Communist Manifesto Essay

Reflecting back upon the 19th century, Actor Mark Rydell wrote, “There's evidence of a social decline in direct proportion to technology and the industrialization of the motion picture industry” (Rydell). This statement echoes the words of Karl Marx, who wrote The Communist Manifesto in 1848 in response to industrialization and the subsequent decrease in living standards for the working classes of England, Germany, and France. According to Marx, although the bourgeois class was not the first oppressive class, in the 19th century, industrialization created the opportunity for its own self-destruction. At the core of its Industrialization, and what differentiated this new oppressive class was the “constant revolutionizing of production” (Marx).
Compared to the fragmentation of Europe in the Middle Ages, which remained the prevailing economic, political, and social rule for centuries, because of Industrialization and the consequent creation of cities, the proletariat identity was then able to transcend national identity, constructing a far more unstable society. Written just 50 years earlier, Thomas Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population supports Marx’s claims. Malthus writes, Almost everything that has been hitherto done for the poor, has tended, as if with solicitous care, to throw a veil of obscurity over this subject and to hide from them the true cause of their poverty” (Malthus). Marx’s theories about society closely parallel Malthus's, as they both believe hitherto, obscurity and fragmentation had kept the working class’s ideals conservative. However, in 1848, newfound clarity drove European working classes’ to realize their exploitation and become thirsty for change. Marx’s work served to unite proletariats as a revolution erupted in France, forcing King Louie to abdicate just three days after The Communist Manifesto was