Poverty By Abraham Kuyper And The Communist Manifesto By Karl Marx

Karl Marx and Abraham Kuyper grew up apart from each other. Marx was born in Prussia to a Jewish family. After attending school in Germany and joining a group of radicals, he moved to Paris and eventually to London to develop his ideas about communism. Kuyper was born in the Netherlands to Calvinist parents. He became an influential minster, editor of two newspapers, and political leader in his community. Both men looked that their world, recognized the problems in it, and wondered what their role in being part of the solution was. The Problem of Poverty by Abraham Kuyper and The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels both recognize the issues in society, but Kuyper and Marx formulate different solutions to the problems they witness.

The upper class, the bourgeoisie, were exploiting the lower class, the proletarians. Marx and Engel’s main argument is that the perfect society would have no class and everything would be shared. Both men looked at the Industrial Revolution in Europe and watched the owners of businesses keep wages high enough “to keep the labourer in bare existence as a labourer” (Marx, 28). Defeating the social system requires the working class to rise up and revolt against the bourgeoisie. Without the upper class, the workers would own the businesses, and could equally share the profit between themselves. Marx and Engels give a list of the ten basic requirements of a communist society. “Free education for all children,” “centralization of the means of communication and transport,” and “a heavy progressive or graduated income tax” are just a few things needed to create a communist society (Marx,