Understanding the Goals of Communism in The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels

In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels discuss many things relating to social class, and communism. Throughout the book you begin to understand the assumptions about freedom, labor, community, and history in the opinions of Marx and Engels. The book then constructs itself around a paradox of liberation. In The Communist Manifesto they talk about the Bourgeois and the Proletarians, the goals of communism, and why “communism” might have a negative connotation behind it.

In the first part of The Communist Manifesto, they talk about Bourgeois and Proletarians. The bourgeois are the employers of wage laborers and owners of the means of production, they also compose the class of modern capitalists. Due to industrialization the bourgeois increased its capital. Once there came to be mass machinery, the bourgeois were the ones to figure out that they can make people work longer hours and pay them less money so that they then end up with the most income. In the Manifesto they state that for the bourgeois “to overthrow their class enemies, they had appealed to the population at large and define their own class interest as a universal interest.” (Marx and Engels 39). Meaning that the bourgeois would trick people into thinking that they were on their side and did things to help the lower class. In the bigger scope of history the bourgeois kept growing with the industry but they then did not realize that the more they grow the more working class people they begin to obtain. Once there is more working class than bourgeois they eventually will have everyone turn against them and then get thrown out of power. In addition to the bourgeois they talk about proletarians. The proletarians are the class of modern wage laborers, they mus...

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...know that the communist really have nothing but good intentions for these societies. The Manifesto is pretty much at this point just a historical document. Mostly because you will have to change some parts to go with the evolution of industrial capitalism, the expansion of political trade, and trade organizations among working people. In today’s society it’s not so relevant, people can use it as a historical document to see how people in that time felt about the situations at hand.

In conclusion, this book gave insight to who the bourgeois and proletarians were, the main goals of communism, and why communism might have a negative connotation behind it. Marx and Engels, gave their best opinions and research in this book, and although it is pretty much a historical document at this point one hundred and fifty years old, people still care about their thoughts.