Men want to be “free and conscious producers.” (“The German Ideology”) By impeding man’s ability to realize his true desires, capitalism incentivizes the proletariat to demand change and make it happen. According to Marx and Engels, it is people’s ability to produce not solely to meet their needs, but as an end in and of itself that makes us truly human, and people will not rest until they reach their human potential.
Marx argued that there are two classes of people that exist in society, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie refer to the upper class that own the means of production and whose central concern is the value of property. On the other hand, the proletariat describes the working class wageworkers in a capitalist society. Marx argued that the bourgeoisie simply exploited the proletariat, and the physical labor produced by the proletariat generated more wealth for the capitalist, leaving laborers under payed and machine-like. During this process, Marx believed that through this system of mass production, laborers were stripped of individual imagination and as a result, left individuals feeling alienated to their own emotions and erotic feelings in order to maximize production and wealth.
Marx argues that due to division of labor and class struggle, “man comes to objectify himself through this mere one-dimension he has created and identifies with” (Marx p.475). The class struggle resulted from division of labor created an inequality where some will own the means of production, and the lower class who provides or sells their labor or “self” to survive working for those owners of means of product. This two groups are simply explained as bourgeoisies and proletariats by Marx. As the industrialization and society modernizes, the inequality will prevail observably. Marx argues that the proletariats will revolt against bourgeoisies and lead to the fall of capitalism and rise of communism.
In Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto, Marx made multiple bold predictions involving the future of Russia and other countries. Marx predicted that there were many 19th european countries that were on the verge of a bourgeois revolution. He insisted that these countries would be better off without capitalism and boldy supported a communist revolution. The reading stated that capitalist states could not support the same standard of living that communism provides. There came a point where it was beginning to look like Marx’s comments had some accuracy to them.
In the beginning of the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution caused a massive economic spike from small-scale production to large factories and mass production. Capitalism became the prevalent mode of the economy, which put all means of production in the hands of the bourgeoisie, or the upper class. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels argue that capitalism centralizes all the wealth and power in the bourgeoisie, despite the proletariat, or the working class, being the overwhelming majority of the population. The manufacturers would exploit the common proletariat and force them to would work in abysmal conditions and receive low wages, furthering the working class poverty. “The Communist Manifesto” predicts that as a result of the mistreatment
What Marx is demonstrating is capital, to be of worth, must exist between relationships. Capital is a source of social power. Workers do not receive capital in exchange for their labour. They do not gain any more power. They receive a minimum wage, which is enough payment to keep the labourer barely alive to return to work the next day to earn more capital for the capitalist.
Marx believed that the Bourgeoisie class exploited the Proletariats and used their labor for capital gain. In fact, at one point, the goods and services
The proletariats are the wage earners or the labour class, in a capitalist society the proletarians don’t have much wealth, and their main asset is their labour power. The bourgeoisie is the class that owns the means of production, their class interest lies in the value of property and the preservation of capital, and this ensures their perpetual economic supremacy in society. According to Marx, in the capitalist mode of production, a worker slowly loses the power to decide upon his or her life and destiny, they lose their Gattungswesen (“species-essence”), and this is a consequence of living in a socially stratified society, where human beings become a mechanistic part of a social class. Even though human beings are self-conscious and autonomous, in a capitalist society they are nothing but an economic entity whose acts are dictated by the bourgeoisie, with the aim
So to kill capitalism would essentially be killing all of the hope left within the laborers for a better tomorrow. The system may stifle the chances of economic mobility, but the death of capitalism would make this a definite reality eliminating all chances for change. However, at this time there were two poor classes: the laborers and the farmers. For the farmers, a switch to communism seemed to be the perfect solution to ending their poverty as this would put them on the same playing field as big businesses and industries. However, as for the laborers communism would only establish their poverty stricken position as permanent.
He argues that with all the pressures of class conflict and the imbalance of capitalism there is no way that this pattern can continue without a major revolution. Marx compares capitalism to anarchy, in the sense that there is no organization within which only causes chaos. The common pattern of capitalism is a boom followed by a bust, and that bust leads to recession and social unrest. This sort of fickle economy, Marx believes, will furthermore contribute to the downfall of capitalism. This socialist revolution would, “abolish private ownership of key elements of economy and change nature of relationships from ones based on marriage and property.”
Marx defined his communist ideal as a classless society. In the Communist Manifesto, the utopian socialists are accused of ignoring class conflict and aiming for the liberation of all instead of supporting the fight of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. They however, pulled through with their belief and with help from supporting members of the upper class to overthrow the general’s plans. Yes, much like in the French revolution, the Proletariat overthrew the Bourgeoisie and kick started a new form of government favoring the people. This movie may entail that capitalism is not useful for a society, but if a leader is better than Mandible capitalism may not be bad after all.
Marx, equally, believes that the outcome of industrial capitalism is alienation of the proletariat, the working class, from their society.
Industrialization also enhanced the capitalism which is focused on the issue of more profit and conflict between capital and workers. While owner of productions take more profit with less labor, workers take less profit even with much more labor force. Karl Marx is one of the thinkers who criticizes this situation of capitalism in terms of workers and capitals in industry, especially he focuses on the situation of
He sees power as a corrupting force and further sees capitalism as the root cause of the corruption. The economic system can never produce a fair power dynamic, as it relies on private property and when the means of production is wielded by the few, members of society can be sorted into two groups, the employer, and the labourer. Marx used the phrases capitalist mode of production to refer to the systems of organizing production and distribution within societies. He highlights wage-labour and private ownership as two means of
Bourgeoisie, which gains the power, defines superstructure “including all social and legal institution, all political and educational systems, all religions and all art” (Bressler, 162), and articulate the ideology which is based on profits of bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie ideology leads to alienation of individuals, especially proletariats. This bourgeoisie ideology creates the clash between the two classes. Marx supported the working class and their victory over dominant class. Marxism believes in providing equal opportunity to the working class as that are available to the
