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Marx and Engels did a great thing when they wrote the Communist Manifesto. They tried to liberate the proletariat by educating him. This was and still is an enormous task that they took on. I will try to take a closer look at the Communist Manifesto and its main ideas. Here are some of the things that Marx and Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto. They believed these are some of the main issues that should be looked at for the communist revolution to take place. 1.
Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in he hands of the state. 7.
Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. 8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country. 10. Free education for all children in public schools.
Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc (Communist Manifesto Online version). At the time this was written by Marx, these were very important issues to deal with. The capitalist countries such as England and America, where private property was the basis of the entire economy, rejected this notion of throwing out the class structures. Marx looked at England as a model and leader of capitalism and industry and if he were alive today he would consider America to be a super-model.
One of the main reasons for these countries rejecting Marx's view is that they regarded him as a German philosopher who was educated in the field of German metaphysics. This was unappealing to the minds of capitalists (Capital vii). Marx's theory of alienation has to do with the relationship of the worker to the means of production. It outlines four main aspects in which workers are alienated in todays society: the workers are alienated from the products of their labor, alienated from the process of their work, are denied the chance to be creative, and physically alienated from other people. Although Marx developed this theory in 1844, I believe it is more applicable in todays developed society. An honest assessment would be that I do exercise a degree of creativity, but I do not have any authority on aspects of all of my work.
In fact, the only area in which I feel relatively content is the paycheck itself. I do often look for other jobs and contemplate switching career objectives slightly, remaining in the general field of computers, but changing my role. Alienation, to a large extent, is probably the most depressing part even in todays post-industrial society. Alienation is an accepted part of work; people focus mainly on satisfying their immediate material desires. In Maslows hierarchy of needs, we are still trying to fulfill the first three levels while accepting alienation as our payment. Society looks highly upon those few lucky individuals who have jobs that not only takes care of their need for material objects, security, belonging, and esteem, but also help them to develop their highest level of potential.
One could argue that alienation is self-inflicted by each and every one of us. Perhaps the perfect job is out there for everyone. I think most people have thought about quitting their jobs and opening some sort of business so they can be their own books. My parents and older adults that I know speak of it often.
Perhaps we allow our materialism to control our dreams. Caught up in the new morals and values of the post-industrial, consumer-oriented society, we place higher emphasis on fitting in with society than we do on fulfilling our own personal wants and needs. We suffer alienation so that we can possess status materials such as BMWs and Rolex watches; this is just selling our dreams to the highest bidder. It is especially depressing this time of year when almost the entire country is out there at the shopping centers consuming mass quantities of products. Toys, televisions, computers, the list goes on and on. How much longer can our earth and countries sustain with such a tremendous pressure being put upon it?
It just builds and builds. Sooner or later there will be no space left to put things; the world will be filled with old junk. Marx's theoretical work is about understanding of the nature of human beings and how they have constructed their history. Marx is considered a modernist because his views and theories seem to fit the meaning of Modernity, which are human freedom and the right to free choice. To Marx, capitalism hinders human freedom and choice. Five aspects of his political theory which are modern is how he views human nature, effects of capitalism on human nature, class struggles within capitalism, the demise of Capitalism and the need for the transition to communism.
Marx's belief of human nature is that it changes over time and is historical. In understanding human nature, it is important to understand what part labor plays in human nature. To be Human is to labor, (Communist Manifesto Online version), therefore Marx believes that Humans work in the world with other Humans in exchange with nature to get what they desire. Since human nature is dynamic so are humans wants and desires. In order to achieve our wants and desires we must labor with others around us and also with nature. Since labor is the activity of a group, the always-changing world created through the labor of those groups also creates the humans themselves and directly affects them.
Through labor, humanity creates and is responsible for the world that they live in. Marx suggests that capitalism leads to the centralization and concentration of living spaces of where people live, means of production, monopolies and the distribution of more power to the bourgeoisie. This is how cities began to thrive; all of the farmers moved to the city to make money instead of food. The success of capitalism is directly connected to capital and wage labor.
Capitalism's goal is to increase profits called accumulation; profits then reinvested else where to make more capital... like the buying and selling of an object in the capitalist market, but in this case the exchange is money for the ability of labor (Communist Manifesto Online version). Capitalism flourishes by extracting surplus, or profit, from the commodities produced by the proletariat. Without capitals and profits there are obviously no wages and no place to do any type of labor power; and without wage labor, capital cannot increase itself.
Both are dependent on each other for capitalism to flourish. Capitalism is a form of life that does not do justice to human abilities and capacities. Workers are forced to sell their labor power to capitalists then the capitalists have no choice but to exploit labor to gain capital, therefore the laborers are commodities themselves in the capitalist market. As the result of capitalism, labor has been very oppressive. Instead of picturing the world as it is, capitalism pictures the world in a distorted way. A way that leads to the alienation of the true meaning of human nature, the way that places the importance of products of laborers ahead of the laborers themselves.
This is why laborers are objectified. Laborers then do not realize that they are the ones who are in control of product that they produce. Alienated labor then turns the species-existence of man, and also nature as his mental species capacity, into an existence alien to him, into the means of his individual existence. (Communist Manifesto Online version). They fail to realize that the world is of their own making and that they have the ability to construct and reconstruct the world in which that they live in. Marx's theory of privileging of economic matters places an emphasis on class struggles that are related to the forces of production as well as the rela...
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