Professor Bob Millar
POS-130-3151
30 April 2014
Workers of the World Unite: A Critical Review of The Communist Manifesto
Throughout Human history, man has struggled for freedom and dignity in a world dominated by oppression, exploitation, and the aggressive use of force. The modern day American experiment with self-rule is the exception in a long, dark, and bloody history dominated by Monarchies and the ruling class. Socialist theories had been around for hundreds of years before Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels finally sat down to put these theories into words. The result of their collaborative work was The Communist Manifesto. The manifesto is Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels attempt to explain the theory of Communism, …show more content…
He dropped out of secondary school against his father’s wishes, and began writing under the pseudonym of Friedrich Oswald. His relationship with his father, a textile factory owner, was strained. His father symbolized many of the ideas that Friedrich would spend his life fighting against. However, Friedrich would work for his father from time to time, drawing experience from, and studying the general economic and political climate of the time. He would go on to study the conditions and environment surrounding the lives of the laborers, especially child labors. This experience would inspire Engels to write The Condition of the Working Class, as well as several other major …show more content…
The authors argue that all major economic advancements and stages of progress in history are driven by class struggle and the exploitation of one class by another. They claim that society is structured around economic production and that these modes of production outpace the structure of society. The authors claim that modern capitalism is now incompatible with this exploitive relationship, and that the oppressed, or proletariat, are destined to rise up against the oppressors, or bourgeoisie. After taking over, the proletariat will abolish private property and establish a classless society where the means of production are in the hands of the people. Marx and Engels claim that this revolution will be worldwide, for “the oppressed class (the proletariat) can no longer emancipate itself from the class which exploits and oppresses it (the bourgeoisie), without at the same time forever freeing the whole of society from exploitation, oppression and class struggles”