The Communist Manifesto

In 2002, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in Europe (OECD) detailed the growing gap between the incomes of the rich and poor in 20 OECD member states. In particular, the study concluded that the poorest 30 percent of the population in the countries examined received only 5 to 13 percent of the national income while the richest 30 percent of the population received 55 to 65 percent. The United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands demonstrated the biggest growths in social inequality (Henning 1). These numbers suggest some validity to Marx's claims of an uneven class structure inherent to industrial capitalism. However, the fact that a workers' revolution has not yet erupted in any significantly advanced capitalist country suggests a significant flaw in Marx and Engels' arguments in the Communist Manifesto.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote "The Communist Manifesto" in 1848 to serve as the announcement of the platform for their newly-formed Communist League. They published the text just after a revolutionary movement swept across Europe during 1848 and into 1849 (Encyclopedia Britannica 1). This movement evoked uprisings in numerous European countries for a variety of reasons. But in most cases, the revolutions sought better political representation and living conditions for the disenfranchised and lower classes (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2004, p. 1). The movement played an important role in shaping the modern history of E

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therto existing societies is the history of class struggles" (Marx & Engels Part II). The class-based issues of the revolutions of 1848 were, for them, merely contemporary examples of a struggle that had been brewing for centuries. They argued that the relationship of oppressor and oppressed - "[f]reeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman" - has always characterized social relations, if not in kind, then certainly in degree (Marx & Engels Part II). Thus, in their contemporary society, they saw these "class antagonisms" in the relationship between the bourgeoisie and proletariat. In the Manifesto, Marx and Engels argue that the feudal system of industry, under which the guild system had protected craftsmen and laborers, had been replaced by the industrial manufacturing system, which relied on a mechanically-based division of labor (Marx & Engels Part II). As the Industrial Revolution progressed, industrialists had become social and economic leaders, "modern bourgeois" who reduced workers simply to their cash value in the industrial workplace. Thus, for Marx and Engels, concepts such as "free trade" and "laissez faire economics" were not the means of expanding access to and for foreign mark

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