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The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part.

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.

The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigour in the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It has been the first to show what man’s activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades.

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty 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 swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.

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.

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.

The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.

The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralised the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralisation. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier, and one customs-tariff.

The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground — what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?

We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organisation of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder.

Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class.

A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern 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 history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois and of its rule. It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly. In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. 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.

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.

In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed — a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.

Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for maintenance, and for the propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labour, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by the increase of the work exacted in a given time or by increased speed of machinery, etc.

Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organised like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is.

The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labour, in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labour of men superseded by that of women. Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex.

No sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, so far, at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc.

The lower strata of the middle class — the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants — all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialised skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production. Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007

If you have a reasoned argument you can make with facts to support your claims, then you might be able to say something substantial or meaningful. However, when simply proclaims ‘none of it works” its not useful. For example, “what works” depends on what it is you intended it to do, in the first place. For example, capitalism works very well at concentrating wealth into the hand of a few while producing great misery for the many, keeping the world enslaved and brutalized to make a few people very very rich. I could go on but you see my point. Your argument needs to have context, and allegations you make need concrete examples so as to leave room for an actual rebuttal.

You ask if we remember the USSR, Cuba, etc. Yes, but what about it are you referencing? That its ‘not all good?” Is that your argument? Its unclear.

You say to let the “free market” (capitalism) work itself out? Do you mean as with the coups, mass murder, napalm campaigns that this economic system and ideology has wrought all over the world in the last century to work itself out? hehe

Understanding a moment in history requires placing it in historical context and looking at how the different forces at play interacted to produce a particular result. This way, multiple lines of interpretation can be explored and those with insufficient explanatory power can be exposed and discarded. Otherwise, the conversation will occur without anything really being said and without any chance for transformation in the participants views—after all, that is the point of political discourse, to debate, explore, and deepen our understanding of the world and how to change it for the better. Making assertions without substance and following them with insults just isn’t helpful to anyone.

About what makes communism a worthy goal, instead of just getting rid of the anti-human greed is good system of capitalism is that, to quote this site, when people are freed from the constant stress over securing the basic necessities of life, humanity can cultivate its more intellectual and spiritual potentialities. The compulsive need to consume ever more worthless products will be replaced by the desire to create art, music, literature, science, and philosophy, in addition to engaging in recreation. Rather than evaluating individuals on the basis of their monetary income, they will be appreciated on the basis of the content of their character. Instead of turning our backs on people in need, we will extend a helping hand.

We believe this kind of society is worth fighting for. Do you? If not, why not?

You really think the ‘free market’ can solve problems it is itself creating? Such as problems that plague the working class, problems such as unemployment, a falling standard of living, imperialist wars, racial and sexual discrimination, the destruction of the environment, and a pervasive feeling of powerlessness in the face of corrupt, capitalist political institutions? What it does these things it is in fact “working” the way its supposed to. Its working to make people richer. Recent study shows that in 2009, unemployment rose to historic levels, and people are being driven into more desperation, there was an increase of 16% MORE millionaires in the US? So unless you are already very rich, you are in trouble, and that includes being middle class. So capitalism is working as Marx predicated and described.

And, at various times throughout modern history, workers and their allies, because of endemic suffering, have mobilized their ranks, risen up, and in a powerful gesture have fundamentally altered the capitalist terrain, winning, for example, the 8-hour day, trade union rights, civil rights, unemployment benefits, etc, but this was not “the free market working itself out!” This was people fighting against capitalism!

However, as long as capitalist system itself survives, these gains enjoy only a tenuous existence as they gradually fall prey to the inexorable laws of capitalism. Because each capitalist must compete with other capitalists, all are compelled to maximize their profits simply in order to survive since those with the higher profits, for example, can undersell their competitors and push them out of business. But maximizing profits in turn demands that labor costs are held to a minimum, and for this reason capitalism imposes a relentless downward pressure on the standard of living of the working class so that all hard won gains are unmercifully under attack. Only a socialist revolution offers hope for the working class.

Glenn Beck is pointing out theTRUTH and you idiots talk about communism like its all good. Do any of you idiots remember the USSR? Or Cuba? Or China? None of it works….We need to let the free market system work itself out!

It may be a matter of knowing more about the various facts on the ground today and of history, which we as Americans are largely kept ignorant of. And then there is a matter of ethical principals which I think we, and most, people actually share.

Then, lastly, there is a question of an argument about what is possible, i.e. human nature, etc.

Great response, as always. However, I disagree on nearly every principle (and that’s ok).

Nathan R. Jessup
http://the-raw-deal.com

I will try to answer your questions. I am sorry about the longer, rather dry, response above. I’ll try to be clearer, and use less Marxist jargon.

1). You write: “Human nature (people are motivated by incentive-thus, if the society you are suggesting is of lower quality than the one I enjoy through my current level of hard work, why would I want it?)”

Ah but there are different kinds of incentives, no? Greed is the incentive of capitalism. It’s a system based on selfishness. We are to look out for number 1. Hence, the dog eat dog, predatory, and rebuking values of solidarity, sharing, humanism. But, human nature, is not fixed. The system we live under shapes how we behave and think. We become what we do. You would not agree that humans are also motivated by altruistic and moral incentives to do the right thing because it is right (not because we are getting something out of it)? There are many examples of voluntarism where we humans thrive in giving and doing good for the betterment of others, and this is fulfilling for us in a much more meaningful way than making money. If you disagree with this point, I can come up with examples.

As far as lowering the quality of your life, I doubt socialism will do that for you. Yes, it might lower how much “stuff” you can possibly accumulate, and you might be materially affected if you are one of the big capitalists, but your quality of life, I think, will be enhanced in more meaningful ways, as it will be a life that is contributing to greater social justice for your fellow man, here and around the world. That to me, is far more important than trying to be a Bill Gates. hehe

2)Freedom/Capitalism allows me to get what I want (depending on how badly I want it)

I don’t know if that is true or not for you, but it certainly is not true for millions, and world-wide, billions of people who are ravished by capitalism, and the various political systems that enforce capitalist relations. Lets look at the US, one of the most riches countries in the world (but with a very extreme wealth gap, always increasing). Lets look at hunger. A recent study came out by the USDA. See http://feedingamerica.org/faces-of-hunger/hunger-101/usda-hunger-numbers.aspx

1 in 6 Americans is food insecure. 1 in 4 children lives in a food-insecure household. In 2008, 49.1 million (16.4%) Americans lived in food insecure households compared to 36.2 million (12.2%) in 2007. In 2008, 17.2 million (14.6%) American households are food insecure compared to 13 million (11.1%) in 2007. In 2008, 8.3 million (21%) households with children are living in food insecure households compared to 6.2 million (15.8%) in 2007. In 2008, 16.7 million (22.5%) children are living in food insecure households compared to 12.4 million (16.9%) in 2007.
# In 2008, 2.3 million (8.1%) households with seniors were living in food insecure households compared to 1.8 million (6.5%) in 2007. The number of individuals who are food insecure increased 36% over 2007 and the number of children increased 35% over 2007.

“”Food insecurity” means that the people don’t have dependable access to enough food to sustain a healthy life. It means they go to bed hungry. Take this hunger quiz about the US that is based on this study: http://feedingamerica.org/faces-of-hunger/hunger-101/quiz.aspx

Now, I don’t think you will doubt that hungry people “want” food, right? So we can logically deduce that for millions of people in this country, they DON’T get want they want? Also, the study shows that working harder does not change this realty for millions of people, who still have to choose between eating, paying rent, or getting medical care. They are working hard but still stay poor, the working poor. Most are in rural areas, and not urban cities, either. So, its good and lucky that you are doing well enough to meet your basic needs, but a lot of people were not able to, despite wanting to, and despite working hard.

But, as I said in my first message to you, your ability to “make it’ is really besides the point. Communism and socialism is about social justice, first and foremost. Getting more by depriving others, doesn’t qualify as acceptable. Controlling and owning privately the means of subsistence (the means of production) into the hands of a small group of people, when it should rightful belong to everyone in society, is wrong. Wealth is socially produced, and should be socially appropriated.

I’d like to use an analogy. Think of a meat grinder. What if you can find many intact pieces that got through and missed the blades? Is it not a silly argument to point to these whole pieces that made it past the grinding blades to argue that you can make it after all? Yes, many do, but many don’t. Most born into modern day slavery end up dying that way, while working their whole life, in poverty, while those born into lives of privilege, pass on that wealth to their children, whose opportunties are further enhanced in many ways. Again, not absolutely determinative, but that is not the point. The point is there is a system, which is a meat-grinder for most, with people due to not fault of their own, end up with the bones crushing reality. Likewise, rich people, or those lucky enough to acend to class privledge, have no speical moral claim or right to be where they are, per se. Its how society is structured.

3)You wrote: “People in America who are poor, are not oppressed (disadvantaged is not oppressed)-for this reason, there can never be a ‘blueprint’ for success. Further, the percentage of successful people in a truly “free” society is equal to the number of people who practice discipline, hard work and perseverance.”

Well, I guess it depends on how you define oppressed. Poverty is a form of violence, and it deprives people of essential human rights, and dignity. Capitalism always needs an underclass, a reserve army of the unemployed. But there can be and there is a blue print for “success,” if by success we mean an end to poverty, hunger, disempowerment, etc. It’s socialism. Take away the robber class, the vampires, feeding on the blood of the world’s poor. Stopping this sytem of organized crime, of international plunder called capitalism, and it’s monopoly stage, known as Imperialism.

4)”Altruistic acts cease to be altruistic if forced. If you make a lot of money and want to ‘redistribute’ your money to those less fortunate (or those who have worked less) then do it. Personally, I have used a successful real estate company…BUT, and it’s a big but; individuals need to work hard for this housing opportunity (it is not given away). We have found that those who work hard and achieve their goal, are most likely to preserve, and eventually improve their way of life.”

Some work hard acheive their goals, most don’t. See meat grinder analogy, but its beside the point. In my first message, I attacked the very moral basis of the class system, and asked you how you would defend the fact that some people are born into riches and others poverty? Or a rich country vs a poor one? What makes the wealth/money you are able to make, rightfully yours? Not legally mind you, but from a moral perspective? I’m speaking of the privileged claim to the benefits that come from the exercise of talents and/or class position within market economic relations, in amassing fortunes?

Consider that such class positions, and our ability for the accumulation of wealth is largely not even of our own doing, but result family circumstances, social and cultural contingencies for which we as individuals can claim no credit in the first place. Even our effort, our striving work ethic, etc are largely products of a privileged state we are born into, as studies show. And, even if our wealth is the result of genuine natural talents, we are still rewarding something that we had no choice in the matter either: winning the genetic lottery, being born gifted, etc. Is that really a fair and just way to command the flow of societies resources? Any good principal of freedom and justice must begin with a repudiation, of such a society, and challenge the philosophical assumptions of its system of wealth distribution. In it the rich get richer (the law of the accumulation of capital),and those that work the hardest make the least.

You’ve mentioned that society shouldn’t force people, etc. But everythign about this society is based on force and violence. You may have heard the slogan, PROPERTY IS THEFT. Think about it. Almost every patch of land on Earth was stolen (i.e. obtained through initiation of force) at some point in its history. The stolen land was later inherited or sold until it reached its present owners. Thus, property over land and natural resources is based on the initiation of force. So if private property over natural resources is based on the initiation of force, by extension, private property over all goods derives from it are dervived from violence, since natural resources are required in the production of all goods. The very basis for capitalist accumulation orginally rests on coercion and is defended by the organized violence of the State.

So I’ve made an argument of not having any good reason for accepting morally arbitrary factors (for example, the family we’re born into, the genetic lottery, having talents that the market places happens to reward, etc) as determinative our life chances or opportunities, i.e. we do not especially deserve what we have, much less have a moral right to it, per se, ie. we are not entitled to all the benefits we could possibly receive from them, or do get from them in a capitalis sytem. Its not a very radical notion, per the social contract theory, that society can with good moral cause legitimately regulate the distribution of social and economic advantages across society under terms of fairness, not to mention justice, which then rightly includes the suppression of the “right” to exploit and oppress others (which is no right as exploitation is itself rooted in violence), and allow people basic guarantees of political and economic rights, without which there is very little liberty to speak of in a meaningful sense. And among these basic economic rights are rights to control the resources that are essential for the public’s well being, and not allow it to be concentrated into the hands of the few, who end up turning us into wage slaves for them.

5)As we currently live in a free society (as much as you might disagree) why not begin practicing Communism within your own community of believers? Meaning, start a small town, commune, village etc. and share everything. Let your ideas be put to the test and hopefully be an example for everyone to follow (with Capitalism, you have that option).

Someone already answered this pretty well but I’ll add that communism only exists on a world scale. Yes, we can have communes, but and communist-like living arrangments, and people do so this, and there are many famous examples. The ones that pose a political threat to the capitalist way of doing things are crushed, destoryed. In fact we do that against whole countries for fear of the “good example.” But, communism is about social justice, not a lifestyle. So we want to fight oppression and exploitation wherever it exists, in all it’s forms. Workers of the world unite!

[Onehundredflowers] I do understand the policy and would only ask that I might address one last thing publicly as the previous comment has already been posted. In advance, I thank you.

(In response to the angry and assuming commenter)

And all of these things said by someone who claims to own “a successful real estate company” who defends and sings the praises of the rotting carcass of the capitalist system during a time when so many people in this nation have been and are currently being thrown out of their homes. During a time when getting sick often means that people lose everything, including their homes. During a time when so many have lost their jobs. During a time when there have never been so many homeless and hungry people wandering the streets of America.

I am getting personal about myself (attack me if you like) to address this comment…

Several years back, I lost everything. With the initial market collapse I lost several investment properties to foreclosure, laid off 32 people and closed the doors to our company. I then lost my personal house (where my family lived) and had only a little in savings. My emotional pain was plentiful along with my self-pity. Due to a previous injury, I was taking pain killers at the time. I increased my daily intake. Then increased some more. Until finally, I was no longer feeling pain from anything (physical, emotional or otherwise). While I had no money or self-respect, I WAS pain-free (or so I thought). One night while at home with my fiance, my body shut down from all the pain killers in my system. I collapsed to the bathroom floor in a seizure that lasted nearly 5 minutes (she was screaming). I was then rushed to the hospital and treated (without any health insurance). The tab came to nearly $16K (of which I had none). I was forced to declare bankruptcy from the event. Talk about lows. I wanted nothing more than to just forget it all and disappear…but I didn’t.

I chose to rebuild (because I had that ‘difficult’ option), and rebuild I would. While I am still picking up the pieces from my financial past, things are going well. Our new company is growing, I love my family, and have a wonderful dog. America isn’t perfect, but it is as close as I have ever seen and wouldn’t trade it for anything. I don’t care if you don’t agree with me, believe me, or like me-just believe in yourself (that’s what made Americans strong in the first place). Thanks again to everyone who treated me with respect, feel free to stop by the Raw Deal anytime…

God Bless America

Nathan R. Jessup
http://the-raw-deal.com