Marx's The Manifesto Of The Communist Party

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Marx begins The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) with the representation of communism as a ‘spectre’ suggesting the ideology as scary and unpleasant; a common belief in 19th century Europe (Marx and Engels 1848, pp. 473). Marx begins with this statement to emphasise how wrongfully extreme this view is and throughout the text he addresses the main fears and critiques of communism and shows how in fact communism is the most logical and rational way forward in modern society. One of the key fears of communism was the abolition of existing property relations; that being private property. Marx counteracts this fear stating that throughout history different property relations have been abolished “the French Revolution, for example abolished …show more content…

But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population” (Marx and Engels 1884, pp. 486). Marx believes the communistic push for an abolition of the current state of society should be feared by the bourgeois as it does in fact abolish individuality and freedom, but only “bourgeoisie individuality, bourgeoise independence and bourgeoisie freedom”, again insisting the proletariat has nothing to fear with communism (Marx and Engels 1884, pp. 485). Finally, Marx interrogates the fear that communism abolishes morality and “acts in contradiction to all past historical experiences” (Marx and Engels 1884 pp. 489). Marx argues, that there is a similar understanding of morality throughout history because there was always “the exploitation of one part of society by the other” and communism intends to completely vanish these class antagonisms and exploitations and with that rupture many traditional ideas (Engels and Marx 1884, pp. …show more content…

Capitalism developed from feudalism and is similar as it “new forms of struggle in place of the old ones” (Marx and Engels 1884, pp. 474). As all of previous societies were based on social oppression and because capitalism has led to rapid technological and philosophical development the idea of continual class exploitation, for Marx, is not sustainable and dehumanising and therefore communism is needed to overthrow the consistent historical oppression. Capitalism has created overproduction and “the conditions of bourgeoisie society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them” (Marx and Engels, pp.478). By doing this capitalism has “forged the weapons that bring death to itself and it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons- the modern working class- the proletarians” and thereby capitalism and its simplification of class antagonisms to two classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, paved the way for communism as the next step towards modernity. As Marx describes bourgeoisie society as being necessary for communism to arise and that he appraises bourgeoisie society as it brings “even the most barbarian nations into civilisation” through creating a world market and its progressive and open nature is why some call the text Marx’s ‘hymn to the bourgeoisie’ (Marx and Engels 1884, pp. 477). Marx