Analysis of the Communist Manifesto

Analysis of The Communist Manifesto

Karl Marx and Freidrich Engles, The Communist Manifesto is an announcement of the aims of a communist organization. It has also functioned as an explanation of the ideas that form the foundation of communist and socialist philosophy.

It begins with the view of history as a class struggle. With Karl Marx's view of history class struggle, there are two classes in constant battle. First it was the master slave relationship, then follows peasant and nobility, on down to the bourgious and the proletarait. It was a struggle between the oppressed and the oppressor, the owner and the owned. One class exploited the other because their relationships were completely opposed. This would create a merchant class and a working class from the struggle between the peasant and the nobility. But Marx and Engles felt that at some point the working class would eliminate all the remaining classes. If there was only one class, there wouldn't be a class struggle. There would no longer be a need for money, religion, nation-states and governments. Marx and Engels actually believed that they had discovered a method that could be applied in a scientific manner to the businesses of the world.

It has been well over 100 years since the publication of the Communist Manifesto and

there are many arguments as to why this method has never taken place and many argue over what made the plan unsuccessful. It may be that some of the assumptions for example, the labor theory of value were mistaken. Or the problem with the Marxian ideas set in the manifesto might be that Marx misunderstood which class would ultimately incorporate all the others. He was under the impression that laborers must ultimately take over the means of production and in doing so terminating the capitalist system. What he could not understand was that the means of production would become less and less expensive all the time due to efficiencies in production such as technology. He couldn't predict the arrival of computers and tools that would greatly reduce the costs of labor.

The Communist Manifesto ideas are worthy of study because there are economic and historical truths within it. The first section introduces the Marxian idea of history as a class struggle. Marx and Engels were the first to put forward the notion that the working class is exploited by the bourgeoisie. With a labor theory of value where the value of goods and