Karl Marx defines another condition necessary to the rise of communism as the intensification of social polarity, and the class antagonisms that follow. The presence of these two conditions is essential to the rise of communism over the ashes of capitalism. Thus, he explains that our age of capitalism “has simplified class antagonisms” and “society as a whole is more and more splitting up… …into two great classes facing each other: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat” (Marx 15). With the evolution of capitalism, the bourgeoisie “has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science into its paid wage laborers” and has caused increasing polarity and disparity between the two classes (Marx 16). Marx then explains
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This process has occurred due to the gradual evolution away from the presence of the prerequisite conditions for a communist revolution and due to the introduction of new factors, such as globalization, nationalism, new technologies, the trend towards reform, modernized ideals, and new world dynamics. As shown, these prerequisite conditions, including the full maturity of capitalism and the relations of society, the separation and polarization of both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and the development of the class antagonisms between them, have gradually disappeared or have begun to decline in the majority of the world. This aforementioned decline, alongside the formation of these new factors, have challenged the possibility of a communist revolution in the present day, and therefore the relevance of Marx’s ideology. However, the historical view of Marxism, “the history of class struggles,” still holds relevance as historical model and a lens in which we can view our modern world (Marx, 14). And while the Marxist theory of history still hold relevance, the practical application of Karl Marx’s ideology, communist/proletariat revolution, is becoming less and less relevant as humanity and society progresses further along our present direction of
This process has occurred due to the gradual evolution away from the presence of the prerequisite conditions for a communist revolution and due to the introduction of new factors, such as globalization, nationalism, new technologies, the trend towards reform, modernized ideals, and new world dynamics. As shown, these prerequisite conditions, including the full maturity of capitalism and the relations of society, the separation and polarization of both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and the development of the class antagonisms between them, have gradually disappeared or have begun to decline in the majority of the world. This aforementioned decline, alongside the formation of these new factors, have challenged the possibility of a communist revolution in the present day, and therefore the relevance of Marx’s ideology. However, the historical view of Marxism, “the history of class struggles,” still holds relevance as historical model and a lens in which we can view our modern world (Marx, 14). And while the Marxist theory of history still hold relevance, the practical application of Karl Marx’s ideology, communist/proletariat revolution, is becoming less and less relevant as humanity and society progresses further along our present direction of