The Working Class

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Karl Marx once said “Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor is sucks” (Karl Marx Quotes). Marx is well known as the Father of Communism, but now that the cold war is over and Communism is but a theory of government for a few countries, we can study Karl Marx as a visionary of his time, who foresaw how capitalism would grow out of control. With the used of religion, government laws and capitalism the wealthy will always reach out to control the masses.

Karl Marx defined history through economic class struggle. He argued that society was divided between the bourgeoisie (middle class, business owners, and capitalists) and the proletariat (wage workers). His belief was that the bourgeoisie grew wealthier and the wealthier by exploiting the proletariat. He also believed that wage workers were always paid less than the true value of their work, defining the difference between the value of the wage and the value of the goods produced. Over time the frustration over exploitation would result in class wars between the proletariat who believed the surplus value belonged to them and the bourgeoisie who were not willing to give up their profits. In the end revolution was the inevitable result by the endless exploitation of the workers by the capitalists. Karl Marks was talking about his time in age, but we are starting to see some of these ideas come to light in our own era. An example is “Occupy Wall Street” which is a protest against social and economic inequality. This protest highlights the high unemployment, greed, corruption, and the undue influence of corporations that mainly deal with financial services, and their ties with the government. The wor...

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...s time, and his works were used in the building of Communist countries, his visions of needing a balance of Socialism and Capitalism with the removal of religion from government were brilliant. The capitalistic government that we are practicing in the world today has led us to a massive disparity in wealth and power and like Karl Marx I argue for a fairer distribution of wealth and poverty.

Works Cited

Ambani, P. (2012, 01 02). U.S.Congress Worth Over $2 Billion: Wealthy Law Makers Mostly the Top 1%. Retrieved 01 05, 2012, from Ecoprneurist: http://ecopreneurist.com

Karl Marx Quotes. (n.d.). Retrieved 01 05, 2012, from http:/www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/quotes/index.htm

Patterson, T. C. (2009). Karl Marx, Anthropologist. Oxford: Berg Publishers.

Seed, J. (2010). Marx: The Guides for the Perplexed. London: Continuum International Publishing.

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