Osborne 1 Vincent Osborne Professor Gabriela Baika HUM2052 - Civilization 2: Renaissance to Modern August 5, 2012 Marx and Engels,

The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the founding fathers of Communism, both published The Communist Manifesto in 1848 -- a scathing critique of The Industrial Revolution to convey the dangers of a capitalist society driven by two overarching classes, the bourgeoisie (the wealthy, privileged and powerful) and the proletariat (the down-trotted, poor and/or working class). Despite their fundamental belief in which the passage of history has demonstrated a single, indisputable axiom: societies have always been driven by the struggles and conflict between *u+pper and lower classes, oppressor and oppressed (Lawall, 1381). It is worth nothing despite many of the precepts from Mark and Engelss Communist Manifesto -- taken at face-value in their purist intentions; they were modeled on good intensions. They nonetheless misjudged one simple indisputable element about human nature that would render the ideals of the manifesto improbably to achieve: the unpredictability and corruptibleness of human nature. If, as they predicted and hoped, that industrialization would eventually bring about the proletarian revolution, no sooner would there be corruptions from within to undermine its ideals. Similarly the way Robert Owens New Harmony became undone in Indiana in the 1820s by internal squabbling (Hunt, 654), and in the same way the French Revolution eventually morphed into a militarized dictatorship despite the revolutions founding ideals.

Osborne 2 Marx and Engels believed the industrial revolution and the rapid swelling of the proletarians class and increased communications between them. And their expanding need to form unions would bring about new political parties, formed and driven from the bottom-up not top-down. More importantly, they also believed that competition between the workers themselves would eventually give rise to a stronger, firmer, mightier proletarian class . Which ultimately leads to powers in compel[ling] legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers (Lawall, 1388). An example they cite as proof positive of this phenomena was the ten-hours bill in England (Lawall, 1388). So, in many ways, they believed the industrialized revolution with its decimation of traditional classes of people (such as artisans, shop keeper, peasant farmers, etc.) into a single assimilated class: the proletarians -- would eventually turn the table upside-down (for lack of a better term). In other words, the down-trotted, less fortunate, now part of a much larger community via unions and advancing communications techniques. Would eventually become policy makers, the new bourgeoisie in many ways, but with a greater sense of class community and commonality and less driven by the need of exploitation -- well, that was the theory anyways. In summary, while Marx and Engels were un-abashedly against the industrial revolution, because they saw it as a movement of merciless exploitation and a disastrous decimation of traditional class societies. They nonetheless quietly embraced it because they believed it would eventually expose the bourgeoisie class as unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery (Lawall, 1390), thus, bringing about the downfall of the bourgeoisie class.

Osborne 3 Works Cited Hunt, Martin, et al. The Making of the West, Peoples and Cultures, A Concise History. Third Edition. 2003. Bedford/St. Martin. New York. Print. Lawall, Sarah, et al. The Norton Anthology of Western Literature, Vol. 2 (8th Ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. Print.