Manifesto of the Communist Party essays

Manifesto of the Communist Party essays This paper is analysis of part one of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Manifesto of the Communist Party. [1] In particular the text will be situated historically, as well as within a scheme of development of Marxist thought. The main problem and arguments of the text will be explored with emphasis on Marxs outline of the historical development of capitalism, as well as the development of the capitalist and working classes. The Manifesto of the Communist Party was written in 1847 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels for the Communist League of London. It is this Manifesto that Marx first applies his concept of historical materialism, which he constructed in 1846 in The German Ideology. This alternative theory of history synthesized materialism and idealism to ultimately describe society as a social totality; with the mode of production being a historical phenomenon giving rise to civil society. Following the Manifesto, Marx and Engels continue to apply historical materialism to society, as seen in Capital. Capital was written in 1867 by Marx and Engels, and it focused on analyzing the capitalist mode of production. In particular this work uses dialectical thinking to explain Marxs theory of exploitation; a theory which explains the origins of profits as the exchange of the fixed variable of labour for the potential variable of the product of labour. Part one of the Manifesto of the Communist Party focuses on explaining the emergence of capitalism, and the resulting social classes that emerge out of this new mode of production. Foremost Marx notes that capitalism comes forth out of the context of feudal society. The feudal system of industry, under which industrial production was monopolized by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its place. ...