Marx's Theory on Class Struggles and Economic Structures, Study notes of Political Economy

Download Marx's Theory on Class Struggles and Economic Structures and more Study notes Political Economy in PDF only on Docsity! arx and Engels | Communist lenis ED. BY SAMUEL H. BEER KARL MARX and FRIEDRICH ENGELS The ommunist Manifesto with selections from The Eighteenth Bmmnire of Louis Bonaparte and Capital by KAm. MARX EDITED BY Samuel H. Beer BAI\VAl\D UNIVERSITY APPLETON-CENTURY-CROFfS, Inc. New York e INTflODUCTION ron one hold, as \larx docs, on the one hand that men are conscaous, purposive, and indted inventive, and em the other hand, that their social lift>, like the proct•sscs of blind, physical nature, develops independently of their thoue;ht and ''ill? Thanks not n little to the influence of Marx, tltis paradox is tod~t)' u commonplace of social science, which is very much conct·rned "ith studying what may be calk I objec­ tive devdopmt•nt in socidy. Economists interest them­ selves, for instance, in working out the unintended conse­ quences of the behavior of a number of p<'oplt· buying and scllinl( in a free market. In such a situation , lach in­ dividual as continually making decisions such a~ '' Ia ether he shall or shall not o£ler his goods and what prices he shall a)k for tl1cm. Yet the final outcome of the "hi~~ling" of the market is not planned and very likely not even foreseen by anyone. So with the other processes of a free, competitive economy: while on Lhe one hand they are carried on by inventive, calculating human beings, on the other hand they arrive at results which no mind has previously conceived and purposively carried out. 1t is as if, to use Adam Smith's phrase, these processes were guided by "an invisible hand." Not only in economics, but also in other spheres, proc­ esses of objective development take place, providin~ a subject-matter in which the social scientist seeks to dis­ cover uniformities or '1aws" of social change and causation. To accept this general conclusion one need not be a ~ l arx­ ist. f\or i~ there anything peculiarly Marxist about its application to the study of long-run historical development, although t.farx was concerned less with repelilive and short-run processes-such as price formation in a free market-than with the long-run tendencies of economic development. What then distinguishes the Marxian theory of objective development from the notion of objective development in general? Economic development, according to ~larx, is subject to certain inexomble laws and must pass through certain definite stages. Each stage has its distinctive mode of production, its system by which the means of produc- INTRODUCTI0"'-1 history he referred to as the "thesis,'' the opposing pro­ ductive forces which emerge within it .ts the ··antithesis," while the nt:w and more productive t•conOm} which re­ sults from the union of the two he tcmH?d the "<;ynthesis." Marxist economic history, therefore, like the progress of Hegelian tntth, is governed by t11e laws of dialectical movement. Under t11cse laws the mode of production is a whole, a real unity, which gradually produces the forces which will transform it in a sudden catastrophe. The prin­ cipal motor of development is not thought, but on the contrary, the "productive forces" of t11e economy. What did Marx mean by "productive forces?" The briefest way of putting it is to say that they are the ele­ ments of which the mode of production is composed; they are the parts, it is the whole. In a modem economy, they would include, for instance, tools, machines, and factories; the materials and natural resources which enter into pro­ duction; the work of labor, skilled, unskilled, and tcchnicaJ; the manner-e.g. the assembly line-in which labor is used and, in general, the techniques by which production is carried on. l n the development of these parts-in their isolated and unorganized development-objective economic devel­ opment lakes place. Human iliought nnd will enter into this process, but to a limited degree. When the productive forces are increased by the introduction of an invention­ for instance, \ Vult's steam engine-it is obvious that the inventor planned his new machine, tool, or technique. He will not intend or be able to foresee, however, many of thE­ consequences of introducing this machine-for instance, "ilie d:u k Satanic mills" which resulted from the introduc­ tion of t11e steam engine in the early days of the I ndustrial Revolution. Nor arc inventions and new techniques generally the principal means by which productive forces grow. They are only one, and before modern times, one of the least important means. The transition from slave society to feudal society and from feudal society to capitalist society, according to Marx, was accomplished without major ad­ vances in technology. The Marxist system lays stress OTY INTRODL'CTION XV world. At this point of our analpis of ~(.tr:<, we l'Ome upon the intimation of entities and powers which tmn~cend the world of cn•ry-day experience. For ~!.1n, chan~c within each period is gradual, but at the transitional point it becomes catastrophic. Changes in quantity, s.1y tlw ~larxists, become a chan~e in qu.tlity. As a re~ult of the accretion of small quantitallvt• changes in its conslihll'nt parts, the economic system chan~es as a whole. And corresponding to this n•volutiontll y change in the economy is a political revolution. In the ~larxist scheme, political development, depending as it does upon economic d<.>vclopment, cannot be a gradual evolution, a piece-m<.>al adaptation to changin~ circurnstanct>s. At some point there must be a vast change, a chans.tt• in the system as a whole. The l.lw of dialectical movement is not a mere ornament of the Marxist system, but a pillar of the dogma of revolution. n MARXIST 'ITI EOnY OF TilE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM Some of the points in the Marxist system may become a little clearer-some may become more obscurl'--if we examine its application to the economic development of capitalism. \Vhat we have been considering so far have been the gt;neral laws of economic development-the laws of the dialectical process-which apply to all the precommun1st stages. But ~ larx also thought that each stage of history had its special laws and he spent many years working out what he regarded as the more particular law of dcvdopmcnt of capitalism, "the economic law of motion of modern society;' which he set forth in bis principal work, Capital. In the selection printed in this book he summarizes the main principles of that law. The cornt'rlttone of ~larx' economics is the labor theory of value. This tlwory, which Marx shared ~\ ith the fathers of classical t•conomics, Adam Smith and Hicardo, and with his contemporaries, is a theory of price. J low do we ex­ plain the fact that two things which an• qualil•tlinly dif­ ferent-for instance, a coat and a buslwl of wheal--can xxH I~TRODUCTION because of that control, men will finally achieve perfect freedom. Before that da>'• however, tlwy rtmain slaves to histoncal necessity and their thought and thinkin~ ar rigidly determined hy the mode of production. "\\'hn else," says the Manifesto, "docs the histor> of ideas prov than that intellectual production changes its charactt•r in proportion as material production is chanp;ed?" And h continues, making clear the line of causation: "\Vhe people speak of ideas that revolutionize socit:ty, they d but express the fnct that within the old society the cle­ ments of a new one have been created, and that the dis­ solution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolu­ tion of the old conditions of existence." 12 Our question-and it is one of the most important of the social sciences-is this: when some new pattern o social behavior occurs-for example, a different standard of social conduct or morality, a new mode of organi1ing b usinc1>s, a reform of the constitution of a state--where sbalJ we find its origin? One possibility is that it occurred first in someone's mind. Perhaps it was the creative idea of a stnt(•sman or poet, a businessman or administrator; possibly it emerged from a meeting of minds in some democratic assembly; very probably, if it is an idea of major importance, it came from many minds and devel­ oped over the years. At any rate, the general formula of sequence is: first the new thought, then the new pattern of behavior. Creative thinking of this sort, however, Marx entirely rules out as an influence on history. For him the formula is precisely reversed; first comes the behavior, then the thought. Where new patterns develop in history they are first produced unintentionally, blindly, in the course of objective development. Then and only then may these new forms be "reflected" in human minds. Ideas in Marxian language arc merely "ideological reflexes and echoes" of man's "material life-process." 13 What is shaped by the mode of production is thought in the widest sense: not only ideas, but ideals and interests ,. below, p. 30 ,. The German Ideology, p. 14 I< I I ' I~ • I I xxiv I NTRODUCTION men en~ make inventions which mise the efficiency 0 production. The advance of technology and science gen erally, while limited to innovations which are relevant t the needs of the lime, ne\'ertheless, has a real part i bringing about historical dev<>lopment. \Vhy then can ther not ?e ~~ adva~cc in "social wchnology" or "social engi neermg? Why m other branches than the teehnical ar men barred by ideology from tltinking creatively? But i this question go<·s Without an nnswer from ~lane, ever more important is his failure ever to suggt:st a plausibl fo~tndation for his theory of ideology in genernl. Anyon wJJI grant that economic conditions "affl.'ct" the thinkin of the lime--somehmcs more, sometimes lt·ss-nnd on of the most interesting tasks of intellectual history is t try to examine the relationship between thought and ceo nomics in particulnr periods. Mnrx, however, was not in ~ereste~ in framing interesting tasks for historians, bu m stnUng a fundamental dogma of his revolutionary faith. Upon this dogmn depends tlte rest of his theory of th social superstructure, of which we may considPr his theo of classes and his theory of tho state. l n the Marxia scheme a class is a set of persons aU of whom stand i the same objective relationship to the mode of production. The mnin division, fs, of course, betwe"n those \\ ho ow the means of production and those who uo not. ' Vi thi these classes, h owever, there may be further distinctions, depending upon the stage of economic development. Fo instance, in the early period of capitalism, there will be a large clnss of smnll owners--<:raftsmen, shopl..ecpers, peas­ ants-who because of their economic position wiU hnvo interC'~l~ and ideas different from both the large capita lists and the propertyless workers. Annlyzing society in thcs terms, Marx mnde mnny forays into the history of hi times with results which were often at the same time bril· liant and wrong-headed. One is the Eighteenth Bnmwire of Louis Bonaparte from which selections are reprinted below and which is probably tlte best of his nnalyses. Like tlw class structure, the stntc--mearung by this both political institutions nnd the system of law-n.lso is deter­ mined by the mode of production. "Political power," snys INTRODUCfiON nv the Manifesto, "is merely the orgnni~d ~ower of one clnss for oppressing nnoTher:-'""111" Ench of the three modes or pro<lucUon based on _privat~ property ~as had its cor­ responding state-form m which, accordmg to Engels, "the most powerful, cconomicnlly dominant class ... by virtue thereof becomes also the dominant class politi­ cally." IO Like the slave-owners' stale and the feudnl state, the modem representative slate is a "menns of holding down nnd eA1)loiling the QQ.Pressed class.." Being such nn instrument, however, the state has not always existed. In the stage of primitive communism, since there wns no owning class, there was no stnle. Only niter private prop­ erty had been brought into existence by economic develop­ ment did the state arise. At first glance, the theory would seem to be that it is the force of the stnte which keeps the owning clnss in con· trol of the means of production. And indood, this would be plausible. For in nctual fact, if individuals and other private uruts of ownership nre secure in their control of the menns of production, one good reason is that the lnw backed by public force guarnntees their private property. But Marx cannot and does not say this, for to sny so would be equivalent to saying that economic power is founded upon political power, quite the reverse of eco­ nomic determinism. The law which establishes private property must, therefore, in some sense be a reflection of the objective facts of the mode of production. Far from being founded on a priori principles of justice, it is, like other elements in the ideology of the ruling class~s the Manifesto says, addressing the bourgeoisie--simply "the will of your class mnde into a lnw for all, n will whose es­ sential character nnd direction are detennined by the economic CCA'Iditions of existence of your class." 17 In the cnusnl series first come~ the objective necessity of individunl control arising from the stage of development 11 below, p. 32 "Engels, The Origin of the Family, Prioate Propert·y and tlw State. In E. Bums (cd.), Handbook of Mal'xl.sm (New York, 1935). p. 330. "below, p. 27 L'\ITRODUCTIOr.; of the productive forces. Following this necessity is th law establishing that particular system of private prope appropriate to the mode of production. What is this ·'objective necessity" behind the vnrio systems of property? Why, for instance, was the system primitive communism unable to continue as the produ tive forces developed? Why could not its methods of co munal control have been adapted to the higher stag of economic development? Neither Marx nor Engels, n for that matter their disciples, have given a sntisfacto answer. Here in the face of one of the most importa problems of the materialist conception-its version, so t speak, of how evil came into the world-we are fac with an insuperable difficulty. Nor is this a proble merely of origins. U it is to be argued, as Marx docs, tha during the three noncommunist stages of history, priva propetty is the only possible form of legal system, it mu be shown that an objective necessity continues to rcqu· it. While the Marxist system maintains that private pro erty is inevitable during the intermediate stages of histo i t nevertheless does allow some role for physical force an political power. The social system is not frictionless; economic forces come into conflict, class behavior reflec that fact and those class struggles ensue of which Ma says the previous history of man has been largely co posed. To prevent such struggles from disrupting th economy, the state is used by the ruling cla.ss to mainta' the mode of production to which its class interest is ir revocably attached. To a certain extent, Lherefore, a non economic factor-i.e. the physical force which the sta wields-has a causal role. That role, however, is narrow) circumscribed. For when the point of transilion is reach the force in the hands of the old ruling class cann suffice to maintain the old conditions. The class represen ing the new mode of production will amass the power necessary to overthrow Lhe old regime. It must do this violence; and sooner or later it is bound to win. Wh}' must the revolution be violent? All elements in the Marxist system conspire to that conclusion, but in MANIFE TO OF THE CO~lMUl\'IST PARTY PREFACE TO TilE ENGLISH EDITION OF 1888 By FRUIDIUCH ENGELS TaE Manifesto was published as the platform of the Communist League, a workingmen's assoctation, first ex­ clusively Ccnnan, later on international, and, under the political conditions of the Contment before 1848, unavoid­ ably a secrct society. At a Congress of the LcaEtue, held in London in t\ovcmber, 1847, ~ fan' and l'.:ngcls were com­ missioned to prepare for publication a complete theoretical and practical party program. Drawn up in German, in January, 1848, the manuscript was sent to the printer in London a ft•w weeks before the French revolution of February 24th. 1 A French translation was brought out in Paris, shortly before the insurrection of June. 1818. The first English translation, by ~ ( iss Helen \ facfarl.tne, ap­ peared in Ct'Orge Julian Harney's Reel Rcpuhlicall, Lon­ don, 1850. A Danish and a Polish edition had also been published. The ddeat of the Parisian insurrection of June, 1848- the first great battle between prolet.uiat and bourgeoisie-­ drove again into the background, for a lime, the social and political aspirations of the European working class. Thenceforth, the struggle for supremacy was again, as it had been before the revolution of February, solely be­ tween different sections of the propcrtil'd class; the work- • As a result of the revolution in Paris, Febntnry 22-24, 1848, Louis Philippe wa~ dcpo~ed and a republic procl;umed. Later the republic was overthrown by Louis Bonaparte, the nephew of Napoleon 1. See below, pp. 47 If. 1 2 ~JARX A~D EKGELS ing class was reduced to a fi~ht for political elbow-roo and to the position of extreme ,,;n~ of the middle-cia Radic:<ctls. Wherever independent proletarian movemcn continued to show signs of life, tll<'y were ruthless! hWJtcd do, .. 'll. Thus the Pmssian police hunted out ll Central Board of the Communist League.J then located i Cologne. The members were arrested, and, after eightec months' imprisonment, they were tried in October, 18:5 This celebrated "Cologne Communist Trial" lasted f10 October 4th Ull ovember 12th; seven of the prisone were sentenced to terms of imprisonment in a forlrcs varying from three to six years. Immediately after tl sentence, the League was formally dissolved by the r maining members. As to the M anifesto, it seemed lhenc forth to be doomed to oblivion. When the European working class had recovered su ficient strength for another attack on the ruling classc the International Workingmen's Association sprang up. But tl1is association, formed '' ith the express aim of welc ing into one body the whole militant proletariat of Euro and America, could not at once proclaim the principl laid down in the Manifesto. T he International was boun to have a program broad enough to be acceptable to th English trades unions, to the followers of Proudhona i F rance, Belgium, Ita ly, and Spnin, and to the Lassallean in Germany. Marx, who drew up this program to the sati.' faction of all parties, entirely trusted to the inteUectu, development of the working class, which was sure to resul • Foundf'd in 1864, Marx taking n lending part • Pierre Joseph Proudhon (l809-JR65), Frrnch socinli~l, nutho of Tim Philosophy of Poocrty ( 18 16), which Marx ollnckcc.l i his enrly work, The Poverty of Philosopl•y ( 18-li) 'Ferdinand Lassallc (1825-!SB-1}, Cerman sociali\t leader founded in 1863 the General Ccnnan Workingmen's Associa 1 tion, one of the sources of the Social Democratic party [Note by Enl{cls] La!.sallc alway\ adcnowlcd~cd him~elf to u personally to be a disciple of ~ tar< ar.J, as such, stood on lh ground of the Manifesto. But in his public ugitntion, 1862-6-1 1 he did not go beyond demanding co-operative workshops su ported by state credit. 4 MARX AND ENGELS mokratisk Bibliothrk, Cop<.nha~en, 1885. a fresh Fre tntnslation in Le Socialistc, Paris, 1886. From this latte Spanish version wns prepared and published in Madrid 18S6. Not counting the German reprints there had bt:< least twelve editions. An Armenian translation, which to be published in Constantinople some months ago, not see the light, I am told, because the publisher afraid of bringing out a book with the name of Marx or while the translator declined to call it his own producti Of further translations into other languages 1 have he: but have not seen. Thus the history of the \lanifesto fleets, to a great extent, the history of the modern work cl:tss movement; at present it is undoubtedly the m wrdespread, the most international production of all Soc ist literature, the common platform acknowlrclged by lions of workingmen from Siberia to California. Y<'t, when it was written, we could not have called f Socialist manifesto. By Sociulists, in 1847, were unc stood, on the one hand, the adh1:rents of the vari Utopian systems: Owenites in England, Fourierists Frnnee,8 both of th t.•m already reduced to tho position mere sects, and gradually dying out; on the other ha the most multifarious social quacks, who, by all mann of t_inkering, professed to redress, without any danger caprtal and profit, all sorts of social grievances, in I cases men outside the working class movement, and lc in~ rather to the "educated" classes for support. Wbatc portion of the working class had bec()me convinced of insufficiency of mere political revolutions, and had claimed the necessity of a total social change, called it Communist. It was a crude, rougl1-l1cwn, purely instinct! sort of Communism; still, it touched the cardinal point n was powerful enough amon~st the workin~ class to p 1 Robert Owen (1771-1858), forerunner of socialism and co-operative movement in Britain, advocated the establishm of small communist colonies under paternalistic rule. The c munities proposed by Fran~is Chnrles Fourier ( 17i2-18.'3 wcr<' ba.~ed on the plwlanstere, or common buildinst, in wh· all families lived, and permitted complete freedom to aU m bers. THE COMMU!\:IST ~IANIFESTO 5 the Utopian Communim1 of Cabet11 in France, and of ~tl"ng'o in Germany. Thus, in 1847, Socialism was a er 1 • k" 1 iddle-class movement, communrs~ a wor mg-c a~~ move- t Socialism was, on the contment at least, respec--en. h . A d bl "· communism was t e very opposrte. n as our ti~; from the very beginning, was that "the emancipa- 0 of the working class must be the net of the working on 1·tself " there could be no doubt as to which of the ass • I . vo names we must take. Moreover, we 1nve, ever smce, een far from repudiating it. . . . . T he Manifesto being pur JOint E_roduction, I cons1der self bound to state that the fundamental proposition hich forms its nucleus •. belongs to Marx. Th?~ proposition . That in ev<'ry historicaf epoch, the prevailing mode of · nomic production and Clcchanie, and the social organ­ ation necessarily following from it, form the basis upon hich is buill up, and from which alone c."ln be explained, e political and intellectual history o~ that _epoch; th.at nsequently the whole history of mankind (smce the dJS­ olution of primitive tribal society, holding land in com- on own<'rship) has been a history of class struggles, ntcsts between exploiting and exploited, ruling and op­ resscd classes; that (he history of these class struggles orm a series of evolutions in which, nowadays .. a s tage bas een r<'ached where the exploited and oppressed class­ e proletariat--cannot attain its emancipation fro~. the vay of the exploiting and ruling class-the bourgeors_u~-­ "thoul at the same time, and once and for all, emanc1pat- Etienne Cabct ( 1788-18.'56), French socialist and author of oyagP en lraric in whith he dt•picted lifo i~ a communist iety Jlis doctrine, like that of Owen and Founer, was dubbed utopi.m" by Engels !x-c.msc it was not founded upon the scientific" theory of hi~tory developed by Marx. Wilhelm Weitliru: ( 1808-1871). n Ccnnnn tailor and leader f the Lc,tgu<' of the Ju~t. ;tn international soci<'ty of proletarian volutionaries which prec<·ded tht• Communist Ltoague. An arly fri<·nd of )1111rx, who later att.1ckcd him bitterly, he emi­ att·d to the United States where he continued his social ist gitat10n. 10 ~IARX A'\ D E:-iCELS where a complicated arrangement of society into vario orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancie Rome> we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in t Middle Ages, feudal lord~. vassals, guild-masters, journc men, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, aga· subordinate gradations. The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted fr the ruins of feudal society, has not done away with cl antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new co ditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of t old ones. Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, ho ever, this distioclive feature: It has simplified the cl antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitti up into two great hostile ~mps, into two great clas directly facing each other-bourgeoisie and proletariat. From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the charter burghers of the earliest towns. From U1ese burgesses first clements of the bourgeoisie were developed. Tho discovery of America, the rounding of the Ca opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. Ea!>t-Jndian and Chinese markets, the colonization America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the mea of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to co mcrce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never befo known, and thereby, Lo the revolutionary element in t tottering feudal society, a rapid development. The feudaJ system of industry, in which industrial pr duction was monopolized by closed guilds, now no long sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets. T manufacturing system took its place. The guild-mast were pushed aside by the manufacturing middle cia division of labor between the different corporate guil vanished in the face of division of labor in each sin workshop. Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the dema ever rising. Even manufacture4 no longer sufficed. Tber • By manufacture Mnn meant the system of production whi succeeded the guild sy~tem but which still relied mainly u direct human labor for power. He distinguished it from mode 12 MARX AND ENGELS is but a committee for managing tl1e common affairs of t whole bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie has played a most revolutionary role i history. The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper han has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relation It has pitilessly tom asunder the motley feudal tics th· bound man to his "natural superiors," and has left no oth bond between man and man tl1an naked self-interest. tha callous "cash payment." It has drowned tile most heaven! ecstasiP.s of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotisti calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchan& value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible cha tered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionabl freedom-Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veile by religious and political illusions, it has substituted nake shamek·ss, direct, brutal exploitation. The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occup: tion hitherto honored and looked up to with reveren awe. 1t has converted the physician, the lawyer, lh priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wag laborers. The bourgeoisie has torn nway from the fami ly its senti mt>ntal veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mer money relation. The bourg<·oisio has disclosed how it came to pass tha tne brutal display of vigor in the ~ Iiddle Ages. '"hich reac tionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement i the most slothful indolence. It has been the first to sho' what man's activity can bringabout. It has accomplishe wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids. Roman aque ducts, and Gothic cathedrnls; it has conducted expedition that put in the shade all former migrations of nations an crusades. The bOurgoisie cannot ex.i~t without constantly revolu tioni7ing the instmments of production, and therebv the relations of production, and with them the whole rel~tions of society. Conservation of the old mode~ of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first conditio;) TilE COM\1UNIST ?\ I A~IFESTO 13 of existence for all l.'arlit:r industrial classes. Constant rev­ olutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, cvedasling uncertainly and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed. fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable preJudices and opinions, are s~t away, all new-formed ones bt:come antiquated beTOre they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face witll _jQber senses his real conditions of life and his relations with his kind. The need of a constantly expanding market for its prod­ ucts chases the bourgl•oisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, estab­ lish connections ev<'rywhcre. The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to produc­ tion and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of reactionaries, it has drown from under the feet of indu~lry the national ground on which it stood. All old­ established nalionnl industries hnve been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new ind us­ tries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are con­ sumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the produc­ tion of the country, we flnd new wanls1 requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-suffi­ ciency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal interdependence of nations. And as in material. so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creation~ of indi­ vidual nations b<.>come common property. National one­ sidedness and narrow-mindedncss become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures there arises a world literature. The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instru­ ments of production, by the immensely facilitated means 14 ~tAR.'( A~D E1\CELS of communication, draws all nations, even the most bar barian. into civiliz.1tion. The cheap prices of its commodi tics arc the hea\") artillery with which it batters clown al Chim·se walls, '' ilh which it forces the bat barians' in tensely obstinate hntred of foreigners to capitulate. I compels all nations, on pain of extinction. to adopt th bourgeois mode of productton; it compt•ls tht:rn to in duce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to be­ come bourgeois themselves. In a word, it creates a world nfter its own image. The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cilies, has greatly in­ creased the urban population as compared with the rural, nod has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. just as it has made the conn­ tt-y dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semibarbarian countries dependent on the civilized ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West. More and more the bourgeoisie keeps doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of pro­ duction, and of property. lt has agglomerated population, centralized means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralization. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments and systems of taxation, became lumped to­ gether into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class interest, one frontier and one cus­ toms tariff. The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal produc­ tive forces tl1an have all preceding generations together. Subjection of nature's forces to man, machinery, applica­ tion of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navi­ gation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, C'annlization of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground-what earlier cen­ tury had even n presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labor? THE COMMUNIST r.IANIFESTO 15 \'\'e see then that the means of production and of cx­ chan~e. which served as the foundation for the growth of the bourgeoisie, were gcnt;rated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of produc­ tion and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organization of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in a word, the feudal relations of propctty became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be umst asunder; they were burst asunder. Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adopted to il, and by the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class. A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modem bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For many a decade past the histo1y of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modem pro­ ductive forces against modem conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the exjstcnce of the bourgeoisie and of its rule. 1t is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on trial, each time more threateningly. Jn these crises a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically de­ stroyed. In these crises there breaks out an epidemic that, in ~II earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity­ the epidemic of overproduction. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a stale of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation had cut ofT the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed. And why? Because there is too much civilization, too much means of subsist­ ence, too much industry, too much commerce. The pro­ ductive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to 20 ~IAHX AND E Cl~LS to ask for its help. and thus, to dra~ it into the politic arena. The bourgt'Oisie itsl'lf, therefore, supplies the prol tariat with its own t•lcmcnls of political and ~eneral ed cation, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat wi weapons for fi~hting the bourgeoisie. Further, as we have already seen, entire sections of t ruling classes are, by the advance of industry, precipitat into the proletariat, or are at least threatened in their co ditions of existence. Th<.>se also supply the proletariat wit fresh elements of cnlightcnm(;nt and progress. FinalJy, in times when the class struggle nears tl decisive hour, the process of dissolution going on withi the. ruling class, in fact within the whole range of ol soc1ety, assumes such u violent, glaring character, that small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, a joins the revolutionary class. Lhc class that holds the futu r in i~s hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, sec!JOn of 0c nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, now a porllon of the bourgeoisie goes over to the prol lariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois id ologists, who have raised themselves to the level comprehending theoretically the historical movement · a whole. Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bou geoisie todtly, the proletadnt alone is n realJy revolution. class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in tb face of modern industry; the proletariat is its special an essential product. The lower middle class, tl1e small manufacturer th shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight agni the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existenc as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore n revolutionary, but conservative. i\ay more, they are rea tionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. by chan~ they arc revolutionary, they are so only in vie of their impt•nding transfer into the proletariat· thev th defend not their prest•nt, but their future int~rcsts: the desert their own standpoint to adopt that of the prole­ tariat. The "dangerous class," the social scum ( Lumpenprole • , THE COM~ IUN IST MANIFESTO 21 ariat), that passively rottin~ mass thrown off by the lo"·cst layers of old socrety, may, here and there, be swept .010 the movt..rncnt b:r <I proletarian revolution, its condi­ ~ons of lrfe however, prl.'pare it far more for the part of 3 bribed tool of reactionary intrigue. The social cond1tions of the old society no longer exist for the proletariat. The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer any­ thing in common w1th bourgeois family relations; modern industrial labor, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national charnctc~. Law, 010rality, n:li~ion, nrc to him so many bourgeois prejudices, belllnd '' hich lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests. All the preceding classes that got the upper hand, sought to fortify their already acquired status by subject­ ing society at large to their conditions of appropriation. The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive orces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, nncl thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. They have nothing of their own lo secure and to fortify; their mission is to de­ stroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individ­ ual property. All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement rs the self-conscious, independent movement of ibe imnwnse majority, in the interest of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our pres­ ent society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole super incumbent strata of official society being sprun~ mto the arr. Thuu~h not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proktari.lt with the bour~coisie is at first a national struggle. 1 he prol<:tariat of each country must, of course, fin.t of all settll' matters with its own bourgeoisie. In deprctin~ the most general phases of the development of thl' prolt·Llriat, we traced the more or less verled civil war, raging wrtlun existing society, up to the point where 22 MARX AND ENGELS THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO 23 that war breaks out into open revolution and where th viol<'nt overthrow of the bourgeoisie lay~ the foundatio n for the sway of the proletariat. Jlit.hc.rto, every form of society has been based, as w PROLETAJ\lA."S A.'"D oo:-.r,rm'lSrs have already seen, on the antagonism of opprc~smg 0 what relation do the Communists stand to the prole-oppr~ed classes. Sut in order to oppress a class, ccrtai arians as a whole? cood1llons must be assured to it under which 1t can a The Communists do not form a separate party opposed least, continue its slavish existence. The serf. in the pe;io 0 other working-class parties. of scrf~om, raised himself to membership in the c~m They have no interests separate and apart from those mune, JUSt as. the petty bourgeoi~. under the yoke 0 f tbe proletariat as a whole. feudal absolullsm, managed to develop into a bourgeois, They do not set up any sectarian principles of their T~e modern laborer, on the contrary, instead of risin wn, by which to shape and mold the proletarian mov(>­Wilh the progress of industry, sinks deeper and deepe eot. below the conditions of existence of his own class. Jl The Communists are distinguished from the other work­becomes a p~uper, and pauperism develops more rapidly ini-class parties by this only_: 1. In the na~ional strugg~es than populatiOn and wealth. And here it becomes evident of the proletarians of the different countries, they pomt that t_he bo~rgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling out and bring to the front the common i~lere~ts of tho class m soc1ety, and to impose its conditions of existence entire proletariat, independently of aU nationahty. 2. I n upon society as an overriding law. lt is unfit to rule because the various stages of development which the struggle of it. is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass his slavery, because it cannot help letUng him sink into through, they always and everywhere represent the inter-such. a slate~ that it has to feed him, instead of being fed eslS of the movement as a whole. . ~y hun. Soc1ety ~an no longer live under tJ1is bourgeoisie, he Communists, therefore, are on the ~ne hand, pract:i-111 ~thcr words, 1ts existence is no longer compatible with cally, the most advanced and resolute section of the work­society. ing-class parties of every country, that section which The e~sential ~ndition for the existence and sway of tbe pushes forward nil others; on the other hand,_ theoretically, bourgeoiS class, 1s the formation and nugmenlalion of capi- they have over the great mass of the proletanat the advan­ta1; the co?clition for capital is wage-labor. Wage-labor tage of clearly understanding the line of march, the condi­rests exclus1vely on competition between the laborers. The tions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian advance. ?f industry, whose involuntary promoter is the movement. bourgeo1s1e, replaces the isolation of the laborers due to The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as com~li~on, by their revolutionary combination,' due to that of all the other proletarian parties: Formation of tbe associatiOn. The deve!opmcnt of modern industry, there- proletariat into a class, overthrow of bourgeois supremacy, fore, cuts from under 1Ls feet the very foundation on which conquest of political power by the proletariat the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. \Vhat The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in the bo~lrgC{)i~ie therefore produces, nbove all, are its own no way based on ideas or principles that have been in­gravedJ~gers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are vented, or discovered, by this or that would-be universal equaUy mevitable. reformer. They merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical 24 MARX A.i~D ENGELS movemcnt ~oing on under our very cyl·s. The abolition e.'tistin~ property relations is not at all a distmctive featur of communism. All prop<.•rty relations in the past have continually bee subject to historical change consequent upon the chang in histo1 ical conditions. The French Hevolution, for example, abolished feud property in favor of bourgeois property. The distinguishing feature of communism is not the abolition of properly generalJy, but the abolition of bour ... geois property. But modem bourgeois private property · the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few. Jn this sense, the theory of the Commu nists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. We Communists have been reproached with the desi of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man's own labor, which property is al leged to be the groundwork of all personal f reedolllt activity and independence. liard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do yo11 mean the property of the petty artisan and of the smal peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois' form? Theu.> is no need to aboHsh that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, anct is still destroying it daily. Or do you mean modern bourgeois private property? But do<·s wage-labor create any propt'rty for the Ia borer? ot a bit. lt creates capital, i.e., that kind of pro~ erly which exploits wage-labor, and which cannot increa except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage­ labor for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present fo is b•tsed on the antagonism of capital and \\ot~c-labor. us examine both sides of this antagonism. To be a capitalist, is to have not only '' purely personal, but a social status in production. Capit•tl i\ a collective product, and only by the united action of many membe TilE CO~f~flT.\1IST ~1ANIFESTO 25 nny. in the last resort, only by the unitt:d action of aU memb<>rs of socll·ty, can it be set in motion. Capital is therefore not a personal .it is a soc.ial. power. \\·hen, thncfore, capital is converted into common propert>. into the property of nll members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is chaug<>d. It loses its class character. Let us now take wage-labor. The aver;tgc price of wage-labor is the minimum wage, i.e., that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutdy rl'quisite to keep the laborer in bare existence as a laborer. \\'hat, therefore, the wac;e-laborer appropri­ at<·s by means of his labor, merely suffices to prolong and reproduce n bare existence. \Ve by no means intend to abolish this pt.>rsonal appropriation of tl1e products of labor, an appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and tJ1at leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labor of others. All that we want to do away with is lhe miserable character of this appropriation, under which the laborer lives merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only insofar as the inten•st of the mling class requires it. Jn bourgeois society, living labor is but a means to incr<>ase accumulated labor. In Communist society, ac­ cumulated labor is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the <.xistence of the laborer. In bourgl'ois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past. ln bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality. And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourl!;eois, abolition of individuality and frl'edom! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bour­ geois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at. By fn.cdom is meant, under the present bourgeois con­ ditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying. But if sdling and buying disappears, free selling and 50 ~1ARX AN'D ENGELS sciousne~s. changes with every change in the conditions of h1\ material cAistence, in his social relations and in his social life? \\ hat else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellcdual production changes its chnracler in proportion as material production is changed? The ruling ideas of each age hnve ever been the ideas of its ruling class. When people speak of ideas that revolutionize society, they do but express the fact that within the o ld society the elements of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence. \Vhcn the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religions were overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the eightc<'nth century to rationalist ideas, feuda l society fought its death-battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience, merely gave expression to the sway of free competition within the domain of knowledge. "Undoubtedly," it will be said, "religion, moral, philo­ sophical and juridical ideas have been modified in the course of historical development. .But religion, morality, philosophy, political science, and law, constantly survived this chnnge." "There are, besides, eternal truths, such ns Freedom, Justice, etc., that nrc common to a ll slates of society. But communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all reli­ gion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past hi~torical experience." What docs this accusation reduce itself to? Tile history of nil past society has consisted in the development of class antagonisms, antagonisms that assumed different forms al different epochs. But whatever form they may have taken, one fact is common to all past ages, viz., the exploitation of one part of society by the other. No wonder, then, that the social consciousness of past ages, despite all the multiplicity and variety it displays, moves within certain common forms, THE CO~I~1U~IST MANIFESTO 31 or general ideas, which c;mnot compl<'tcly vanish except with the total disappeamnce of class antagonisms. The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional property relations; no wonder that it3 development involves the most radical rupture with tradi­ tional ideas. But l<'l us have done with the bourgeois objections to communism. We have seen above, that the llrst step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the posi­ tion of ruling class, to establish democracy. The proletariat will use ils political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instmmcnts of production in the hands of the stale, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the mling class; and to increase tl1e total of productive forces as rapidly as possible. Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of p rop­ erty, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient nnd untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate f-urther inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of produc­ tion. These measures will of course be different in different countries. Nevertheless in the most advanced countries, the follow­ ing will be pretty generally applicable. 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. Abolition of all right of inJ1crilance. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. C<'ntralizntion of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. 32 MARX A'\JD ENGELS 6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of produc­ tion owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common pbn. 8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing in­ dustries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the popula­ tion over the country. 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of child factory labor in its present form. Com­ bination of education with industrial production, etc. When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all produclion has been concen­ trated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized :Qgwer of one class for oppressing rmother. If the prole­ tal"fardoring its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itseli as a class; if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such sweeps away by force the old condi­ tions of production, then it will, along with these con­ di tions, have 5\.vept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms, and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class. In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which thP free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. Ti lE CO~I~IUMST ~IANIFESTO 33 m SOClALlST AND CO~lMUNIST LITERATURE 1. REACTIO"'AIIY ~OCIALISl\1 a. Feudal Socialrsm Owing to their historical position, it became the vocation of the ar~tocmcies of France and England to write pam­ phlets against modern bourgeois society. In the French revolution of July, lb30, and in the English reform agita­ tion, these aristocracies again succumbed to the hateful up~tart. Thenceforth, a serious political struggle was al­ togtther out of the que~tion. A literary battle alone re­ mained possible. But even in the domain of literature the old cries of the restoration period 1 had become impossible. In order to arouse sympathy, the aristocracy was ob­ ligee) to lose sight, apparently, of its own interests, and to formulate its indictment against the bourgeoisie in the interest of the exploited working class alone. Thus the aristocracy took its revenge by singing lampoons against its new master, and whispering in his ears sinister proph­ ecies of coming catastrophe. In this way arose feudal socialism: half lamentation, half lampoon; half echo of the past, haJJ menace of the future; at limes, by its bitter, witty, and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very heart's core, but al­ ways ludicrous in its effect through total incapacity to comprehend the march of modern history. The aristocracy, in order to rally the people to them, waved the proletarian alms-bag in front for a banner. But the people, as often as it joined them, saw on their hind­ quarters the old feudal coats of arms, and deserted with loud and irreverent laughter. • [Note by Engels] Not the EngUsh Restoration 1660 to 1689, but the French Relltoralioo 1814 to 1830 THE C0~1~1U~IST MANIFESTO 41 based on the continued existence of tl1ese relations; re­ forms, therefore, that in no respect affect the relations between capital and labor, but. at the best, lessen the cost. and simplify the administrative work of bourgeois govern­ ment. Bourgeois socialism attains adequate expression, when. and only when, it becomes a mere figure of speech. Free trade: For the benefit of the working class. Protec­ tive duties: For the benefit of the working class. Prison reform: For the benefit of the working class. These are the last words and tlle only seriously meant words of bourgeois socialism. lt is summed up in the phrase: the bourgeois are bour­ geois-for the benefit of the working class. 3. CJUTICAL-UTOPIAN SociALISM AND CoMMUNISM We do not here refer to that literature which, in every great modem revolution, has always given voice to the demands of the proletariat, such as the writings of Bubeuf 8 and others. The first direct attempts of the proletariat to attain its own ends-made in times of universal excitement, when feudal society was being overthrown-necessarily failed, owing to the then undeveloped state of the proletariat, as well as to the absence of the economic conditions for its emnncipalion, conditions that had yet to be produced, and could be produced by the impending bourgeois epoch alone. The revolutionary literature that accompanied these firs t movements of the proletariat had necessarily a reac­ tiona!)' character. It inculcated universal asceticism and social leveling in its crudest form. The socialist and communist systems properly so called, those of St. Simon,o Fourier, Owen and others, spring into • Francois Noel Babeu£ (1760-1797), one of the first Socialist leadC'r. of modern l1mes, was guiJiotined after the suppression of his "Conspiracy of Equals" in 1796 • Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Count de Saint-Simon (1760-1825) advocated an industrial society directed by men of science and orgallUcd for the benefit of the poor -