What, According To Marx In The Communist Manifesto

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1) What, according to Marx in The Communist Manifesto, must one understand in order to understand the course of historical development? What, in other words, is it that moves history along?

The Communist Manifesto opens to the reader by stating, “The history of all hitherto societies has been the history of class struggles”, meaning that there is a perpetual tug-of-war struggle between class status between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat (Marx, 1). Marx states that the bourgeoisie are those who set up the production as “the class of modern capitalists”, whereas the proletariat is the group that works beneath the means of production from the bourgeoisie, “having no means of production of their own” (footnote, 1). The Communist Manifesto states that she struggle between the working class and the bourgeoisie always results in a revolution and eventual “ruin of the contending classes” (1). Marx clearly states that the bourgeoisie initially rise as the most powerful class in society through their “uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions”, yet eventual fall to the proletariat as the bourgeoisie act as their “own grave-diggers” once the proletariat join in union to defeat the bourgeoisie in revolution (3, 7). In terms of the relationship between the Bourgeoisie and the proletarians, Marx focuses on the historical standpoint of the bourgeoisie in order to understand their rise to power and eventual struggle against the proletarians. He states that society before the rise of the bourgeoisie was organized “under the yoke of the feudal absolutism” (7). In other words, aristocrats who owned land and belonged to corporate guilds were superior. Once America expanded to include economic markets, a new class arose- the manufacturing class (2). This class took control of international and domestic trade by producing more goods in a way that was more efficient than the closed guilds (2). The sudden growth of this new class’ economic and political power destroyed the feudal society- the society that once tried to restrict the growth and development of power for the new working and producing class (2-3). Now that there was a new class, a divide came about.
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The new dominance of the bourgeoisie created a social class within the bourgeoisie, and thus the proletariat emerged (4-5). These “wage-laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live” (1). The creation of the proletariat was a necessary affect to bourgeoisie’s approaches of production- a superiority complex and divide for struggle naturally came about between the owners of the production and the working force (6). The bourgeois industries expanded and increased their own capital, leaving the lower class unable to compete; Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time” (6). This dissonance eventually caused corrosion within the structure of the proletariat, and this struggle created the revolutionary element which eventually destroyed the bourgeois oppressors: “What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.” (7) In The Communist Manifesto, Marx elaborates on the positive social changes communism could create for the proletariat. Marx notes that the interests and ideals of the communist theory is in line with the those of the proletariat class, and also aims to create more consciousness within the class (10). The primary objective of communists and revolutionary proletariats are the abolition of private property, because it is private property that enslaves the proletariat (8). Bourgeois economics is a capitalistic based idea, which necessitates that the proprietors of production reimburse the proletariat only enough for them to barely survive (footnote, 1). The Bourgeoisies theory of economics relies on unequal distribution to the masses (“To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social status in production”), and the only way to end this cycle and free the bourgeois is to abolish capitalism (8). Marx validates this point by stating that “an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the development of all” (11). 2. What factors prompt Marx to conclude that bourgeois/capitalist rule will be overthrown? To put it another way, why won’t the capitalist

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