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... personal but a social power. Making property public then, as the communist wants to do, is not changing the private to the social; it is only modifying its already inherent social character. Returning to the condition of the wage laborer, Marx argues that 'the average price of wage labor is the minimum wage, i. e.
the quantum of the means of subsistence which is the absolutely requisite to keep the laborer in bare existence as a laborer' (97). The proletariat, then, is absolutely dependent on the capitalist for his very survival. He does not acquire any property because his wage must be given immediately to his own subsistence. Communists want to ensure that the laborer exists for more than merely the increase of bourgeois capital. Labor should not be directed towards the accumulation of wealth on the part of the capitalist. Rather, capital, or property in general, should be directed toward the enrichment of the laborer's life.
Abolition of private property means, then, only the abolition of bourgeoisie property. The freedom which the bourgeois believe is underwritten by private property is a very narrow freedom, one available only to a very small subset of the population. Moreover, this form of property depends on its radically unequal distribution. The ultimate point, as Marx says, is that 'communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that is does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriation'. Marx also considers the criticism that a communist society would promote general idleness. This strikes Marx as laughable considering that in bourgeois society those who work do not acquire anything while those who acquire things do not work.
In the end, the force of this charge, as with the force of all these other charges, presupposes the bourgeois system of property. As Marx says, 'Don't wrangle with us so long as you apply, to our intended abolition of bourgeois property, the standard of your bourgeois notions of freedom, culture, law, etc. Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property... '. He accuses the bourgeoisie of elevating to the status of immutable truths values which are only local and contingent. It is selfish conceit that blinds the bourgeoisie to the reality of the historical progress which Marx here seeks to elucidate. Communists are also accused of desiring to destroy the family.
To this Marx pleads guilty, reiterating his oft mentioned contention that the object of destruction is specifically the bourgeois exemplar. To the capitalist, a spouse and children are mere instruments of production, like the machines in his factory. Furthermore, the education he wishes for them simply perpetuates their subordination. A communist society would alter these relations, utilizing the educational system to end the exploitation that women, children, and the vast working classes suffer under capitalism. This is a self-conscious destruction of society, but only as a cleansing of the old in preparation for the new. As for the suggestion that communists wish to abolish countries, Marx responds that this process is already occurring due to bourgeois efforts to expand free trade.
Such globalization will continue as class consciousness develops across the proletariat of all nations. Marx even goes so far as to predict that antagonism between nations will vanish as class antagonisms fade away. Class defines one far more than nationality. Marx and Mill were faced with the same modern phenomenal, the danger of been alienated from the defining quality of humanity in the face of a new economic and a new political system.
Marx might not have made the best analysis, but he did have a deep understanding of history and the problems in history. He stood at the level of the common people and tried to solve their problems caused by their material desperation. Mill did not stoop to the common people, he looked up into the sky of truth and tried to preserve the march toward truth first embarked on by Plato. Social history is nothing other than a record of past struggles between distinct social classes. In the modern, industrial world, the most significant classes are the bourgeoisie, people who own land, resources, factories, and other means of production, and the proletariat, people who work for wages. In its efforts to succeed, the bourgeoisie must constantly revise and renew the means of production, ensuring a constant infusion of capital by building larger cities, promoting new products, and securing cheaper commodities.
As capital increases and the means of production expand, however, the labor of the proletariat becomes ever less valuable. Alienated from themselves and each other, workers have little political influence. Even small shopkeepers and skilled laborers are encouraged to join with the bourgeoisie in its drive for capital, instead of expressing their natural alliance with wage workers. Nevertheless, Marx and Engels noted, the proletariat constitutes a majority of the population, and the prospect of its organization for effective political action is what raised the 'spectre' of Communism in industrial Europe. In Part II of the Communist Manifesto declares the intention of communism to overthrow the bourgeoisie and to situate all political power in the proletariat instead. This would have lots of practical consequences: Although the surplus value of capital would be undermined, individual property interest in one's own labor would be restored, so that alienation can be avoided.
Child labor would be ended, and universal provision for education would guarantee that future generations have greater control of their own destiny. Women would be empowered in their own right as workers, instead of being subject to domination by male bourgeois. Progressive taxation would provide for a re-distribution of capital, and the struggle between classes would be ended. The list of practical aims at the end of Part II is impressive, and many of its features have been implemented throughout the world during the past century-and-a-half. The Manifesto continues with an effort to position the Communist Party favorably in relation to other social and political movements of the nineteenth century. Its conclusion is a stirring call for political action by the great, sleeping giant of the proletariat.
The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties is only: In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of entire proletariat, independently of nationality...
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