u/JudgeSabo

I'm almost done reading to Capital Volume 3 and came across a quote I've seen before, but just love which really hones in on Marx's idea of what communism means in chapter 48:

> In fact, the realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature of things it lies beyond the sphere of actual material production. Just as the savage must wrestle with Nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilised man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all possible modes of production. With his development this realm of physical necessity expands as a result of his wants; but, at the same time, the forces of production which satisfy these wants also increase. Freedom in this field can only consist in socialised man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working-day is its basic prerequisite.

While Marx rejected "moralizing" approaches to socialism, he did have some normative idea of what we are fighting for expressed in his idea of human development. Communism is about the full and free development of every individual, specifically in developing their distinctly "human" powers.

Labor is especially important in this, not only as it produces the things we need to exercise these powers, but because labor itself is the most direct way that we engage with the world around us, literally "humanizing" Nature. We look at the world around us, and instead of seeing it as an alien and hostile force imposing itself on us, we work with it harmoniously, which we identify directly with, reflecting us back to it.

Remembering this part of Marx's theory helps us to also avoid the common mistaken views of Marx which identify socialism or communism with a merely rising standard of living, or which takes it as a rational and benevolent, yet still alien, bureaucracy overseeing matters. Certainly to be able to achieve a really human existence, we need to reach at least some minimal level. As Marx says in his Manuscripts:

> For the starving man, it is not the human form of food that exists, but only its abstract existence as food. It could just as well be there in its crudest form, and it would be impossible to say wherein this feeding activity differs from that of animals. The care-burdened, poverty-stricken man has no sense for the finest play; the dealer in minerals sees only the commercial value but not the beauty and the specific character of the mineral: he has no mineralogical sense. Thus, the objectification of the human essence, both in its theoretical and practical aspects, is required to make man’s sense human, as well as to create the human sense corresponding to the entire wealth of human and natural substance.

But once this is secured, we make a great mistake in thinking that communism is about merely getting stuff instead of focusing on the social relations we have to one another and to Nature. It is about developing our distinctly human capacities, not only mentally, but even "humanizing" the five senses!

In this quote in Capital, Marx helps to clarify this. In any society, any economic structure or mode of production, people need to labor to guarantee that at least certain basic necessities are covered. This is an "eternal" law, just as true for the "savage" (as outdated as that term is) as for the "civilized" man.

Primitive man, like the starving man, has a very narrow horizon for his needs. "Food" exists for them, but not "human food," not something that they can really engage with and see themselves reflected back in. Food is not an art form, but a mere source of calories. For it to become something more requires greater development.

As we rise above this, our needs actually increase, rather than decreasing, because we develop the capacity for greater things, for something human. But at the same time, our ability to satisfy these needs increases with the productive forces.

As humans, we will always have some degree of need, and Marx expects that there will always be some need for labor. Communism retains the "realm of necessity" in this sense. However, it does introduce freedom into this as much as possible. This is not merely a matter of better working conditions or reducing the workload, just as it is not merely a matter of greater distribution (equivalent to higher wages in capitalism today).

Rather, the first and most important thing is that labor is transformed into socialized labor, engaged in by the associated producers (edit: To clarify, it is socialized labor in the sense it is carried out by "socialized man" and under their control. Capitalism beings this process, turning isolated production into social production.). And they are not merely mindless tools executing the commands of some capitalist or bureaucrat, but coming to their own rational plan in their association. Rather than being subject to "blind forces", whether Natural forces or social forces, they are executing their own plan. Their labor is reflective of them. It is humanized. Making the labor something worthy of that human nature is supplemental, though obviously deeply connected, to that.

But the real jewel of communism is not even found here. This all still works in the realm of necessity, even if we have liberated it as far as possible. The real goal of communism comes outside that, in the realm of freedom. By shortening the working-day, something made possible by the developed forces of production and their socialization in this way, we gain a greater ability to develop our human powers outside of the workplace. Outside the hours of necessary labor, we can do as we wish, and further develop our human capacities.

Communism is free time.

I've started working on a guide on the Manifesto! Basically going through it line by line and trying to elaborate on things, or connect it to other parts of Marx's thought or socialism more generally.

I originally posted some of this just on a substack, but I'm avoiding posting that directly here to avoid self-promotion. It is longer than the character limit allows here, but I thought I'd share some!

Any thoughts or critiques would be deeply appreciated.

#The Writing of the Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto is a political pamphlet written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Though more on Engels there in a moment. Marx was 30 years old at the time, and it therefore marks one of his great early works.

It was published in 1848, during the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europe to date against monarchies and feudalism, as well as demanding certain liberties like freedom of press, economic rights for the working class, and the establishment of nation states.

The Manifesto was divided into a preamble and four chapters. The first chapter covers the history of the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat and applies Marx’s idea of historical materialism, setting up why revolution is necessary. The second focuses on the relationship between the proletariat and the communists, and covers some of the basic demands of the communists. The third chapter is on socialist and communist literature, and provides some thoughts on other socialist literature of the day. The fourth and final chapter considers the relationship of communists to other parties and how its ideas may be applied in various countries.

In June 1847, Engels was asked by the League of the Just to write something to present the basic positions of communism, leading to the Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith, written in the style of a religious catechism. After finding out Moses Hess had written a similar “creed,” Engels refined this into a more detailed document, the Principles of Communism.

However, shortly after, Engels wrote a letter to Marx asking if he could write a manifesto that would ground what was being said in history. At the second Congress of the League of Communists (which formed when the League of the Just merged with Marx and Engels’ Communist Correspondence Committee), Marx and Engels were dominant personalities, and after much debate were commissioned to draw up a Manifesto.

However, Marx procrastinated actually writing the document, and got involved in writing other documents instead. After the League had not heard from Marx in two months, they sent him an ultimatum on January 24 or 26 to submit the manuscript in full by February 1st. Marx often didn’t work well without the pressure of a deadline, and rushed to finish.

While Engels is credited as a co-author, the final version was written entirely by Marx. Engels’ contribution is somewhat unclear.

The Manifesto’s preamble announced it was to be published in “English, French, German, Italian, Flemish and Danish languages,” but was originally only published in German, and only really had any influence on the 1848 revolutions in Germany. A year later, in May 1849, Marx was expelled from Germany and left for London. German police also began cracking down on the Communist League, who were put on trial in 1852.

With the defeat of the 1848 revolutions, the Manifesto was somewhat forgotten. Over the next few decades, only a few editions were published, such as Mikhail Bakunin’s translation into Russian. It wouldn’t be until the early 1870s that is publication would become more widespread. This is largely due to Marx’s influence in the First International, the Paris Commune of 1871, and the Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Germany being put on trial. During court proceedings, the Manifesto was read into the court record, which meant it could be legally published in Germany. The document would become more influential over various social democratic parties in Europe of the time.

Now on to the Manifesto.

#Preamble

>> A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism.

The Communist Manifesto begins by emphasizing how the powerful institutions of the world fear communism. It is a ghost against which the old powers of Europe have formed an alliance.

The Manifesto lists:

The Pope of the Roman Catholic Church (at the time, Pope Pius IX)
The Tsar of Russia (at the time, the reactionary autocrat Tsar Nicholas I)
The reactionary Austrian foreign minister Prince Metternich
The liberal French Prime Minister François Guizot
The French Radicals who opposed the monarchy but supported capitalism
The “German police-spies” cracking down on any and all dissent

While these represent very different political tendencies and people who are often opposed to one another (e.g. the Pope vs the anti-Catholic French radicals), they are united at least in opposing communism, which is seen as a threat to them all.

The idea here is likely more a matter of how the word “communist” is used by these institutions to disparage anyone they don’t like. Still, reading this today, we can see very little has changed, if not gotten worse after the many red scares.

How much power the communists actually had in 1848 is probably exaggerated here. But with the waves of revolutions going on at the time, the idea was first beginning to take root. The goal of the Manifesto was to advance communism from being a mere “spectre” into something with a concrete program.

The Manifesto was commissioned from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels by the Communist League, which came from merging the League of the Just with the Communist Correspondence Committee (which was founded by Marx and Engels).

#Chapter 1: Bourgeois and Proletarians

To make these notes easier to digest, I am introducing subsections here that are not in the original text. To show these are mine and not Marx or Engels, I will include them in parentheses.

##(On the Terms “Bourgeois” and “Proletariat”)

We actually begin this chapter with a footnote from Engels, providing an explanation for the chapter title. Engels adds in the 1888 English edition:

>> By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labour. >> >> By proletariat, the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live.

The terms “bourgeois” and “proletariat” can trip people up pretty easily, especially if they’re not read up on socialist theory, but the explanation here does help.

The term “bourgeoisie” is derived from the Old French “borgeis,” meaning “city dweller.” Think of how some cities end in the term “burg” like Pittsburgh, Edinburgh or Saint Petersburg. The bourgeoisie were the people in the bourgs (walled market-towns), meaning they were wealthier than peasants, but not part of the feudal nobility. In this sense, the bourgeoisie represented a “middle class” which took on greater import. Given this history of the term, Engels wants to clarify that he and Marx have in mind capitalists specifically, with their most defining features being that they own the social means of production which they employ wage workers to operate (in contrast to, say, an artisan who might own and operate their own means of production individually).

The term “proletariat” by contrast comes from the Latin “proletarius,” literally meaning “producing offspring.” In the ancient Roman Republic, the proletarii were an official social class of Roman citizens who owned little to no property, and would be marked as such in their census. Their only role was, as the name implies, to produce offspring and increase the population. The term was sometimes used (although rarely) by 18th and 19th century socialists like the proto-communist Babeuf or Saint-Simon.

Marx’s own use of the term for workers in capitalism is likely inspired by Sismondi. In this narrower sense, the defining feature of the proletariat is still their poverty, lacking their own means of production, yet is still a legally “free” person (i.e. not a slave). The proletariat survive in capitalism by selling the only significant thing of value they have, their labor-power, to the bourgeoisie in exchange for a wage.

Marx and Engels would refine their idea of the proletariat over time. At the time the Manifesto was written, Marx had not yet distinguished the sale of “labor” from the sale of “labor-power,” for example, and Engels describes the proletariat in his Principles as only coming into existence in the 18th century, despite the term dating back to Ancient Rome. The footnote added here in 1888 represents a summary of the more developed understanding.

We can also address some other potential confusions. For one thing, “proletariat” is often used synonymously with “the working class.” The proletariat for Marx and Engels though are just one of several “working classes,” which would also include slaves, feudal serfs, or peasants. In socialist literature, the term “working class” or “toilers” is sometimes used to refer to all of these classes collectively. Other times, we see the plurality of working classes recognized, as in the General Rules of the First International, which began by declaring that “the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves”.

We can also note that what makes someone proletarian here is not the type of work they do, but their social relations mediated by the means of production. You sometimes have reactionaries today, like the fascists and vulgar Marxists of the ACP, who claim that retail workers cannot be proletarian because they are not producing a physical thing, like a miner or factory worker does. But this does not follow from the actual definition of the proletariat Marx or Engels provided.

For more, I highly recommend “What is the Proletariat?” by Zoe Baker.

(Class Struggle and Historical Materialism)

> > The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

The Manifesto begins by making a very broad claim for how we can interpret history. But as Engels also adds in a footnote, this is only intended to apply to all written history, and perhaps even more specifically to the history of which Marx and Engels were aware (i.e. primarily European history, as compared to, say, indigenous American history). Engels notes how, since the Manifesto was written, more research had been done into the prehistory of humanity, and how this revealed points about how class society developed.

Understanding Marx’s approach to history is crucial for understanding his political theory more broadly. This can be seen in how the first chapter of the Manifesto is entirely dedicated to describing the history of the bourgeoisie and proletariat, contextualizing their historical development, and trying to derive from that an idea of where society is headed.

This approach, later named historical materialism, focuses on how societies physically reproduce themselves in production, how this shapes our other institutions (religious, political, academic, etc.), and how changes in production lead to changes in our institutions. Similar to the evolution of life and how things adapt to their environment, certain environments will only be compatible with certain forms of life. Likewise, the types of society that can exist at any one time is limited by what conditions allow systems to produce and reproduce themselves, and changes in these conditions will change what kinds of society are possible.

To give a simple example, think of how before industrialization most people needed to live as farmers just to make sure everyone had enough food. The kind of social and legal structures that existed needed to adapt to that assumption. But after the industrial revolution, less people were needed on farms, and at the same time factories needed a lot more people to work in them. So legal structures either needed to adapt or countries would be worried about being left behind. Legal structures that guaranteed people access to the land were undone, while legal structures allowing people to become factory workers needed to be created.

Or think of the development of modern computers today and how this has reshaped how businesses and governments are structured today. If all computers were to suddenly break and we were unable to produce more, think of how radically we would need to reshape and reorganize these institutions, even though these things have only existed for a few decades.

Naming different periods of human history after the kind of technology they had access to is a pretty standard practice beyond Marx. Even at the time he was writing, it was common to talk about the stone age, the bronze age, the iron age of the three-age system.

Marx believed that, as humans develop the “productive forces” of society (i.e. technology, scientific knowledge, social relations of production, etc.), new possibilities emerge, things that were previously necessary are no longer needed, while other things become necessary. The social, legal, and political institutions that were originally designed for a very different kind of society come into conflict more and more with this economic structure, setting the economic “base” against the social “superstructure.”

As the superstructures hinder the development of these productive forces, they must either adapt to this new base or they will collapse, setting the stage for a political or social revolution.

This is why Marx and Engels think of (written) human history as a history of class struggle. From the data available to them, the societies that had developed writing and written history had been structured as class systems, where certain economic ruling classes could dominate and exploit lower classes of people. These were the kind of social relations of production these societies had formed. The hope of the communists is that, given how the economic base is changing today, we have the chance to move away from these antagonistic social relations into a non-antagonistic one where people are free, i.e. a classless society.

This examination of society as being divided into “classes” is especially inspired by the recent French Revolution in Marx’s day, especially from publications like What is the Third Estate? It argued how the “third estate,” in contrast to the first estate (the clergy) and the second estate (the aristocracy) were in conflict, and how the third estate would do away with these institutions.

The analysis of people as being divided into economic classes was also common among political economists, like Adam Smith. Marx is not introducing anything radical here then by proposing we analyze society this way. What is actually radical is where he thinks this is leading.

Marx summarizes this idea of historical materialism well in his Preface to his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy:

> The general conclusion at which I arrived and which, once reached, became the guiding principle of my studies can be summarised as follows. > > In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. > > In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production. No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society. > > Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation. In broad outline, the Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in the economic development of society. The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production – antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism but of an antagonism that emanates from the individuals’ social conditions of existence – but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism. The prehistory of human society accordingly closes with this social formation.

With this, we can also understand why the first chapter of the Manifesto is so focused on history. This method is being used to analyze history, showing how this framework has actually played out in practice, and how mismatches in the economic base and superstructure led to the end of feudalism by revolutions, and the rise of the bourgeoisie (capitalists) in capitalism as the new dominant mode of production.

But capitalism, as Marx is pointing out, has also created and is developing the proletariat as a new oppressed class. As capitalism continues to develop the productive forces of society, he expects the proletariat to gain strength, while capitalism will become more and more of a hindrance to developing society. This, he predicts, will lead to another revolution, a communist revolution, which will do away with these class antagonisms all together.

It is important to remember these points against how Marx is misinterpreted by his enemies, or even by “vulgar Marxists.” Marx’s “materialism” does not commit him to the strong position that people are only, or even primarily, motivated by economic factors (i.e. that we are “materialistic”). Even if economic class struggle is a primary driving force in history, this does not imply that people are psychologically motivated to engage in class struggle for merely economic reasons. People are not merely motivated by the desire for material comforts, but also from love, fear, pride, lust, compassion, and so on. Rather, he is committed to the view that these other spiritual values are rooted and shaped by our given material circumstances. This is just as true for the ascetic as it is for the hedonist (apologies to Epicurus).

Similarly, Marx is not committed to a view of hard economic determinism, where the economic foundation of society is the only important part of society and that any and all changes must be reducible to it. Rather, Marx is only committed to the weaker view that the economy provides the real foundation for other parts of society. This is because the economy is necessary in a way other social structures are not. It produces the necessities that guarantee our continued survival (food, clothing, shelter, etc.), as well as other things necessary for certain forms of organization (e.g. an online socialist book club depends on the economy producing computers, electricity, and so on). Further, because the economy also requires us to engage in certain behaviors, these actions also shape our awareness and worldview, changing us as we change the world in production.

Marx expresses this point in one passage in Capital, Volume 1:

> This much, however, is clear, that the middle ages could not live on Catholicism, nor the ancient world on politics. On the contrary, it is the mode in which they gained a livelihood that explains why here politics, and there Catholicism, played the chief part.

Even in the ancient world and the middle ages then, the economy provided the “foundation” upon which these societies could live. However, in saying this, Marx does not deny that “here politics, and there Catholicism” can play the “chief part” in these societies.

The most solid part of Marx’s theory is that, whatever superstructure of society exists, it must be adapted to the economic foundation. This can be achieved by gradual changes as well as violent revolutions. Whenever we analyze a particular revolution, like the French Revolution, we will not only find economic factors coming into play, but plenty of social, political, and interpersonal factors coming into play. A simplistic view of the French Revolution which ignored how, say, the nobility were investing their own wealth to become more like the bourgeoisie, or how the bourgeoisie were trying to buy their way into the nobility, or how hatred over France’s ties to Austria led to hatred of Louis XVI and his marriage to Marie Antoinette, will all necessarily be an incomplete picture. Why gradual changes and adaptations here, or sudden violent changes there, take place will depend on more factors than merely a conflict between the base and superstructure.

The Manifesto continues by giving several examples of historical class divisions and what resulted from them:

>> Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

The conflict between these classes is rooted in their respective systems of oppression. The oppressor class is able to benefit and support itself by the domination and exploitation of the oppressed classes, and likewise the interest of the oppressed class is in resistance to this oppression.

In this framing, class conflict is not just something that sometimes appears in turbulent moments. Rather, this conflict is inherent to the class system itself, although it may take more “hidden” or “open” forms.

This turns out to be one of the major drivers of change in that society. The oppressing class has benefited from some given condition and system that allows them to maintain their rule over the oppressed class. But as the productive forces change, this power base slips away from them. Meanwhile, we have a class of people, united by this common interest, who are motivated to do away with the current system.

As conditions change more and more, this conflict results in a changed society, so long as we assume the conflict or changed conditions don’t result in the “common ruin” of both the oppressed and the oppressors. Not all developments are guaranteed to be beneficial to human life. War, disease, and environmental destruction are equally “valid” outcomes of this conflict.

We should note however that, even as Marx is contrasting different opposed classes here, this does not imply he has a “binary” notion of classes, as if only two groups are ever in conflict. Marx is well aware that society is, and always has been, much more complicated than that. He clarifies this immediately after:

> > In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.

We not only have different classes, but also different subclasses within each class, what Marx calls here “subordinate gradations.”

These class divisions have existed in the past, and, as we saw, denouncing these divisions was a major drive in things like the French Revolution and the praise of the Third Estate. These revolutions did not abolish class, but instead only put the bourgeois (capitalist) class in power, and established a new dominant superstructure to society:

> > 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.

But while capitalism has not done away with class division, Marx does think it has relatively simplified these class antagonisms as being primarily between the bourgeoisie (capitalists) and the proletariat (propertyless wage-laborers).

> > Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.

Keep in mind that Marx is still not claiming that we have a binary class system today. Rather, he is describing a tendency that is dividing society into these “two great hostile camps.” This is not a claim that these are the only camps that exist, and other camps are discussed within the Manifesto itself.

##(The Economic Advance of the Bourgeoisie)

As mentioned above, the bourgeoisie find their origin as “burghers” of the Middle Ages, the inhabitants of towns or “burghs.” The “bourgeoisie” is just the French version of this name.

Marx’s focus now is to show how the bourgeoisie was able to grow in power and eventually usurp the feudal order. The biggest opportunities for this were the expanded ability to travel, which allowed the bourgeoisie to enrich themselves from colonization of America and Africa and access Asian markets. This allowed commerce to greatly expand in a way that really hadn’t existed before.

The opportunity and demand this opened up led to a huge need to increase production. In feudal society, production and manufacturing (at least what wasn’t a matter of mere subsistence) was monopolized by closed guilds, which were professional associations of artisans and merchants.

The guilds tried to increase production to keep up with the markets, producing new techniques. Especially important here was the development of manufacturing.

Now, instead of a bunch of people working in isolation on different tasks, people worked more on an assembly line, each person being given a specialized task. This was a developed division of labor.

Marx would later give a much more detailed analysis of the history of manufacturing Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 14. This is an especially important event because it greatly increased how cooperative production is, and therefore brings these workers into association with one another. Societies have always been a matter of cooperation, to some extent.

However, markets kept expanding, and the demand was outpacing even what we were able to produce by manufacturing. This was replaced by machinery, switching out the manufacturing system for the factory system.

Marx is therefore distinguishing between “manufacturing” and “modern industry” in ways that might not be familiar to how we use these terms in our day-to-day life. The important developments in manufacturing was how it brought workers together to cooperate in a single production process. The important developments for modern industry, by contrast, are about changes in machinery, in the means of production. As Marx puts it in Capital, chapter 15:

>>In manufacture, the revolution in the mode of production begins with the labour-power, in modern industry it begins with the instruments of labour.

This is what began the Industrial Revolution proper. The bourgeoisie, as the owners of these factories, therefore took on increasingly powerful positions in the economy.

The Manifesto puts it like this:

>>The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, Modern Industry; the place of the industrial middle class by industrial millionaires, the leaders of the whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.

Because of the mass production enabled by modern industry, and the advanced methods of transportation and communication, the bourgeoisie (capitalists) are able to produce for a world market. This market allows production to increase, and increased production expands the market. And as these capitalist modes of production increase, the bourgeoisie, the capitalists, begin to displace the other economic classes left over from the Middle Ages.

>>We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange.

##(The Political Advance of the Bourgeoisie)

As the bourgeoisie gained economic power, they also gained political power.

When it first emerged, the bourgeoisie were fully under the control of the feudal nobility. But as they grew stronger, their power became more formally recognized in the political system. Their towns became self-governing, with a degree of independence away from the nobility. This led into urban republics and the French “Third Estate” which could exist as rival powers to the feudal nobility.

However, in the age of Modern Industry and the world market, and the move into “representative” governments (i.e. democracies, republic, etc.), Marx and Engels believe that the bourgeoisie far and away hold the most political influence, giving them “exclusive political sway.” The existence of such states is also something that the bourgeoisie have conquered for itself, most dramatically in things like the American and French revolutions, but which had also spread out to other countries from there.

>>The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.

It is once again important to not misunderstand this. The actions of the State do not necessarily line up one-to-one with the interests of the bourgeoisie. Certainly not to each capitalist individually, but sometimes not even to the capitalists as a whole. Capitalists are, after all, in competition with one another in the market, and not all individual members of the bourgeoisie hold equal levels of sway.

So while some things are part of the “common affairs” of the bourgeoisie (e.g. upholding private property rights, managing contract disputes, preventing workers from organizing, etc.), other things are not. But this “committee,” and individual members of that committee, can develop their own interests which would be in parallel to, but in some ways distinct from, the interests of the bourgeoisie in managing their “common affairs.”

A government might find it in their interest to impose tariffs, even when that hinders the capitalist’s desire for a global market, or declare a misguided war for political reasons and refuse to withdraw out of embarrassment and not wanting to admit defeat. The US invasion of Iran, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Israel’s genocide against Gaza all stand out as major recent examples by capitalist governments.

##(The Revolutionary Role of the Bourgeoisie)

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

We’ve seen that the bourgeoisie has gained a tremendous amount of power, and in the process have been able to crowd out their competitors. By developing Modern Industry, and expanding their market across the world, they drive out non-capitalist systems of production. By monopolizing political power, they have eliminated or greatly diminished the influence of other classes. Sometimes they’ve done this in literal revolutions.

In the process, the bourgeoisie have undone all the excuses given by their competitors.

In upending feudalism, they’ve replaced the serf being bound to his “natural superiors. Gone is the excuse of noblesse oblige. Now we just have a plain and simple cash payment establishing this relationship in wage labor.

So too have religious excuses been upended. Rather than pious devotion to God and paying tithes to the Church, there is only the profit motive.

>>In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

Similarly, different revered and sentimental social relations are reduced here to a money relationship. Different honored professions like doctors, lawyers, priests, poets, and scientists are turned into just different kinds of wage laborers. Likewise, family relationships are highlighted mainly as economic relationships, as assets are combined in marriage, divided in divorce or inheritance, and so on.

This is not to say that other motivations are not still involved in these things. Someone may still become a doctor or a public defender as a way to help people, to do good. People can and do marry for love. But as these institutions exist in any formal way in capitalism, they are treated as just another kind of wage laborer, just another kind of economic contract. They have, in one sense, become more open and available to everyone, while also losing their mystique and grandeur. It shows what is possible, even though we remain in this alienated relationship.

Similarly, the bourgeoisie have outdone past civilizations, for good and ill. We are able to produce wonders today that were never imaginable before, filling society with architectural and technological wonders. At the same time, the militarism of modern society also outdoes previous societies, with slaughters that put events like the crusades to shame. We’ve shown how a “brutal display of vigour” in these military campaigns can be combined with “the most slothful indolence,” as these campaigns are carried out on behalf of the idle classes living in luxury.

Capitalism has upset these prior social relations more broadly because it has been such a disruptive force economically. But the bourgeoisie are not able to rest after these changes have been made. Capitalist competition drives them to constantly be trying to change, update, and advance how production is being carried out in the search for profit. Rather than aiming at a kind of stable and peaceful class relationship, things are thrown into constant uncertainty.

>>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.

Continuing this in the comments.

Fight the System.

Communism is free time

Reality Has a Socialist Bias - Zoe Baker

Ribbons from the Dragon Con Wildbow Fan Meeting!

Dragon Con / Wildbow Fans Meet Up this Sunday!

Marx on Alienation from Labor - RedPlateaus

Dragon Con meet up!

Any Wildbow/Worm fans interested in a meet up?

Marx 101: Introduction to Dialectical Materialism | Red Plateaus

Great video explaining how Jordan Peterson gets Marx wrong!

Atlanta Socialist Hangout next Thursday!

A Guide to the Communist Manifesto: Chapter 3

Wildbow Fan Meetup!

Wildbow Fans at Dragon Con!

Atlanta Socialist Hangout next Thursday!

Shūsui Kōtoku on Patriotism

"The history of the American kings of capital and authority is the history of repeated crimes, injustice, oppression, outrage, and abuse, all aiming at the suppression of individual liberties and the exploitation of the people." - Emma Goldman

Why does the Manifesto describe Proudhon as an example of bourgeois socialism instead of petty bourgeois socialism?

Found a very important Marx quote on value buried in Volume 3!

Working on a guide/commentary to the Manifesto

(Class Struggle and Historical Materialism)