A summary comparison of Communism and Anarchism as proposed by Marx and Engels in their Communist Manifesto (1848) and Kropotkin in selections of his work compiled in Direct Struggle Against Capital, first appears to show the two ideologies to be fundamentally similar and compatible in their analysis of capitalism and the material world. Their political ideologies converge along many axes, including their objection to the oppression of the many by the few, their conception of class struggle, and the ultimate need for revolutionary liberation from such an inherently exploitative system. However, their political ideologies diverge fundamentally in their ideas on how to transition from the capitalist system to a fair and free society. While both
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Marx refers to the dominant elite as the Bourgeoisie and the workers under their domination as the proletariat. The proletariat constitutes the modern working class that can subsist as long as it sells its labor, and as long as that labor increases capital. They are exploited and robbed of the value of their labor by the Bourgeoisie. Under this system, capital is not a personal but a social power owned by the elite class. This is an account of structural domination where class is the most important factor. The emergence of these inequalities is not only economic in nature, but it is also very much a political development. The economic and political power go hand in hand: the rise of the Bourgeoisie to economic dominance, made possible through colonialism, the expansion of trade, new resources, new markets and the innovation of production, is the factor that ultimately allowed the grab for political power. Marx and Engels refer to the executive of the modern state as “a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole Bourgeoisie” (p.486). This system places the state as an instrument of the economic elite and provides for the capitalist class to get richer and richer by subjugating the proletariat’s labor. Kropotkin’s theory ties into many of the main points
Marx refers to the dominant elite as the Bourgeoisie and the workers under their domination as the proletariat. The proletariat constitutes the modern working class that can subsist as long as it sells its labor, and as long as that labor increases capital. They are exploited and robbed of the value of their labor by the Bourgeoisie. Under this system, capital is not a personal but a social power owned by the elite class. This is an account of structural domination where class is the most important factor. The emergence of these inequalities is not only economic in nature, but it is also very much a political development. The economic and political power go hand in hand: the rise of the Bourgeoisie to economic dominance, made possible through colonialism, the expansion of trade, new resources, new markets and the innovation of production, is the factor that ultimately allowed the grab for political power. Marx and Engels refer to the executive of the modern state as “a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole Bourgeoisie” (p.486). This system places the state as an instrument of the economic elite and provides for the capitalist class to get richer and richer by subjugating the proletariat’s labor. Kropotkin’s theory ties into many of the main points