Neoliberals Arguments Against Bourgeois Politics

Marx’s wants factories and shops to exists, but not to be owned by the bourgeoisie. Marx’s explains that the average price of wage-labour only “produces the bare existence.” The proletariats, the working class, heavily rely on capitalism and exploitation in order to survive. Private property revolves around the antagonist the reduction of wages is implemented, and the products created by the proletariats turn into capital. Marx states, “does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour.” This implies that if wage labor continues to exists the bourgeois with only receive the benefits while the proletariat cannot attain any property. The more the proletariats worked for the bourgeoisie under wage labor the more their individuality diminishes. Marx wants to target the ruling class and abolish their rights and privileges to make equality for

"We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange." (Marx, 424). In this sense, the bourgeoisie have the ability to change since they themselves are products of revolutions. In other terms, the bourgeoisie are an always changing class that has found ways to stay in power through political hegemony over the proletariat class. Marx conjures the proper preconditions for a successful rebellion but again contradicts himself through his own ideologies. Although Marx believes that capitalism will be responsible for the proletariat rebellion it is the same system that will estrange man from each other and thus prevent a successful revolt.

In Chapter 2, "Proletariats and Communists," Marx elaborates the social changes communists hope to effect on behalf of the proletariat. Marx notes firstly that the interests of communists do not differ from the interests of the proletariat as a class; they seek only to develop class-consciousness in the proletariat, a necessary condition of eventual proletariat emancipation. The primary objective of communists and the revolutionary proletariat is the abolishment of private property, for it is this that keeps them enslaved. Bourgeois economics, capitalism (a system based on owning your own property that you buy and make profits off of whatever you sale) requires that the owners of the means of production compensate workers only enough to ensure their mere physical subsistence and reproduction. In other words, the existence of bourgeois property, or capital as Marx calls it, relies on its radically unequal distribution. The only way the proletariat can free itself

They envisioned workers developing class-consciousness, or awareness of a shared place in society – a camaraderie - and the need for a change. The awakening of class-consciousness would ideally be followed shortly by a revolutionary class struggle. In this conflict, the proletariat would rise up against the bourgeoisie and establish a communist society. In a communist society, all private ownership would be abolished, and the means of production (factories, farms, ect) would belong to the entire community. The needs of a society would be put above and beyond the specific needs of an

Therefore political reform is pointless, and universal suffrage is a façade, covering up the reality of unequal class. A class-conscious working class must overthrow the ‘bourgeois state’ through revolution. After this there will be a state for a short time, under the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ until the danger of counter-revolution by the dispossessed bourgeoisie has passed, at which time the state will wither away. The use of revolution tends to lead to fundamentalist ends.

For example, it shapes the nature of religion, law, education, the state and so on. According to Marx, capitalism sows the seeds of its own destruction. For example, by polarising the classes, bringing the proletariat together in ever-increasing numbers, and driving down their wages, capitalism creates the conditions under which the working class can develop a consciousness (or awareness) of its own economic and political interests in opposition to those of its exploiters. As a result, the proletariat moves from merely being a class-in-itself (whose members share the same economic position) to becoming a class-foritself, whose members are class conscious – aware of the need to overthrow capitalism. The means of production would then be put in the hands of the state and run in the interests of everyone, not just of the bourgeoisie. A new type of society – socialism developing into communism – would be created, which would be without exploitation, without classes and without class conflict. Marx’s work has been subjected to a number of criticisms. First, Marx’s predictions have not come true. Far from society becoming polarised and the working class becoming poorer, almost everyone in western societies enjoys a far higher standard of living than ever before. The collapse of so-called ‘communist’ regimes like the former Soviet Union, and growing private ownership and capitalist growth in China, cast some doubt on the viability of the practical implementation

Capitalism refers to an economic system whereby ownership of as well as investment in the means of production is made by private corporations or individuals to whom wealth accrues since they own the means of production. Society morphed from the feudal system to a bourgeois one that did not eliminate class antagonisms (Marx and Engels para 8). Instead, “it has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones” (Marx and Engels para 9). At best, the capitalist society that emerged in place of the feudal system merely served to abridge class antagonism by erasing multiple hierarchical classes and replacing them with two classes, the proletariats and the bourgeoisie (Marx and Engels para 10). The bourgeoisie refers to the wealthy class who own the means of production and can, therefore, accumulate incremental wealth by subjecting the proletariat into endless labor. On their part, the proletariat does not own the means of production and are forced to sell their labor cheaply to earn a living, ultimately sustaining the capitalist machinery.

I’m sure you all are familiar with the concept of communism, and perhaps how it is the staple of Russia and the society that was the Soviet Union (which failed). However, the Communist Manifesto was composed by two German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published in London in the year of 1848. It essentially says that our lives should be governed by us, and that all property shall be publicly owned. All citizens of the nation must work and are paid according to their abilities and needs. It sounds enticing, sounds like it’ll work. That was the basis of their philosophy. But, a society in which there is an absolute power, in this case the working class, is the fault. It simply won’t work. It breeds absolute corruption. We’ve all probably heard that

‘Neo liberalism is responsible for most of the global economic problems we are experiencing today’

promoted a half way approach to liberal ideas while they incorporated parts of a social

In the chapter, “Manifesto of the Communist Party” in The Marx-Engels Reader book, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels had broken up the topic of the Communist Party up to four parts: 1. “Bourgeois and Proletarians”, 2. “Proletarians and Communists”, 3. “Socialist and Communist Literature”, and 4. “Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties.” In this essay, I’ll be focusing on the first two parts of the “Manifesto” since there are so much information to cover within three to four pages. To begin I would like to summarize, “Bourgeois and Proletarians” was about the vicious cycle of the proletariats having to constantly fight the socioeconomic classes above them considering that they are always exploited, yet they have no norms (“appropriation”) of their own to secure or embrace. “Proletarians and Communists” was where Marx and Engels define what Communism is, how it relates to the Proletarians, and how Communism works (or would work). History can be trace back to the class/political struggles; the oppressed fighting against their oppressors; the “subordinate gradations”. Subordinate gradation was defined as a social rank, where the highest power is at the top and the weakest is at the bottom. However, when old subordinate gradation falls another one would rise, that was the cycle. Marx and Engels went on to make a statement that the current class antagonisms are between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The proletariat is defined as the

Trying to overthrow the capitalist society is the only way Marxism and the working class can regain the ownership of production. In the Communist Manifesto (1847), Marx states:

Rather than eradicate capitalism, socialism exists within it. Moreover, democratic socialism is characterised through the balance and compromise between free market capitalism and the Governmental state (Bernstein 1993: 142, Heywood 2012:128, Anderson 1985: 10). Marx considered socialism as a class movement, which is what subsequently played out in the political realm, once universal suffrage had been achieved. For previously powerless people it was the only peaceful way to be heard: “Electoral politics constitutes the mechanism through which anyone can as a citizen express claims to goods and services.” (Przeworski 1985:11).

     If the workers will not work there is no capital to invest in anything. Once the workers are fed up with their situations and realize there is a need to get together for a revolution and change of labor, the bourgeoisie will have lost everything it owns; and that will lead to the end of a class based society. “In Communist society, accumulated labor is but means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the laborer” (68). The accumulated labor in Communism is not just to benefit one and only one person; but it is to benefit the workers as well as the employer. Everyone will be rewarded according to how hard they work and people will have the equal chance of moving up the social ladder. “In the place of the old bourgeoisie society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all” (76). Workers will have independence and freedom of labor; and each person is seen as an individual that is part of a bigger and greater society.

(B. Kamiński 225). However, the package was met with a flurry of criticism from prominent economists and journalists. Echoing the key principles of neoliberalism, the economist Tomasz Jeziorański argued that the principal weakness of the package consisted in granting the full responsibility for economic performance to the central administration. The free enterprise characterized by responsibility and autonomy, he insisted, was incompatible with economic coercion by the state (B. Kamiński 226). As a consequence of protests of similar nature, the government eventually withdrew the package in question from further consideration.