Communist Manifesto in 8's or less - Day III

The following entries represent an interpretation of The Communist Manifesto. All italicized text is a direct interpretation from the book itself. I will reserve comment and comparison until the end. Might be of interest to anyone that is concerned with the direction that our country is headed. Conservative talking heads tout a return to communism. One wonders, is it propaganda or is it true? Some may not know that this document was written by 2 individuals together, Marx and Engel. While Marx get's most of the face time, new readers should be familiar with Engel who seems to have done most of the writing. Engle adds at one point that Marx forms the nucleus for the "fundemental proposition". What follows is a primer on what Karl Marx and Freidrich Engel delivered to us as The Communist Manisfesto in what will be a 6 part series. Please note that the following is a precis' of the work, NOT an endorsement!


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Chapter II - Proletarians and Communists, Marx and Engle

How are Communists and proletarians different? There are only 2 differences. 1.) Only in that Communists acknowlege no individuality in nations or persons: The common interest of the working class is it's only concern 2.) Communists always represent the intests of the "whole" of proletarians - not individual proletariat from one region, locale or nation. The communists then are better than the proletarians because they work for the good of the entire group only - no self interest. Because the constant struggle is always one of securing capital (through wage-labor or currency) and this causes the clash of the classes the Communist seeks only this: "The abolition of private property." Said again, "Property in it's present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labor." Looking at both sides we see that capital is not personal, it is instead social, power. Since the recipient of capital will seek to pay his laborer the least amount in minimum wage, the laborer will not be able to acquire property but only subsist. Communists want to "do away" with this. You are "horrified" that we wish to do away with private property. We believe that private property is already done away with for 90% of the population. You shun us because we intend to take away your property and in fact that is what we intend to do! Communism does not remove the ability to power to allocate products in a society, it only removes the ability to utilize the labor of others in order to move those products. You say if we do this then all work will stop and laziness will be the norm. We say no. We believe that if this were so the bourgeois society would have died out long ago.

What we believe for product and goods we also believe to be true for intellectual property. You don't like these thoughts only because you have been indoctrinated by the system that tells you that all these 'products' are good. In fact the culture is a great problem because the creation of even family itself is generated so that that unit of living can get more. This is selfishness. Therefore we are all for the "Abolition of the Family." This is because we cannot allow patriarchs to exploit the children in their family. Charge us with the crime of wanting to stop the exploitation of kids? We "plead guilty". You are appalled that we destroy this sacred institution. Poppy-cock. All language of the culture to justify exploitation of kids.

As for Mothers and wives, they too are merely tools that perpetuate production by facilitating the domestic lives of their husbands. Get rid of them. Create a "community of women". It has always been this way anyway. The rich and mighty steal each others wives, not to mention buy other women through prostitution. What is this but the community of women? All we wish to do is replace the illusion of "family" with what is really going on already anyway. We want to legalize the community of women and quit abusing them through this sham and hypocrisy. Call it what it is!

Of course, because we see no preferences we also wish to abolish countries and nationalities. We will get rid of these tensions all together. Give the working class the opportunity and they will choose this very quickly. If people are no longer exploited, then nations will no longer exploit and we have perfection. As this antagonism due to wage-labor producing capital goes away between individuals it will also go away between nations.

We won't even give religious or philosophical arguments the time of day in this book because they don't deserve "serious examination". Man's consciousness will change if his material conditions and social relations change, as Communism seeks to do. We've seen this time and time again. You argue that Communism abolishes all truth even the eternal ones, re-writing them and you further argue that this contradicts history. Never has man been able to abolish the eternal truths. To this we say, of course it's not gone away...you are all trained up in the system and he system perpetuates these eternal truths! Communism is the most radical of ideas and its application will result in the crashing of all "traditional ideas". We've just not been able to see Communism done correctly. So let's be done with these objections!

Here's how it is done. First, let's bring the working class to the position of "ruling class" through democracy. They will take all the capital from the 'ruling class' and give it over to the state....that is...the 'working class'. This will increase the working class, which is now infused with all those that used to be the 'ruling class'. Of course to do this we (working class) must be "despotic" in regards to the old ideas about property and production in ways that will seem unacceptable...but this is revolution and the pain will be worth the result. The actions taken will be different for different countries. But we can list 10 procedures: Abolish property; heavy taxes; no inheritance; take property; centralize banking (to the state); centralize communication; grow government business, land of all kinds; equal work for all;combine agriculture and manufacturing and get rid of towns, counties and country sovereignty, disperse population equally throughout; Free education to kids in public schools only-get rid of child labor in factories-while combining education with industrial production.

When all this is done then there will be no individuality and therefore no "political character". Political power simply put is one class exploiting another. If the proletariat can do all these things they will have abolished the need for class antagonisms (because no class no exists). It will even have abolished it's own supremacy as a class. In the place of the old we will have one big group association where the free development of each is required and in so doing we will have the "free development of all".