Central idea of the Manifesto

Transcription

1 Central idea of the Manifesto The central idea of the Manifesto (Engels Preface to 1888 English Edition, p. 3) o I. In every historical epoch you find A prevailing mode of economic production and exchange Social organization rooted in those economic realities Political and intellectual events can only be understood in terms of the social and economic organization of an epoch o II. As a result, the history of mankind has been a history of class struggles between exploited and exploiting o III. A stage has been reached in which the oppressed class (in this case the proletariat) can attain emancipation only by emancipating society at large from all Exploitation and oppression Class distinction and class struggles Essential to this idea is that each epoch has its own distinctive o mode of economic production and exchange o social organization and social/economic classes 15-1

2 Era Ancient Medieval Early Modern Political & Intellectual Social Relations Relations of Production & Exchange Greek/Roman moral codes and laws Citizens Slaves Slavery Individual craftsmen Christian religion, moral codes Lords, knights, serfs, clergy Serfdom Guilds Renaissance ideas, early parliamentary democracy Merchant class; landed aristocracy Manufacture and merchant ventures 18 th & 19 th century Representative democracy, enlightenment ideas Bourgeoisie, working class (i.e. proletariat) Wage labor, expanding free markets

3 Consciousness, being and material productive forces (From the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, by Karl Marx) The general result at which I arrived and which, once won, served as a guiding thread for my studies, can be briefly formulated as follows: In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. 15-2

4 The economic bases of history Marx s account of point I (Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy) Examples o Men enter into relations of production that correspond to a definite stage of the development of their material productive forces (their technology) o The sum total of these relations constitutes the economic structure of society o The economic structure is the real foundation of the legal and political superstructure o Definite forms of social consciousness correspond to the relations of production It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but on the contrary their social being that determines their consciousness o Changes in the nature and structure of the family o Changes in moral views concerning divorce, birth control, pre-marital sexual activity 15-3

5 The emergence of the bourgeoisie The modern period: simplification of class antagonisms Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps :Bourgeoisie and Proletariat (Manifesto, p. 5b) Note: this simplification is not complete; remnants of unassimilated classes remain: landed aristocracy, petit boureoisie, professional classes, the underlcass, etc. The origin of the Bourgeoisie (5b-6a): The feudal system of industry no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The guild masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle class (p. 5b) the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, or a series of revolutions in the modes of production and exchange (6b) The essence of the new system: o Relations of production: wage labor as the dominant relation between workers and those who own the means of production Compare with slave labor, serfdom, apprenticeship in guilds o Relations of exchange: production of commodities for sale in world markets Compare to middle ages 17-1

6 Development of the bourgoisie The revolutionary character of the bourgeoisie (pp. 6a-7b) o Gradual emergence of the bourgeoisie as a political force (the modern State but a committee for managing its common affairs) p. 6a o torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his natural superiors and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man that naked self-interest, than callous cash payment (p. 6a) and converted everyone into its paid wage laborers (p. 6b) o Reduced the family relation to a mere money relation (6b) o Constant revolutionizing of the instruments and relations of production (6b) o Internationalization and urbanization of trade (6b-7a) o Concentration of property in the hands of a few, with consequent political centralization 17-2

7 Fate of the bourgeoisie The means of production and exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, arose because feudal relations of property became obsolete (p. 7b) o the feudal organization of agriculture and manufacturing became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces, and were therefore burst asunder (p. 7b) Bourgeois relations of production, exchange and property are no longer able to control the gigantic means of production and exchange that they have brought into existence o There is a revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeoisie (7b-8a) o Marx s example: crises of overproduction that in all earlier epochs would have seemed an absurdity Another example of the irrationality or inefficiency of modern relations of production and exchange: world starvation in the face of agricultural overproduction 17-3