Marx himself, on page 10, states that:
“Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class.”
Marx appears to limit his interest in the bourgeoisie who have risen higher with each political advance.
Now, if one was interested in class struggle as Marx states, wouldn’t he be interested in the proletariat advancing instead of the bourgeoisie becoming less than?
Why limit or reduce one’s ability for gain instead of creating a situation where people can’t attain more?
Which is more moral or ethical?
If one perhaps was an elite, I am sure the rise of the bourgeoisie would take on a very different interest.
One I am sure which would cause them create perhaps, a situation where they must view the people below them as an enemy instead of becoming equals.
The elites no longer need to fend off the bourgeoisie because the proletariat are fighting their battles for them.
We have to remember, upward economic mobility has been possible, although difficult, throughout history.
Everyone who is rich today can find an ancestor who was without means in history.
How many stories are there of people losing their fortunes only to get it back over time?
Now imagine, you’re an elite looking at this class of people who have drive and ambition, wouldn’t you fear your place in the pecking order?
On page 10, Marx states unequivocally:
“Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class.”
The only end to that advancement is to become the leaders.
What better way to sow the seeds of discontent of the ruled, but to pit two people against each other and tell one that the other is responsible for your station in life.
The entire narrative has shifted and points to the bourgeoisie as the source of their discontent instead of the current structure.
On page 11, is further evidence that the bourgeoisie was a threat:
“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 no other nexus between man and woman than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment. It has drowned out 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.”
It is clear Marx views the old feudal system with an idealist lens.
He also seems somewhat offended that the bourgioise have discarded the feudal ties and reduced everything down self-interest and cash payment.
But, if a class of people have means and decides on a criterion that isn’t based on “the old ways” they then have no need for the old ways.
The old ways either wither and die or need to become transformed in order to stay relevant.
One would think a system that is determined to be based in self-interest, it wouldn’t matter who or what was involved as long as it met the criteria necessary.
A transaction could take place regardless of what it is, whereas in the feudal days, one was beholden to their lord and he determined a host of things, sometimes to the detriment of you.
So, is it really exploitation, or is it stripping down only those elements that are necessary and useful?
Is it exploitation because the elites with their history and customs would never be as base as to reduce something to a money-value?
Seems that this is elitist.
It seems that Marx, or his masters, preferred the arbitrary nature of how the feudal world worked.
The other thing that seems odd given the class struggle is that if the bourgeoisie are responsible for creating the wage-laborers why should he then look at the bourgeoisie with disdain for doing so?
Marx was a learned man, does he lament that he no longer has the ability to have a patron in order to do the only thing he knew how to do?
“The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored 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.”
This is true, but why is it considered bad?
Would Marx instead prefer that those occupations be on the exclusive payroll of his lord or king?
Marx then segues into determining that family has become a “mere money relation.”
I don’t believe this to be true when history has shown us time and time again the elites have married for the very thing he accuses the bourgeoisie of.
Is Marx again trying to ferment an US vs. THEM mentality to the group of people that will be known as proletariat?
Page 12, Marx it appears to be correct regarding globalization from an economic standpoint, but what is even more interesting is page 13
“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.”
Sounds eerily like a globalist don’t you think?
Now granted when Marx wrote this Germany as a nation never existed, that only happened in 1871 before that what we know and understand as Germany was a group of independent states.
I’m sure Marx was talking about this when he made this statement, and from the tone of it, he didn’t like it.
Either way, the principles are the same and what have we heard for years: one world government, and all the trappings that go with it.
Marx however, blames the bourgeoisie for these ills which are in keeping with this theme. Although I believe Marx makes some very good observations, like
“machinery obliterates all distinctions of labour, and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level.”
This only applies to the person whom the machinery has replaced or minimized his job function.
He talks nothing of the maintenance, skill, and education needed to fix the machinery, not to mention, did the person get another job doing something else?
Is the march toward technology bad?
Is not an axe better than a knife in felling a tree? Is not a computer better than a typewriter in writing a letter?
Innovation happens whether you like it or not, and as long as there are humans who are looking to figure out a way to do something faster, longer, better, and cheaper, innovation will always happen.
According to Marx, innovation isn’t the enemy, the enemy is the bourgeoisie.
They are a defined group, but in order to have a conflict, you have to have another. Marx clearly points out that:
“At this stage the labourers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition. If anywhere they unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet the consequence of their own active union, but of the union of the bourgeoisie, which class, in order to attain its own. political ends, is compelled to set the whole proletariat in motion, and is moreover yet, for a time, able to do so. At this stage, therefore, the proletarians do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial bourgeois, the petty bourgeoisie. Thus, the whole historical movement is concentrated in the hands of the bourgeois; every victory so obtained is a victory for the bourgeoisie."
Imagine being one of those masses and after reading the manifesto you come to realize you are basically being manipulated by those who you are against.
Wouldn’t you get mad? Wouldn’t you become political?
Suddenly the bourgeoisie have a problem on their hands and curiously the elites are removed from scorn and ridicule, because shouldn’t they also be part of the class struggle, or are the elites above the class struggle?
What is even more egregious is at some point during this a certain group within the bourgeoisie will agree with the class struggle and then actively support them to the detriment of themselves.
Meanwhile, the elites stoke the fires of discontent by directly supporting the proletariat against the bourgeoisie all for what I can see is the proletariat are a pawn in a game they never knew they were playing.
The elites have a problem with the up and comers known as the bourgeoisie.
Because the proletariat doesn’t identify as a group, they must be made to think of themselves as a group.
Once that happens, they are manipulated into thinking rightly or wrongly that the reason they are in the situation they are in is because of the bourgeoisie, the people who employ them.
Because the bourgeoisie now has a problem with this new found group called the proletariat, they can’t move forward on their hopes and dreams because the elites fear losing power.
This is a classic re-direct.