Class Consciousness In The Communist Manifesto By Karl Marx

In recent times there has been an ever-growing proliferation of economically marginalized groups who by dividing themselves along cultural and racial lines have inadvertently undermined the potential for proper class consciousness to be cultivated. At a time when bourgeois capitalist exploitation of the working-class is as rampant as ever, it seems that the modern proletariat has all but abandoned Marx’s ideas of achieving proper class consciousness in favor of pursuing an ideology or acting politically in a manner more aligned with reinforcing separate cultural or racial interests. But how can we address common working class concerns across the board without taking into consideration other types of social stratification? What exactly does the concept of class consciousness mean in the 21st century and what is it about the culture of capitalism that seeks to prohibit the economically oppressed masses from developing such consciousness? Marx tells us in The Communist Manifesto that “The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority in the

The answer to this, in part, is because the bourgeoisie, although they spend much of their time in competition with one another, are very much aware of their common class interests. In the Communist Manifesto Marx says, “The essential condition for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for the capital is wage labor” (57). In addition, Marx says, “It [the bourgeoisie] has agglomerated population, centralized the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands” (46). While these three conditions are undoubtedly fundamental requirements for primitive accumulation, we know that there are other variables that must be