The Communist Manifesto was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848.
The short book followed marxist politcal theories, and explores why they feel we should live in a communist society, listing certain demands and explaining how we would gradually progress to communism. The aim was to 'free' the people from captialism, and move into what they thought was a better structure for society.
It was a sociopolitical movement, and aims for a classless and stateless society structured upon common ownership by means of production.
'Marxists' wanted to see the end of wage labour and see property provided in the means of production and real estate.
In the introduction he explains that he feels 'old europe' is trying to prevent communism, giving examples such as Pope and Tsar, French Radicals and German police spies.
He believed that two things have been the results of this-
1 - Communism is already ackowledged by all European powers to be itself a power.
2 - It is high time that communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish thier views, thiers arms, thier tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the spectre ot communism with a manifesto of the party itself.
They state that communists of many nationalities have constructed the manifesto in London.
They then look at the history of the class struggles. Marx see's only two possible endings to these struggles.
1 - A revolutionary reconstitution of society at large.
2 - In the common ruin of the contending classes.
The main focus is of the 'Bourgeois'(those in charge) and the 'Proletarians'(labourer)
Marx saw the discovery of America as allowing the Bourgeois to grow, describing it as 'a rapid development'. This was because everything came from the economy, and the large scale of America gave the Bourgeois more opportunities.
Marx also talks alot about industrial production. He says the manufactuing system soon took it's place. He sees the class struggle as being between those that 'own the means of production' and the people that 'labour for a wage'.
Marx believes proletarians will eventually rise to power through class struggle. Every class struggle is a politcal struggle in his view.
Although, int he manifesto, they express they're idea that the proletarians will soon fight back.
They say that the Bourgeoisie are giving working class the weapons that will eventually lead to thier downfall.
'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need/needs'.
I feel this shows his idea that every person should contribute to society to the best of his or her ability, and consume from society in proportion to his/her needs.
However, whether it should mean that everybody recieves equal pay no matter what their job is, is debatable. It is hard to see this as a fair rule in society, because of the higher demands that some jobs have compared with others.
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