Bowling- The Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx describes the social classes and how they affected society.  The classes mentioned are the bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie, proletariat, or peasants. Each class had different social and political feelings, and were separated by what they do in their daily lives. Mark’s talked about the differences between classes and about their opposition to one another,  “freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.” (The Communist Manifesto, 14). Each class was had a higher social standard and more power than the class below them. The people of a higher class would abuse this power and make people of lower classes work for them. If you were in a low class you couldn’t make enough money to get to a higher class, instead you just worked your whole life to barely support yourself.

Marx’s was avid in his hatred towards the bourgeoisie. He believed that they had stolen everything they had to achieved power, and that the working class should be the ones to be in charge. Marx’s believed that the men who were workers and made all the products used by the bourgeoisie should be the ones making the decisions, but that they are being abused and not paid enough so they can’t create any change. Marx’s said, “Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries unite!” (The Communist Manifesto, 34). Marx’s was calling for a working class revolution. He wanted the workers of the countries to unit against the factory owners and the people that kept them oppressed for so long. Marx’s wanted them to “unite” together and against the bourgeoisie, the class of people that owned the factories and did no manual labor, but reaped all the benefits of it.

In order to maintain power the bourgeoisie lowered wages of the working class proletariats, and started to run monopolies over industries. This was in an attempt to keep the workers poor, and not allow them to start their own factories to make money. They had complete control over the workers and their wages. The bourgeoisie became so obsessed with power that it would make well respected jobs such as lawyers, doctors, priests, etc. into working class men, just so they could maintain control over them. “The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers. The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.” (The Communist Manifesto, 16). The bourgeoisie was so obsessed with control that they forced everyone to work under them, and limited their wages so that they could not get more power.

Marx’s was also against the bourgeoisie’s political views. He was against their capitalistic views because he believed that it would fail and crumble into socialism. Marx’s was an avid advocate for a Communistic form of power. So much so that he started a Communist Revolution with the goal to overthrow the bourgeoisie. Marx’s believed that “Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society: all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriation.” (The Communist Manifesto, 24). He wanted everyone to be able to work the same and to make a fair wage for what they did.  Marx’s says that Communism would result in “the world will be for the common people, and the sounds of happiness will reach the deepest springs. Ah! Come! People of every land, how can you not be roused” (The Communist Manifesto, 47).

Marx’s ideology of Communism is not a bad idea, but it has never been able to work successfully in our world. Communism does not allow for anyone to work harder to be above everyone, instead everyone is equal. Every job is paid the same no matter the amount of labor or necessity of the job. No one wants to work because they make the same as someone doing an easier job. They have no reason to work hard, because there is no incentive or reward for them. Communism fails because it does not allow hard workers to get ahead of lazy people.

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