The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx

Since the inception of communism in the early 1840’s, the idea has created turmoil and instilled fear in both the western world and eastern world alike. This philosophy, created by Karl Marx in his novel The Communist Manifesto has started wars, created a massive decline in productivity and destroyed the liberty of many deserving citizens. Leaders of communism, including Hugo Chavez and Joseph Stalin, have perfected the art of exploitation of the mind through mob mentality, or the human tendency to take on certain emotional, violent behaviors in large groups. Arthur Miller in the play The Crucible and Ray Bradbury in his novel Fahrenheit 451 critique the negative effects of communism, especially the mob mentality its leaders create in

Karl Marx was born in Prussia in 1818. Later in his life he became a newspaper editor and his writings ended up getting him expelled by the Prussian authorities for its radicalism and atheism (Perry 195). He then met Fredrich Engels and together they produced The Communist Manifesto in 1848, for the Communist League. This piece of writing basically laid out Marx’s theory of history in short form (Coffin 623). The Communist Manifesto is mainly revolved around how society was split up into two sides, the Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. I do believe that the ideas of the Communist Manifesto did indeed look educated on paper but due to the lessons of history communism is doomed to fail in the past, present, and future. Communism did not prevail in many different countries, two of them being Berlin and the Soviet Union.

According to the classical Greek philosopher, Plato, “Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.” What Plato means is that the basic traits of an individual must include throughout their lifetime are a craving and want of some sort of object, a feeling or passion for a particular idea, and an understanding of what is to come. Throughout history, the meaning of knowledge has had both a variety of changes and continuity in the way many philosophers would address its idea. In today’s age, understanding can be familiarized in being able to distinguish and recognize a particular thing or situation based off of experience with that particular idea. In the beginning of history, most philosophers believed knowledge

     Marx describes the problem in great detail in the first chapter. He feels there is a problem between the bourgeoisie and the proletarians. The bourgeoisie were the oppressed class before the French Revolution and he argues that they are now the oppressors. The proletarians are the new working class, which works in the large factory and industries. He says that through mass industry they have sacrificed everything from the old way of religion, employment, to a man’s self worth and replaced it with monetary value. He is mad that the people of ole that use to be upper class such as skills man, trades people, & shopkeepers, are now slipping into the proletarians or working class. He

Between the late 1840’s and 1850’s industrial revolution and the growth of markets led to a clear distinction between the working class and the class of owners. People are working harder to live a luxurious life. During this time the Communist Manifesto (1848) by Karl Marx (1818- 1883) and Walden (1854) by Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862) were published. Both Marx and Thoreau were after ending slavery. Marx was after ending slavery among the class struggles, while Thoreau was after ending slavery from your self. Thoreau had a similar vision of utopia as Marx, however his approach to the problem was that revolution is internal rather than violent, pervasive and militaristic. They had radically different solutions and starting points to the similar problem Marx and Thoreau perceive.

In order to discuss the different ways in which economists considered societies could resolve the economic calculation problem and the implications of the economic calculation debate it is important to consider different view points of influential economists from all over the world.

The Communist Manifesto opens with the famous words "The history of all hitherto societies has been the history of class struggles.” In section 1, "Bourgeois and Proletarians," Marx delineates his vision of history, focusing on the development and eventual destruction of the bourgeoisie, the middle class. Before the bourgeoisie rose to prominence, society was organized according to a feudal order run by aristocratic landowners and corporate guilds. With the discovery of America and the subsequent expansion of economic markets, a new class arose, a manufacturing class, which took control of international and domestic trade by producing goods more efficiently than the closed guilds. With their growing economic powers, this

Material welfare is one of the criteria used to identify social status of individual in a society. Generally, material well-being depends on wage. Commonly, rate of wage depends on what kind of job person would occupy. Therefore, as people perform different functions it may cause wage gap and consequently social inequality towards material welfare in the society. Karl Marx and Robert B. Reich’s works cover an issue of financial inequality between poor and rich population in a global context. Both authors differently described current conditions of wealth people in particular and made different predictions concerning their future. From the Marx’s perspective, wealthiest in a society is bourgeoisie, proprietor of the means of production who

The opinion of communism in American culture has been negative for as long as com-munism itself has been around. Throughout history, the United States, has told its citizens that communism is evil, taught children in schools that it is a dangerous idea, and has even gone to war to prevent the spread of it in foreign nations. But is it really that "evil" of an idea? In The Com-munist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the idea of communism is painted in a much different picture than what is depicted in the United States. Although it was a controversial concept at the time, Marx published this work in 1848, and he provided a convincing case for the benefits of communism. He does this by comparing and criticizing the social classes of citizens throughout history and he touches on a few different types of appeals to convince the reader that this type of government should be put into actions. Marx believed very strongly in the ideas he put forth in this manifesto and it shows by how aggressively he conveys the benefits and defends the criticism towards his concept; he is in fact so persuasive in the style of his argument that his theo-ries are still relevant today.

The view on Communism throughout the 20th Century in the United States has been more or less fear leading to tension. In the book The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, readers were introduced to the structure, theories and ideology of the communist party. Though the power of free trade and capitalism was sweeping the west communist parties did form in crippled eastern European countries. As countries began battling to become a world power and worsening living conditions arose the fear and tension between the United States and Communism was at an all-time high.

Between 1900-1902, Lenin led the effort to introduce communism into Russia. He “adapted Marxism to Russian use and devised a persuasive prescription for Russian superiority… Its stress on universal working-class solidarity allowed an escape from the divisive nationalism threatening the multinational Russian empire.” (Von Laue 61), but his approach still focused on the need for an apocalyptic class struggle to overthrow the oppressing regime, leading into a millenarian socialist society. He

A perfect world would consist of equal members all having food and shelter, devoid of bigotry, sexism, and any other form of oppression. Communism is one proposed solution to these problems. Communism intends for the poor to rise from their squalor and reach financial and social status equal to that of the middle-class landowners, but requires that all means of production be controlled by the state. In other words, no one can own his or her own business or produce his or her own goods because the state owns everything. Though proven to be catastrophic for humanity, the ideas appealed to the working class and influenced a revolution against their oppressors. The conditions that led to revolution have many similarities towards the condition

The Communist Manifesto of 1848, written by Karl Marx, expressed the belief that the key to an ideal society was to overthrow capitalism. Few societies chose to have a communistic society, while most the world chose continue with some form of capitalism. Here in Canada, we use the welfare capitalism system. This system gives people the right to have different ideologies, and make their own economic choices. The government is there to run certain services and act as a safety net when the economy goes into a recession. The life I have is greatly dependant on the choices I’m allowed to make. If Canada decided to adopt communism today, many choices I have would be gone. The belief of free education for all could open up countless universities

The debate between how society is formed and how it should be formed has always been a point of contention among people. When a society is formed, there is a constant struggle between the proletariat, the working class population, and the bourgeoisie, the upper class of society with significant capital. One of the better known ideologies is Marxism, which explains how a nation should form itself to develop a communist society. Karl Marx illustrates his ideas of Marxism in The Communist Manifesto. A point of controversy within the Communist Manifesto addresses how nationalism does not help form the communist state but rather rhetorically seeks to deny the sense of nationality. The writings of Benedict Anderson are about how the nation state manifests itself through the spread of nationalism in his book, Imagined Communities. In Anderson’s book, nationalism helps create a community and a sense of unique identity for the population within that community. Marxism shares a common ground with Anderson’s imagined political community, despite denying the existence of nationalism within the emergence of communist communities.

Karl Marx was an idealist. He observed the cruelties and injustices that the poor working class endured during the period of industrial revolution, and was inspired to write of a society in which no oppression existed for any class of people. Marx believed in a revolution that would end socialism and capitalism, and focus on communist principles. The Manifesto of the Communist Party, written by Karl Marx and edited by Frederick Engels, describes the goals of the communist party for ending exploitation of the working class and creating a society in which there is equality in society without social classes.1