Private Property To Class Hostility example essay topic

The Communist Manifesto 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 their own production. Many of Marx's ideas can be seen in the U.S. today. A key concept in Marx's critique of capitalism is that labor has been reduced to the status of a commodity, meaning that its value is equivalent to its cost of reproduction. Marx's ideas on labor value are very much alive for many organizations working for social change. In addition, it is apparent that the gap between the rich and poor is widening on a consistent basis. According to Marx, the course of human history takes a very specific form which is class struggle.

The engine of change in history is class opposition. Historical epochs are defined by the relationship between different classes at different points in time. It is this model that Marx fleshes out in his account of feudalism's passing in favor of bourgeois capitalism and his prognostication of bourgeois capitalism's passing in favor of proletarian rule. These changes are not the reliant results of random social, economic, and political events; each follows the other in predictable succession. Marx responds to a lot of criticism from an imagined bourgeois interlocutor. He considers the charge that by wishing to abolish private property, the communist is destroying the 'ground work of all personal freedom, activity, and independence'.

Marx responds by saying that wage labor does not properly create any property for the laborer. It only creates capital, a property which works only to augment the exploitation of the worker. This property, this capital, is based on class antagonism. Having linked private property to class hostility, Marx proceeds to investigate both contenders with respect to their independence. Returning to the condition of the wage laborer, Marx argues that 'the average price of wage labor is the minimum wage, i.e. the quantum of the means of subsistence which is the absolutely requisite to keep the laborer in bare existence as a laborer'. The proletariat, then, is absolutely dependent on the capitalist for his very survival.

He does not acquire any property because his wage must be given immediately to his own subsistence. Communists want to ensure that the laborer exists for more than merely the increase of bourgeois capital. Labor should not be directed towards the accumulation of wealth on the part of the capitalist. Rather, capital, or property in general, should be directed toward the enrichment of the laborer's life.

Marx strongly believes that the common fault of these people is their reluctance to endorse violence as a method of social change. They might believe that slow and steady reforms are the best way to ameliorate proletariat anxiety, or they might believe that quicker, more radical departures from the past are needed. In either case, though, they still want to suppress the revolutionary element of the proletariat. Again, Marx believes that such a stance challenges the inevitable. Only through blood will the world be cleansed. In the Socialist and Communist literature Marx notes that bourgeois dominance increasingly divides society into two classes, bourgeoisie and proletariat.

There still exists a third class, though, which constantly fluctuates between bourgeoisie and proletariat, the petty-bourgeoisie. Increasingly, though, this 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 invertible will occur due to the proletariat lack of outcry and social protests. A revolution will be the undeniable consequence.