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  • Essay / The Communist Manifesto - 1892

    The Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx in 1848 is considered one of the most influential political documents in the world. The book's publication earned Marx a reputation as an eminent sociologist and political theorist. Despite its fame, there are many controversies regarding the ideas and concepts of communism formulated in the newspapers, which are still hotly debated today. Marx (1998) opened the book with: “The history of all society that has existed until now is the history of class struggles.” (p.4). He examined class differences and social inequalities between the proletariats and the bourgeoisies, two terms he coined to represent respectively the social classes that do not own the means of production and the social classes that own the means of production. Since the Communist Manifesto was written at a time of great social distress, it was the result of Marx's desire to eliminate the gap between the two classes in order to improve the social, political and economic conditions of the proletarians. To achieve equality, Marx encouraged proletarians to conspire against the bourgeoisies to end the exploitation of the lower social classes and establish a communist society where class distinction is an act of imagination. However, his ideal required changes to which a society cannot successfully adapt and which ultimately do not ensure equality. Marx's theories relied solely on class stratification and ignored the many other factors that contribute to the foundation of a society. The set of demands that define the rules and regulations of communism do not fundamentally offer fairness. Communism disrupts the entire system of social exchange, which will eventually corrupt the economy of a society. Thus, the theories introduced in Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto are not relevant in modern industrialized societies, mainly because they focus only on the issue of class stratification and neglect other complications involved in a society. Marx (1998) believed that “society as a whole is increasingly divided into two great hostile camps, into two great classes that directly confront each other: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. (p.4). It was a capital error to polarize people exclusively on social classes instead of taking into account other factors that contribute to the construction of a society such as traditions, religious ideologies, trust, laws, cultures, etc. Attempting to create a balance only between classes will lead to new and serious problems that cannot be solved with Marx's theories...