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Ideas From The Communist Manifesto By Karl Marx And Friedrich Engels

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Foundations of Sociology (SOC10010) Mid-Term Essay: Question: ‘’Discuss three main ideas from the Communist Manifesto.’’ Answer: In this essay I have been asked to discuss three main ideas from the ‘’Communist Manifesto’’, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. To do this I will summarise three main ideas from the text and critically analyse them. This is an important task from a sociological point of view as being well read in various sociological and political ideologies aids one in forming one’s own opinions. 1. Class struggles are a fundamental part of human history: The idea behind this according to Marx is that history is a series of stages, defined by their mode of production and the struggle between classes: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." According to Marx, the current historical stage is the capitalist historical stage. This is the conflict between the bourgeoisie (middle class) and the proletariat (working class). This theory is supported by the historical stages preceding the capitalist historical stage which can easily be defined by their modes of production and class struggle, or lack thereof. For example, before the existence of civil society, there were no class struggles. Humans worked together for their collective good. Marx refers to this mode of production as ‘’primitive communism’’. The reason there were no class struggles during this mode of production was there were no surplus goods or labour

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