How Did Karl Marx Change During The Industrial Revolution

The Communist Manifesto was originally published in 1848 as a reaction to the changing times of the Industrial Revolution.Written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, both of whom were German theorist, the Manifesto sought to clearly lay out the positions and goals of the Communist League. The short tract was translated into many languages in an effort to unite the many socialist movements of Europe. The work has since become the defining work of Marx and Engels. Drastic changes in innovation and consolidation during the Industrial Revolution led Karl Marx and Frederick Engels to call for a radical reaction by the proletariat. They also made many extreme predictions concerning the living conditions and the social makeup of the three main social
New forms of energy allowed for an increased output of goods and services. This use of “steam and machinery revolutionized industrial production” (10). Over the course of less than a hundred years, mankind had seemed to pull itself out of barbarism into a new age of unprecedented production and innovation. Marx describes the changes through “rapid improvement of all instruments of production” and “immensely facilitated means of communication” as drawing “all nations, even the most barbarian, into civilization” (13). The change, while beneficial in the long run, was too rapid for the social and economic systems of Europe, leading to traumatic
One of the main predictions and one that is central to the growth of their movement is the prediction that the proletariat will grow as well as have lower wages and poorer conditions. They predict that “as the repulsiveness of the work increase, the wage decreases” (16). Along with that, they predict the greater equality among the proletariat, but equality in lower wages and living conditions with more machinery. Marx and Engel envisioned “the various interest and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalized, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinction of labor and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level” (18). But even a simple analysis of today’s economic conditions will prove both Marx and Engel horribly wrong. Living conditions have improved for people all around the world and industry has reached economies far beyond Europe or the Americas. International poverty has been steadily declining and the human race has accomplished and is accomplishing things people could not have even dreamed of less than a hundred years ago. Overall, the capitalist world has improved