The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

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The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

The Communist Manifesto was written by two world renowned philosophers, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. This book was produced in an era of great suffering and anguish of all workers in a socially distressed system. In a time when revolutions were spreading through Europe like wildfire, Marx organized his thoughts and views to produce the critical pamphlet “The Communist Manifesto”. Marx’s scrutiny illustrates his belief that unless change is to occur the constant outcome will repeatedly remain uniform. This is a novel that displays the differentiation between the Bourgeois and the Proletariat. Class relationships are defined by an era's means of production. Marx’s contradictions the position that capitalism is the unsurpassed system of economics. The only tactic that could create a successful change is if the proletariat takes some initiative and brings an end to the two distinct classes. Only then will the proletariat attain equality socially, politically and economically.

In 1846 Karl Marx was exiled from Paris on account of his radical politics. He moved to Belgium where he attempted to assemble a ragtag group of exiled German artisans into an unified political organization, the German Working Men's Association. Marx, aware of the presence of similar organizations in England, called these groups together for a meeting in the winter of 1847. Under Marx's influence this assemblage of working-class parties took the name "The Communist League," discussing their grievances with capitalism and potential methods of response. While most of the delegates to this conference advocated universal brotherhood as a solution to their economic problems, Marx preached the composition of class warfare, explaining to the mesmerized workers that revolution was not only the sole answer to their difficulties but was indeed inevitable. The League, completely taken with Marx, commissioned him to write a statement of their collective principles, a statement which became “The Communist Manifesto.” In the book, the essential theory presented is the creation of only one class, so that there would no longer be a class struggle. It discusses how Engels and Marx argued for equality and redistribution of wealth. More than anything else, the two philosophers had a grievance with workers not having control over t...

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...his class in being assimilated into the proletariat as society becomes more urbanized and reliant on industrial production. Petty-bourgeois socialism arises from this class, but holds up the standard of the proletariat, with whom the bourgeoisie are a shared enemy. I feel that the most influential quote in the book is "In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all". This is a claim that once the proletariat achieve political power, the eventual result will be a classless society. Abolishing bourgeois modes of production undermines the continued existence of class hostility, and without class hostility, the proletariat will lose their own class character.

The communist contribution to this ongoing revolutionary discussion will be the raising of the property question, for any revolutionary movement which does not address this question cannot successfully rescue people from oppression. Eventually the inventible will occur due to the proletariat lack of outcry and social protests. A revolution will be the undeniable consequence.

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