Comparison Of Marx And Engels 'The Communist Manifesto'

In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Friedrich Engels use historical examples dating back to the middle ages to illustrate the idea that the politics of society are controlled by those in power, those with the means of production. It is made clear in the prose that the economists believe this theory to be historically and socially universal as the first chapter of the Manifesto begins, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle”(Marx 246). Whereas Aristotle looked upon mankind and saw the distinction amongst mammals that made man a political animal, Marx and Engels saw only one meaningful divergence, that in society a person was other an oppressor, or one of the oppressed (Aristotle 60)(Marx 246). Perhaps Aristotle would have remarked that the bourgeoisie were a different ruling class than that of Feudal times, and would it not stand to reason that nullified Marx’s theory? If the ruling class governs politics and the ideas of their time, as Marx says, how could they possibly be removed from power? Marx views this division between the oppressor and the oppressed as a kind of ongoing battle, which ends each …show more content…
In fact, one can even consider Aristotle as further proof of Marx’s idea that the oppressed are often left out of the intellectual and political spheres, assumed to blindly follow that which the ruling elite hands down to them. It is unimaginable that when Aristotle attended Plato’s school, he would have been partaking in intellectual discourse with those of lesser status such as; foreigners (that is non-Greeks), slaves, or even women. Marx so thoroughly provides an explanation of the class struggles that it is undeniable that it has not only existed since the middle ages, but that it has also inherently influenced the politics of