The Importance Of Capitalism In The Communist Manifesto By Marx And Engels

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels realized that the use of capitalism was in efforts to advance quicker than the societies beforehand introducing a system that promised prosperity and even more advancements than the previous societies. Even though these advancements were able to boost our society to heights never seen before, they didn’t come without a cost. “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole,”(Schuman. 2013) Here Marx and Engels are referring to the exploitation of humans, better yet the barbaric nature of slavery in the Americas. Despite the fact that capitalism has its downfall, it was able to produce

If machines were able to fold up clothes and display them, I would’ve been out of my job a few years ago. Needless to say, with the use of things such as cash registers and time stamp machines, it reduced the time it took me to actually do my job versus counting every dollar customers gave me and physically writing every single time I come in and out of work. Marx states, “machinery, while augmenting the human material that forms the principal object of capital’s exploiting power, at the same time raises the degree of exploitation.” (Marx. Vol. 1, p395) In addition, “If machinery be the most powerful means for increasing the productiveness of labour—i.e. for shortening the working-time required in the production of a commodity, it becomes in the hands of capital the most powerful means, in those countries first invaded by it, for lengthening the working-day beyond all bounds set by human nature.” (Marx. Vol. 1,

It is the concept of the domination of the ruling class putting their own wealth and power before anything else. This is defined as abstract labor, when the capitalist is not interested in what the laborers produce as long as it doesn’t interfere with their profit. The only thing that they are interested in is in profit. Using an example from my first job in Aeropostale, the owner of Aeropostale didn’t care if I didn’t go into work one day, however if I were to affect their profit lets say by messing a whole week of work and lowering sales I would’ve probably gotten fired or received a letter from someone addressing the matter. The capitalist can’t do anything without our labor power meaning that without the workers, capitalist wont make any profit. The capitalist can’t do anything without the working class because they are the ones who run the means of production or in other words, they are the ones who make profit. Since the capitalist want to save as much money as possible for themselves, they’re incentive is to pay the workers as little are possible for the maximum amount of things they can produce, leading to the class struggle we faced all throughout human