The Communist Manifesto, By Karl Marx

Karl Marx, who wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848, sees capitalism as inherently flawed. According to him, it is simply a stage in a long history of evolving forms of economics and relations between people. He sees it as just the current form, following feudalism, and, eventually, leading to socialism. While he does believe capitalism will eventually stagnate and fail, Marx believes that a revolution is needed in order to completely get rid of capitalism. He does not share the belief that legal social reforms will be sufficient to correct its internal flaws. In his view, capitalism is too focused on profit, which requires exploitation of workers. In order to understand his theories, it is important to know that Marx sees classes as

According to him, growth is rooted in the increasing division of labor. Smith gives three main reasons as to why this is. His first reason is that by dividing labor amongst various workers, it creates a specialization in knowledge of a particular task. Next, dividing labor saves the workers time by focusing on one task and not having to move from one to another, which will usually mean having to use different tools. The worker is, therefore, able to make the most of his time, which increases productivity. Lastly, by spending more time on one task, the workers are more likely to innovate in the methods used in performing the task, which makes it easier to perform the task and save more

Possibly most importantly, Smith believes that capitalism is the key to growth and efficiency, while Marx sees capitalism as merely a stage in history that will ultimately fail and lead to socialism. Marx believes, however, that in order to rid the world of capitalism, there needs to be a revolution. He believes that major social change is not possible without revolution, and he also believes that legal reforms are not enough to correct the flaws inherent in capitalism. Marx views capitalism as creating two main classes, the Bourgeoisie (what he calls the oppressors), and the Proletariat (what he calls the oppressed). Smith, however, sees capitalism as a way to increase everybody’s wealth and productivity. One key idea in capitalism is that businesses want to maximize profits and minimize costs, often at the expense of the workers. This means that the businesses will only employ as many people as is necessary to keep profits up and they will pay these workers as little as possible. Smith fails to offer up a solution to this problem of low wages, while a fundamental theme of Marxism is that capitalists are taking part of the value that was created by the workers when they sell it for more than it cost to make it. One can easily see that the splitting up of the profits amongst the master and the workers would be the solution, and that is part of the