Communist Manifesto Discussion Thread

[HurriKANE]

Discuss. Say whatever you want about it.

[Albert Dryden]

Discuss. Say whatever you want about it.

I don't like it.

[HurriKANE]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007
The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.
Yes, but Soviet Communism didn't eliminate this.

The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.
He's blaming globalization on the bourgeoisie.

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.
He's talking out against liberal democratic imperialism. In other words, he's attacking America.

The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented.
THIS IS AMERICA!

The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself.

But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons — the modern working class — the proletarians.
I agree, exterminate the bourgeoisie!

The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first the contest is carried on by individual labourers, then by the workpeople of a factory, then by the operative of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labour, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status of the workman of the Middle Ages.
Marx is too optimistic here! At least American workers are delusional.

But with the development of industry, the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that strength more. The various interests and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalised, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labour, and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level. The growing competition among the bourgeois, and the resulting commercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more fluctuating. The increasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious; the collisions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes. Thereupon, the workers begin to form combinations (Trades’ Unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots.
Again, he's too optimistic. At least the workers in America are idiots.

Altogether collisions between the classes of the old society further, in many ways, the course of development of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle. At first with the aristocracy; later on, with those portions of the bourgeoisie itself, whose interests have become antagonistic to the progress of industry; at all time with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries. In all these battles, it sees itself compelled to appeal to the proletariat, to ask for help, and thus, to drag it into the political arena. The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie.
Will you fight my war against TERRORISM! PLEASE!

What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
Again too optimistic.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm

National differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto.

The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster. United action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat.
Marx is wrong here. Nationalism has not "gone away." People still continue to assume that technology will make nationality obselete. They've been saying it since the days of karl marx! Hail NATIONAL Bolshevism.

In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.
Again, Marx touts himself as a realist, but he's acting like an idealist.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch03.htm
Here Marx talks about "Utopians Socialists" as opposed to "Materiallistic socialists." But his views seem more Utopian than he wants to admit.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch04.htm

Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
That would be funny.

Working Men of All Countries, Unite!
Yes, but only because there is a common enemy! Yes unity against the enemy, but then morally encourage each other to be skeptical of globalization!

[Pracownik stał]

Fuh

[EinsatzGrenadier]

Damn, Kane, looks like you missed the point completely. "He's blaming globalization on the bourgeoisie." That's a good thing in the eyes of Karl Marx. He is only highlighting the possibility brought by international capitalism, which is necessary for the communist revolution to happen. "He's talking out against liberal democratic imperialism. In other words, he's attacking America." No, he wasn't. He was pointing out what is, in his view, inevitable. These things only could bring about positive conclusions in his eyes. The need for efficiency in modes of production was going to naturally dissolve national boundaries. The fact that you point out three times that you think Marx is "too optimistic" shows how much you're paying attention. The Manifesto is basically a prophecy, so how is it not going to be optimistic? It doesn't say anything about how to accomplish the revolution, it just says that it will happen basically because it has to happen. This is why some Communists insist that the prophet Marx was the best friend that the bourgeoisie ever had: he provided a warning to them with what would have naturally occurred and allowed them to react.

Anyhow, give it up, Kane. You're too retarded to understand what you're dealing with here. Go back to reading, "World's Most Evil Dictators" or "Top 20 Serial Killers" or whatever garbage you usually read the picture captions of.

[HurriKANE]

From the great political theories by michael kurtis. Page 157.

The widespread appeal of Marxism is due less to the incisiveness of its historical and philosophical analysis than to the vigor with which the analysis is augured, the assurance of certainty and of the ultimate victory that it provides, the deceptive ease by which political and economic phenomena can be characterized and the ultimate ends of the communist society, in which injustice and oppression are to be ended. Marx was a formidable social scientists whose influence has been felt in many academic disciplines.

But he was also a revolutionary and a prophet in the Hebraic tradition. Understanding of phenomena was not enough in itself; the task was to change the world. Freedom was the recognition of necessity, but it was also concerned with revolutionary action.

Blow me, eg!

[Johnson]

The Manifesto is, aside from being a flawed treatise on politics, economics, and human nature, outdated and no longer relevant save for use as a historical curiosity.

[HurriKANE]

it's useful though because even though Marx is too confident in his predictions of the future, he brings up a lot of points that otherwise you may not be conscious of.

There are class antagonisms but the lower class in general does not exploit the struggle against the upper class without a dictator, which is why Lenin was correct that a revolutionary party is necessary if you desire to abolish private property.

BTW I don't desire to abolish private property. I don't believe in "human rights" but the state can do whatever is the best for its people without clinging to old fashioned ideology.

[Bluto]

It's easy bein' a suburban commie livin' in da basement o' yer paw & maw, Kane. Bluto guesses yer stealin' wine coolers from yer parents is fightin' agin' da power.

[HurriKANE]

Anyhow, give it up, Kane. You're too retarded to understand what you're dealing with here. Go back to reading, "World's Most Evil Dictators" or "Top 20 Serial Killers" or whatever garbage you usually read the picture captions of.
Don't you prefer it when I come off as an uneducated skinhead who can't get the Jewish support he wants, as opposed to a complex political thinker! It's easier to bash me that way!

[Jesus Christ]

Why can't people wait for the coming of the Son of Man and the Kingdom of Heaven, instead of some imaginary paradise on earth? Jesus the Lord will help solve all of your problems on earth.

[Yakub Israel]

Don't you prefer it when I come off as an uneducated skinhead who can't get the Jewish support he wants, as opposed to a complex political thinker! It's easier to bash me that way!

It's easy to bash your punk wookie ass anyway, motherfucker:sf:
http://static.gamesradar.com/images/mb/GamesRadar/us/Features/2008/07/Things%20Force%20Unleashed%20wont%20Unleash/Art/curbstomp2--article_image.jpg

[tricknologist]

http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/1391/a186oz.gif