Marx claims that throughout history, the worker class has always been oppressed and the dominant classes have always stayed the same but have used different names.  Where there was once the nobility, there is now the bourgeoisie.  The serf is now the common factory laborer.  “The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms.” (The Communist Manifesto, 14) The bourgeoisie is intrinsically paired against the proletariat as their goals differ and with the rise of industrialization the gap between these two classes widened.         

The bourgeoisie was created from what was once the feudal system and is now paired in competition against the proletariat.  Due to industrialization and the modernization of society and the workforce, the feudal system could not keep up with the continuous expansion and so the manufacturing system took its place.  Those who took advantage of this shift in systems and controlled the manufacturing and industries were the bourgeoisie.  The modern state is now focused on the bourgeoisie, continuing to further their industrial and economic needs.  The bourgeoisie has ruined the relationships between people as now people are only interested in working and collaborating in so far as they receive money for their work.  Human dignity itself which had intrinsic value is now belittled to an exchange of labor for production.  The worker has now become a cog in the economic machine of their state due to the bourgeoisie exploiting the proletariat in order to achieve their economic interests.  Respected practices such as lawyers and doctors are not revered as they once were but looked at only through the value of their wage.  The nuclear family, whose love and affection bound one another, is now only focused on wealth and its accumulation. (The Communist Manifesto, 16) The bourgeoisie has displayed, however, great feats through their wealth by exploring new countries and inventing technology which has never been seen in history before.    

The material interest of the bourgeoisie is to invent more efficient methods of industrialization to create better products; however, this changes society as less workers are needed over time to do a certain job.  With constant change, the bourgeoisie disturb the equilibrium within the proletariat class and all of society as the workers need to adjust to these rapid changes in their jobs which crossover into society.  Capitalism causes the bourgeoisie to expand their market and factories, bringing their ideas and change across the globe.  The spread of the bourgeoisie and their ideas also brings about an intellectual exchange which in turns combines cultures and their ideas, creating a more unified culture.  The sense of oneness and identity that each nation and culture held is destroyed by the bourgeoisie and their ideas.  “The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property.” (The Communist Manifesto, 16) The 18th Brumaire shows that perfectly as the ideas of the French Revolution caused the riots of 1848 during which the people of many different nations rose up and attempted to overthrow the monarchies in place.  The bourgeoisie’s interchanging of ideas caused other nations to adopt many of the same principles that many of the French revolutionaries held.  The material interest of the bourgeoisie caused an expansion of the workforce but also of ideas, contributing to shared intellectual thought and a similar European culture.

As the need for materials and a wider audience increases, the bourgeoisie also extend their influence over towns and people.  Through industrialization, the bourgeoisie are able to create new cities and thus aggregate people together and as a result political power is now centralized.  “Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier, and one customs-tariff.” (The Communist Manifesto, 17) Once more, the riots of 1848 show that an attempt to centralize power in many different nations as people rose up from the countryside to overthrow the monarchy kept power away from most of the country.  The ideas of these riots and to join provinces together in democracy stemmed from the spreading of bourgeoisie principles and ideas.  The political views of the bourgeoisie advance their material interests as centralizing power and people allow for factories to be established in those cities instead which means workers can work longer hours since they are closer to home.  Centralizing political power allows the bourgeoisie to control the government as a widespread government is more difficult to control as they have different ideas.  Centralizing people allows for the bourgeoisie ideas to flow more freely and easily through a city and these thoughts enter into government and influence society.  

The bourgeoisie by nature oppresses the worker by their expansion of power, ideas, and influence which starts by dominating workers and eventually society.  As seen through the riots of 1848, the influence of the bourgeoisie of one nation can spread into other nations as ideas are also exchanged through the expansion of the bourgeoisie.  The existence of the bourgeoisie creates conflict as this class seeks to exploit others for the sake of their own gain.