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Karl Marx And Engels On Capitalism And Its Impact On The World

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It’s been almost two decades since Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s brilliant collaboration on the topic of capitalism was brought to light in the Communist Manifesto, yet the predictions made in their journals are yet to lose their grip on the world economy till date. From the invention of Internet phones to the practice of monopoly by the world’s richest men and great recession of 2008, Capitalism has continued to tighten its grip on the world economy. To this end, it seems plausible to approbate that Marx and Engels were adept in their predictions about capitalism. First and foremost, let us analyze the effect of capitalism on production. Capitalism has agglomerated population, centralized means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. To motivate this point, let us consider the monopoly practiced by a few American corporations such as Walmart, Microsoft and Facebook. Walmart is a family owned business, yet it controls a huge portion of the American economy. As the Walmart retail chain became the world’s largest retailer, the Walton family became one of the world’s richest families, with a combined net worth of around $150 billion as of January 2016. Bill Gates and his Microsoft corporation is worth approximately $83.2 billion while Mark Zuckerberg, the brain behind the social media Facebook giant is worth $50.2 billion. Capitalism has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked …show more content…

As Robert L. Heilbroner writes, "We turn to Marx, therefore, not because he is infallible, but because he is inescapable." Today, in a world of both unheard-of wealth and abject poverty, where the richest 85 people have more wealth than the poorest 3 billion, the famous cry, "Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains," has yet to lose its potency. (Sean McElwee 2014 “Marx was

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