When you hear the word communism, what’s the first image that comes to mind? It’s safe to assume one might have envisioned Vietnam, China or perhaps Germany during World War II. However, I was talking about Karl Marx, the individual responsible for Marxism, which has evolved into communism. Communism can be defined as a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production. Marx’s ideologies from the Communist Manifesto have been reviewed throughout world. His ideas can be found throughout various literature, even Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss. Karl Marx believed the nature of humanity should be relationships and opportunities that reflect fair treatment of human beings. In any society, …show more content…
Yertle believes he is entitled to living a higher quality of life if he could have a higher vantage point to rule all the land. Yertle commands the other nine turtles into using stones to help him see—therefore this makes him greater than the other turtles. Unfortunately, the turtles do not question his command and do as he wishes. Yertle uses propaganda, similar to the likes of politicians to convince the turtles to follow in his footsteps. Declaring he is ruler of the cows, the land, and other animals, he creates a false yet convincing narrative that the turtles begin to buy …show more content…
I know up on top you are seeing great sights, But down at the bottom we, too, should have rights. We turtles can’t stand it. Our shells will all crack! Besides, we need food. We are starving!” (169). This is when another Marxism theme appears. The turtles were so fed up with the bourgeoisie, that they decided to alienate labor. The turtles are able to alienate labor by rebelling against Yertle. Karl Marx believed in the alienation of labor. By alienating labor, Marx felt that this would get rid of production and working. Throughout history, conflict has always been present in the class struggle. As history has progressed, the modern-day class struggle can be identified as bourgeoisie versus
According to Marx, capitalist system has another damage rather than class differentiation and low source of income. This damage is basically alienation of labor. Labors are being fundamentally alienated from production, production process, man’s species being and also from other men. Those are the alienation steps of workers in capitalist world. According to communist theory Marx believes that in such system society divides into two different classes; on one hand there are property owners so called bourgeoisie and on the other hand property less workers so called proletariats. For Marx the class stratification that driven from private ownership causes to alienate workers from the existence world. It begins that property less workers become alienated from the product that they produce. Worker relates to...
America, throughout the ages, has always despised Communism and Communistic beliefs; however, during the 20s to around the 90s, there was a deeper hatred for Communism and a fear that lingered in most Americans’ hearts. Communism is a political theory that was derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs. The majority of Americans strongly disagreed with
Since the end of World War II until the mid- eighties , most Americans could agree that communism was the enemy. Communism wanted to destroy our way of life and corrupt the freest country in the world. Communism is an economic system in which a person or group of persons who are in control. The main purpose of communism is to make social and economic status of all individuals of the same . Deletes inequalities in property ownership and wealth distributed equally to everyone . The main problem with this is that a person who is rich can be stripped of most of his fortune to someone else can have more material goods and be his equal .
Marx believes there is a true human nature, that of a free species being, but our social environment can alienate us from it. To describe this nature, he first describes the class conflict between the bourgeois and the proletariats. Coined by Marx, the bourgeois are “the exploiting and ruling class.”, and the proletariats are “the exploited and oppressed class” (Marx, 207). These two classes are separated because of the machine we call capitalism. Capitalism arises from private property, specialization of labor, wage labor, and inevitably causes competition.
The opinion of communism in American culture has been negative for as long as com-munism has been around. Throughout history, the United States, has told its citizens that com-munism is evil, taught children in schools that it is a dangerous idea, and has even gone to war to prevent the spread of it in foreign nations. But is it really that "evil" of an idea? In The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the idea of communism is painted in a much different picture than what is depicted in the United States. Although it was a controversial concept at the time, Marx published this work in 1848, and he provided a convincing case for the benefits of communism. He does this by comparing and criticizing the social classes of citizens throughout history while utilizing different types of appeals to convince the reader that this type of govern-ment should be put into action. Marx believed very strongly in the ideas he put forth in this mani-festo and it shows by how aggressively he conveys the benefits and defends the criticism towards his concept; he is in fact so persuasive in the style of his argument that his theories are still relevant today.
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
Ironically, Communism has never existed anywhere. There has never been a system implemented in our entire history by which a society has been utterly classless. Communism would be a type of egalitarian society with no state, no privately owned means of production and no social class (Wikipedia). Today there is a selection of “Communist” states that exist in a variety of locations on our globe. Sadly, all of the claimed Communist states including the late Soviet Union were and are despicable and corrupted examples of the idea of Communism. By using Stalin as an example it is quite possible to portray to the reader a simple and effective example of the flip side of attempted Communism. Stalin took control of a weak government and crafted an illusionary Communist state. Ironically, Stalin had set himself up as the dictator of a completely totalitarian society. By using the people of Russia, he was able to harness the government and use it for his own needs. This is quite similar to 1984 with the concept of Big Brother. Although Big Brother is not a person, the inner society that controls “him” creates a Stalinist nation; this was quite purposefully included by Orwell.
As a government, Communism was different from anything else and had distinctive goals. Though, as a whole and in simplified terms, what was Communism? Communism violently attempted to take over a country by eliminating all other political systems and the different classes of people in a socialistic way through the use of dictatorships (Ebenstein). Communism’s main goal was to spread Communism from country to country until the whole world was in a Communistic state. In their eyes, this made the world a better place, but it also removed the opposition of countries with different government systems (Overstreet). Communists did not mind going to war and losing thousands of lives if it would help to spread Communism (Communism, the Courts, and the Constitution). Under Communism, everything was owned by the government including farms and factories. This not only eliminated capitalism, but it also gave the government the power to control the countries’ food supply and other...
Communism was the ideology followed by the Soviet Union. Originally founded by Karl Marx, it said that everything should be owned by the government and then divided up equally among the people who would then all work for it. For the communist party in Russia, their political system was always in danger. From the start of the Russian Revolution there have been dangers to communism. Before World War II most of the western nations ignored Russia simply because it was a communist state and the western nations actually supported Hitler because they believed that Germany would provided a buffer against Communism. The permanent threat against Russia gave the incentive to expand and spread communist influence as much as possible to keep their way of life intact, it was very much Russia against the world. However not only was the Soviet Union communist, they were totalitarian, meaning all the power was with the rulers. While this was effective for keeping the standard average of living the same for everyone and preventing poverty, it also led to a poor work ethic among the working population...
Marx’s theory of alienation is the process by which social organized productive powers are experienced as external or alien forces that dominate the humans that create them. He believes that production is man’s act on nature and on himself. Man’s relationship with nature is his relationship with his tools, or means of production. Man’s relationship with himself is fundamentally his relationship to others. Since production is a social concept to Marx, man’s relationship with other men is the relations of production. Marx’s theory of alienation specifically identifies the problems that he observed within a capitalist society. He noted that workers lost determination by losing the right to be sovereign over their own lives. In a capitalist society, the workers, or Proletariats, do not have control over their productions, their relationship with other producers, or the value or ownership of their production. Even though he identifies the workers as autonomous and self-realizing, the Bourgeoisie dictates their goals and actions to them. Since the bourgeoisie privately owns the means of production, the workers’ product accumulates surplus only for the interest of profit, or capital. Marx is unhappy with this system because he believes that the means of production should be communally owned and that production should be social. Marx believes that under capitalism, man is alienated in four different ways. First, he says that man, as producers, is alienated from the goods that he produces, or the object. Second, man is alienated from the activity of labor to where...
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.
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.
Whether one thinks that the ideas of communism are good or bad, by taking a look a today’s society, we can certainly see the affect The Communist Manifesto and other books of its kind have had. Karl Marx’s ideas have shaped many programs and organizations to attempt following along the lines of equality.
Dr. Seuss’s controversial book Yertle the turtle, provides an accurate example of Marxism. The book involves a struggle for power, where Yertle the turtle has a desire for domination, which involves the unwilling sacrifice of others. In the first few lines, we are transported to the far-away Island of Sala-ma-Sond, where Seuss paints a tranquil society of turtles. The turtles that live there are happy with their life, as long as they have warm water and enough food. “The water was warm. There was plenty to eat. The turtles had everything turtles might need. And they were all happy. Quite happy indeed”. However, Yertle the turtle, “king of the pond”, wanted more.
He saw communism as a way for all people to be truly free and equal. There would be no more class discrimination and everyone would have resourced based on what is needed. He exclaimed that communism would give individuals the freedoms that the bourgeoisie denied them. While this is what Karl Marx predicted and believed would be successful, the reality over time has taken a much different path proving that Marx’s ideas cannot be accurately applied