Evelyn Gomez
WHO 2001
9/09/12
The Communist Manifiesto

According to the reading, it was the need for change that motivated Marx and Engel to write The Communist Manifesto. Marx lived in a time where there where industrial jobs were at it highest demands, and he noticed that there was a gap between the financial status of the working class and the property owners. Marx was from Germany and at that time political and regional divisions held back Germany. Marx was convinced that the democratic revolutions, which took place in Europe in 1848, had simply replaced one dictator for another. The bourgeoisie, which were the owners of the productions, replaced the old aristocracy, which was the old way of ruling. Marc believed they had democratic ideals that only worked in their favor, disregarding the vast majority of the population, which was the proletariat. Marx did not agree with democracy simply because it favored only the bourgeoisie. Power dominates in this type of government and if the public was given a vote, the bourgeoisie would certainly not let any socialist political figure to take over their government because then they would not be democratic anymore. The book rose as a result of a group of major workers called the “Communist League” in London. Marx and Engels joined the group in 1847 and were immediately appointed to write a manifesto on the groups’ ideologies. The Communist Manifesto should be understood as a result of the burden suffered by the working class of Germany, France, and England during the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries created and subclass that contained workers of all ages and sex, which were mistreated and abused and worked in horrible conditions. Marx believed this was the result of capitalism. Marx defined the bourgeoisie as the social class that owned the ways of production in a capitalist government. In other words, the bourgeoisie were the people with money, property, and most importantly, power. They were not born into wealth; they became wealthy by trading and negotiating. The proletariats were the poor class that worked for the bourgeoisie and provided the revenues for the large companies. Even thought he bourgeoisie’s companies could not function without the proletariats, these were paid very low wages and worked tremendous amount of time to afford on the standard of living of a survivor. Although the proletariats were the motor of the bourgeoisie’s companies, they did not have one tenth of the wealth that the bourgeoisies had. The bourgeoisie sacrificed morality, sentiments and religious beliefs for one thing: money exchange. The only freedom available was the freedom of trade. According to Marx, the proletarians’ population would increase and they would eventually rise above the bourgeoisie and create a revolution just like the bourgeoisie did with the feudal system of society. To define capitalism Marx argued that the motive of capitalism is to obtain the greatest possible outcome while exploiting the working class the maximum to achieve the most revenue. “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. (Section Bourgeois and Proletarians). Marx suggests that there will always be rivalry between social classes due to the different economic and social interests.
In The Communist Manifesto, Marx identifies these two classes as the bourgeoisie and the proletariats. The struggling class in this case is the working class. The basically struggle to survive earning an extremely low salary from the bourgeoisie, which make profit out of their labor without compensating them for it. Throughout history