, the proletariat, live in sub-standard living conditions while the minority of society, the bourgeoisie, have all that life has to offer. However, his most acute observation was that the bourgeoisie control the means of production that separate the two classes (Marx #11 p. 250). Marx notes that this is not just a recent development rather a historical process between the two classes and the individuals that compose it. “It [the bourgeois] has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, and new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie ...

    Read More

  • Marxism and Leninism

    1618 Words  | 4 Pages

    The political philosopher believed that communism could only thrive in a society distressed by “the political and economic circumstances created by a fully developed capitalism”. With industry and capitalism growing, a working class develops and begins to be exploited. According to Marx, the exploiting class essentially is at fault for their demise, and the exploited class eventually comes to power through the failure of capitalism.... ... middle of paper ...

    Read More

  • Wage-Labor and Capital by Karl Marx

    679 Words  | 2 Pages

    Since the capitalist owned the mode of production, they had the power to make the workers work for however the amount they wanted to give. The wage-workers had no choice but to accept the amount wages they received. This was their only way to survive. This was around the time where Marx pointed out that the wage-workers were indeed being alienated and exploited.

    Read More

  • Karl Marx And Private Property: The Right To Property

    1146 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...y can be hard to reach. In the history of Soviet Union alone, true Marxist’s would argue that the Soviets did not adopt true Marxist ideas, and the reason for this is probably due to the fact that his ideas are too unrealistic to exist in the real world. Also the idea that there are two-classes of people because of private property is simplistic since he dismisses the importance of wages and the power that they give to the working class. I believe that the worker is free to use his wages for the acquisition of property or employees for himself. Yet these past readings have given me an open mind on the different views of the capitalist world. Private property in another sense should not be abolished in my opinion, since it is a human right and would be impossible to abolish in today’s society. Marx’s criticism is of private property is based on the value of freedom.

    Read More

  • The Political Philosophy of Karl Marx

    2291 Words  | 5 Pages

    Marx believed that capitalism was unfair because the rich middle and upper class people manipulated the system and used it for their own benefit while we got the short end of the stick. We, being average Americans— like myself— who go to college full-time, juggle a job, and yet are constantly struggling just to make ends meet: the unappreciated, exploited and underpaid every day heroes.... ... middle of paper ... ... 6.

    Read More

More about Proletariat vs. Bourgeoisie in Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto

Open Document