reated by the masses. He saw the industrialist capitalist society of his era as the “last-but-one stage of historical development before the advent of a conflict-free society” (Magee 168).
The relentless development of technology would displace more and more workers, with the result that workers would become more numerous, impoverished, and alienated, and the ownership of the means of production would be concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. This would increasingly “polarize society into two classes: the capitalists and the workers” (Magee 168). The conflict between these two groups was bound to grow bitterer, until the workers, in their overwhelming superiority of numbers, would rise up and overthrow the capitalist class. The workers would then take control of the means of production and ensure an equitable division of the benefits of labor and the creation of a classless society. Society, now being class-free, would also be conflict-free. There would be no further need for the government of people, but only the administration of things. No longer coerced by uncontrollable historical forces or constrained by government, human beings would be “free to fulfill themselves and their destiny” (Magee 169).
The social revolution proposed by Marx called for the elimination of private property and for collective ownership of all goods. Marx did not believe that capitalism would be forever tolerated by disenfranchised and alienated workers. He was convinced that at some point, workers would rise up
...