Wednesday 28 April 2010

The Communist Manifesto

Communist Manifesto – Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels (1848)

Introduction
The introduction is rather brief but is seems to summarise Communism as a power. Marx says that Communism is becoming accepted as a power across Europe, and that Communists should openly publish their aims, views and tendencies with a manifesto of the “spectre of Communism” of the party itself.
He questions the whereabouts of the opponents to Communism, and believes that the lack of or no presence of opposition is the reason for Communism’s high rise.

Bourgeois and Proletarians
Marx states that the modern bourgeois society that comes from the feudal idea of society has not accepted the idea of social rank like in Ancient Rome and the Middle Ages. This new society has achieved new classes, conditions of oppression and new forms of struggle.
He says the Bourgeoisie has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and instead of having the small indefeasible freedoms, has created one “unconscionable freedom” – Free Trade.
He says the bourgeoisie has stripped the former occupations that people admired into works of paid labourers, people such as poets, lawyers and physicians.
Their manifesto goes on further to state that the bourgeoisie brings nations together and that individual creations of different nations become common, and that narrow-mindedness amongst nations becomes more and more impossible as the demise of national and local literatures result in the creation of a world literature.
Marx says that the modern society, by means of communication and improvement of production turns all nations into civilisation, even the most barbaric. It aims at creating a world after its own image.

The proletariats begin their struggle with the bourgeois at birth. The bourgeois use the proletariats for their cheap labour, simply to create a profit for the society itself. However, Marx says that the working class (Proletariat) will revolt and rise to power through the means of riots and trade unions.
Marx says the bourgeoisie is in a never-ending battle with the aristocracy, with portions of the bourgeoisie itself who turn against the industrial progress and of course with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries. Within these battles, it asks the proletariat for help by entering the political arena. Therefore the bourgeoisie educates the proletariat with political education, which in turn gives the proletariat the power to fight the bourgeoisie.
He goes on to say that the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois class are the formation of capitalism, and the condition for capitalism is wage labour. The manifesto states that wage labour relies on competition between workers, and the advance of the industry (whose promoter is the bourgeoisie) replaces the workers’ isolation due to competition.
The development of this industry effectively overturns the bourgeoisie products, and what the society produces is its own demise, along with the rise of the proletariats.

Proletarians and Communists
The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only:
• In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.
• In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.
Marx and Engels say that the Communists are the most understanding and resolute section of the working class of every country, the section that pushes all the other forward.
They claim that the aim of the Communists is the same as all other proletarian parties: to form the proletariat into a class, to overthrow the bourgeoisie, and to conquest the political power by the proletariat.
“Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations” – This effectively means that all communism does is moreorless stop anyone from questioning the work of others.

This section defends communism from various objections, such as the claims that people will not perform labour in a communist society because they have no incentive to work.
This section on Proletarians and Communists finishes with a 10-point plan, which Marx and Engels have admitted to wanting to modernise in future times:
1) Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2) A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3) Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4) Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5) Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6) Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7) Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8) Liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9) Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.
10) Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.

Socialist and Communist Literature

The third section, "Socialist and Communist Literature," distinguishes communism from other socialist doctrines prevalent at the time the Manifesto was written. While the degree of reproach of Marx and Engels toward rival perspectives varies, all are eventually dismissed for advocating reformism and failing to recognize the preeminent role of the working class. Partly because of Marx's critique, most of the specific ideologies described in this section became politically negligible by the end of the nineteenth century.

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