Guided Reading 18 (19) Marx & Engels

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2010

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Dec 6, 2023

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Danielle Lowen PHI 2010 Fall 2023 Guided Reading 18 (19) Marx & Engels Guided Reading 18 (19) Marx & Engels Excerpts from Communist Manifesto 1. Define Bourgeois and proletarians.  Bourgeois are the middle and upper classes who own the means of production and exploit the proletariat or working class. The proletariat are those who do not own the means of production and are forced to sell their labor to the bourgeoisie. 2. According to the text, why is the feudal system of industry no longer adequate?  According to the text, the feudal system of industry is no longer adequate because it can’t meet the growing needs of the new markets. 3. Describe the main characteristics of the Modern Industry. Do not simply copy and paste.  The main characteristics of the Modern Industry include the use of new technology, increased production through factories, and efficient transportation systems. 4. According to the text, what need forces the bourgeoisie to chase around the globe?  According to the text, the need of a constantly expanding market for its products. 5. What does the text say of the middle class? How does it relate to our contemporary times?  The middle class consists of people with stable incomes that allow them to live fairly well but who may also accrue high levels of debt. The middle class is diverse in terms of income, wealth, occupation, education, and lifestyle. 6. Why do the unions get formed?  The bourgeoisie express strong class solidarity, so the proletariat must come together to protect their own political interests. 7. Why is the bourgeoisie “unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society”?  The current capitalist system does not allow for upward class mobility but rather forces the modern worker deeper into the conditions of their own class. The bourgeoisie should not be allowed to profit off the unfairly paid worker and cannot continue to exist if it does not provide for its working class well enough that they can survive and continue to provide labor.

Danielle Lowen PHI 2010 Fall 2023 Guided Reading 18 (19) Marx & Engels 8. Why does the text argue that the fall of the bourgeoisie and the rise of the proletarians are inevitable?  The working class will inevitably rise up to demand its own survival in an increasingly unjust capitalist system. 9. Does communism seek to abolish property as a whole? What does it seek to abolish?  Communism does not seek to abolish property as a whole, but rather bourgeoisie property. Bourgeoisie private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few. 10. What do you think the text means by capital?  The text defines capital as a collective product that requires the united action of many members, and ultimately all members of society, to be put into motion. 11. What is your reaction to the following: “You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine- tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society”?  I think that many people who believe in capitalism, who I can’t call capitalists because they often do not own capital, believe they too will one day own capital and benefit from the system which currently exploits them. They don’t want to abolish private property either because they have a misunderstanding of what that means, or they want that power one day but will never have it because the nature of capitalism limits upward class movement. 12. What does the text say about the charge of abolishing family? Of education? Of introducing the community of women? Of nationality/countries?  The text argues these are crimes society is guilty of. 13. What are your thoughts on the 10 tenets of a communist state?  I think they are far from radical when put into perspective.

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