The Communist Manifesto: Marx's Argument on Capitalism's Corruption Beyond Proletariat's Work

Running head: THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO
THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO
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1THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO
The communist manifesto was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, two of the
world-renowned philosophers. The book was written by the two philosophers during the age of
great suffering and anguish of all workers. It was an era of a socially distressed system when all
the workers were the victim of exploitation. Amidst the revolutions occurring across Europe,
Karl Marx organized his opinion and perspective to produce the critical pamphlet “The
Communist Manifesto”. The aim of the essay is to manifest the extent of Karl Marx’s argument
regarding the capitalism corrupting more than just the type of work the proletariats have to do.
Firstly, the essay presents the background of Karl Marx and his collaboration with Friedrich
Engels. Secondly, the essay describes the communist manifesto and its content describing the
point which has helped to figure out ways capitalism corrupts proletariat more than required.
Lastly, the essay concludes with the summary of the important points the communist manifesto
contains.
Born on 1818 Karl Marx was the German philosopher, revolutionary economist. He was
the founder of the modern scientific socialism and communist movement. Marx’s universal
appeal lies in the way he approached socio-economic problems. He is well-known for his
insights into the relationships between institutions and values. His ideas about the salvation of
mankind were widely popular during the era of a socially distressed system which later became
universally famous. Hence To understand Marx’s ideas, it is important to consider not only his
economics but also his theory of history and politics. Marx’s thoughts revolve around two basic
and concrete notions, the economic system determines the current idea of any given time and
history is an ongoing process which keeps up with the economic institutions that change in
regular stages. Marx considered capitalism as the last stage of historical development before
communism. The lowest economic class or the social class of a community is considered the

2THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO
historical class when produced by capitalism. It is the fate for the two factors to be in a conflict
that has been written by Marx in The Communist Manifesto. The struggle of class continues until
the lower class wins.
The origin of The Communist Manifesto was the result of the social, economic and
political chaos occurring in Europe earlier 1850. Marx as well as Engels was highly impacted by
the chaos occurring during that era of social disturbances. Like many other scholars, the two
philosophers were highly influenced by the German philosophers George Hegel, who developed
the theory of history that described change and is known as Hegel’s dialectic. According to
Hegel, there was an interaction between ideas which leads to changes. When Hegel stated
Prussia the ideal state, young Hegelians stated it as a state that was going through historical
process or dialectic. Marx and Engel were pulled towards these young Hegelians. In the year
1844 Marx and Hegel collaborated in Paris. In 1847 both the philosophers joined an organization
of working-class German exile known as the League of the Just. In the end, they were asked to
draft a statement of aims behalf of the organization which was the genesis of The Communist
Manifesto.
According to Lamb (2015), the manifesto was a short accessible document which
provided the vivid framework of Marxist principles. Later Marx formed a summary consisting of
the main and vital points in the year 1852. The manifesto begins with ‘The history of all hitherto
existing societies is the history of class struggle’ and goes on arguing that the class struggle
varies as per the feature of the major form of production. Therefore, in the societies such as
Feudal form where the prime practice of production was the agriculture, the struggle of the class
exists between the workers who work on the land and the owner of the lands. Being the young
Hegelian, Marx knew history was not static and therefore he contended that amidst the conflict