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Comparing Frederick Engels And Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto

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In the late 1800s, Frederick Engels and Karl Marx authored The Communist Manifesto to voice the beliefs of working men’s associations, workers who no longer could stand oppression by a ruling class. Marx’s fundamental proposition of The Communist Manifesto, as summarized by Engels was, “that in every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organization necessarily following from it, form the basis on which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch...” (Marx, 53). Through this claim, Engels proposes that the way people produce and exchange products and services in the economy affects the arrangement of people in society and both in turn influence …show more content…

Their claim continues to say that political and intellectual thought is derived from these two factors. I agree with them on their claim, but I think this three-step argument is oversimplified. I argue that Marx and Engels are missing the key aspect of human behavior. It may be that he is viewing history from an economic viewpoint, but I believe that when we are studying history, we are studying human behavior, and a psychological viewpoint must be included. When Marx and Engels claim that the economic arrangement of society affects social organization, I wonder where the mode of economic production and exchange originated. I believe that the mode of production and exchange originates from human behavior and that people will favor the economic system that benefits themselves most, and the mode of economy will then favor those who have more influence and power, especially in the form of money. This then allows for a greater distinction between classes and will then write the political and intellectual history of that point in time, as Marx and Engels

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