I am as astounded as you are, faithful reader, to find my name below the article title when my place has always been behind the printing press. Yet a certain publication in our own nation has moved me to openly opine on the presented theses via the rostrum most readily available: this, your weekly news publication. You may indulge me or not, but I am resolved to provide an extensive review lest my countrymen be under the misconception that The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx will amount to any sort of revolution–Proletarian or otherwise.
As I am sure you are aware, this news publication has been a vehicle to countless articles from the prolific socialist mind of Karl Marx; he provides the workingman a voice of lustrous intellect and strength …show more content…
His main thesis can be interpreted as follows: although capitalism has exponentially expanded numerous aspects of society–from communication, to technology, to travel–and is both self-sustaining and contagious, its polarization of society into two classes (bourgeoisie and proletariat) and inability to maintain the oppressed class will lead to its inevitable destruction. In the way of secondary theses, he argues that under capitalism, “laborers … are a commodity, like every other article of commerce” (15); furthering this point, he states that “[capitalism] has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage-laborers” (11) and has thus dehumanized society. With this, Marx smartly hits the mark. We have seen all too often the lawyer who is not ruled by Justice, the priest who is not ruled by Faith, the poet who is not ruled by Beauty, and the scientist who is not ruled by Science–but all quite smitten with Money. Now, these men are not to blame, for in a world where money matters so much and these men have so little, striving to garner capital is merely a means of surviving. Marx eloquently expresses the gravity of capitalism’s effect on our society today, summing it up by stating, “[capitalism] has concentrated property in a few hands” (13) and forces men of Justice, Faith, and so …show more content…
Marx states that because “capital is … not a personal, [but] a social power” (24), it is necessary to abolish not property relations, but simply “bourgeois … [and therefore,] … private property” (23) in order to have an association where “all instruments of production [lie] in the hands of the state” (30) so that “accumulated labor … [enriches and promotes] the existence of the laborer” (24)–not capital. Therein lies the Communist goal: the “formation of the proletariat into a class, [the] overthrow of bourgeois supremacy, [and] conquest of political power by the proletariat (22). He takes a few literary beats to analyze why the proletarian class alone can be the harbinger of a revolution: as per the polarizing and consuming nature of capitalism, the petty bourgeois will only become proletariat eventually, meanwhile the lumpenproletariat are too uneducated, and indeed too torpid to bring about an incendiary movement like a revolution. Many of Marx’s statements as to why a revolution is necessary resound with us, the working class, but none as much as the following: “... in [our] existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths” (25). So brilliantly capturing the sentiments of the
As I am sure you are aware, this news publication has been a vehicle to countless articles from the prolific socialist mind of Karl Marx; he provides the workingman a voice of lustrous intellect and strength …show more content…
His main thesis can be interpreted as follows: although capitalism has exponentially expanded numerous aspects of society–from communication, to technology, to travel–and is both self-sustaining and contagious, its polarization of society into two classes (bourgeoisie and proletariat) and inability to maintain the oppressed class will lead to its inevitable destruction. In the way of secondary theses, he argues that under capitalism, “laborers … are a commodity, like every other article of commerce” (15); furthering this point, he states that “[capitalism] has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage-laborers” (11) and has thus dehumanized society. With this, Marx smartly hits the mark. We have seen all too often the lawyer who is not ruled by Justice, the priest who is not ruled by Faith, the poet who is not ruled by Beauty, and the scientist who is not ruled by Science–but all quite smitten with Money. Now, these men are not to blame, for in a world where money matters so much and these men have so little, striving to garner capital is merely a means of surviving. Marx eloquently expresses the gravity of capitalism’s effect on our society today, summing it up by stating, “[capitalism] has concentrated property in a few hands” (13) and forces men of Justice, Faith, and so …show more content…
Marx states that because “capital is … not a personal, [but] a social power” (24), it is necessary to abolish not property relations, but simply “bourgeois … [and therefore,] … private property” (23) in order to have an association where “all instruments of production [lie] in the hands of the state” (30) so that “accumulated labor … [enriches and promotes] the existence of the laborer” (24)–not capital. Therein lies the Communist goal: the “formation of the proletariat into a class, [the] overthrow of bourgeois supremacy, [and] conquest of political power by the proletariat (22). He takes a few literary beats to analyze why the proletarian class alone can be the harbinger of a revolution: as per the polarizing and consuming nature of capitalism, the petty bourgeois will only become proletariat eventually, meanwhile the lumpenproletariat are too uneducated, and indeed too torpid to bring about an incendiary movement like a revolution. Many of Marx’s statements as to why a revolution is necessary resound with us, the working class, but none as much as the following: “... in [our] existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths” (25). So brilliantly capturing the sentiments of the