Blarg

[thedemonnemo]

Calculus Final: Done
3D Design Portfolio: Critiqued
Architectural History Final: Done
Western Civ.:?
Must finish Essay
Must write Candide Paper
Must Write Marx Paper
...by noon tommorow
I have eleven hours (minus transit time)

Comments

Pt 1

[thedemonnemo]

Here it is, it was not intended as an essay but it answeres a bunch of questions posed by the Prof. the only souce we were allowed was The Communist Manifesto:

Ivan LASTNAME
History 102
Communist Manifesto

1. Karl Marx (1818 - 1883) Was a Political Economist, Philosopher and Social Activist. He was the son of a Prussian Jew who converted to Lutheranism under pressure. Marx reportedly was an Atheist. Marx’s main influence was the German Philosopher Hegel, who espoused the Dialectical Model of History that is, that every action has a reaction. Influenced by the events of the French Revolution he wrote The Communist Manifesto with Fredric Engles in 1848 and Das Kapital in 1867, as well as various political histories throughout his lifetime. His work inspired the leaders of revolutions throughout the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Fredric Engles (1820 - 1895) Was a Social Scientist and a Political Philosopher. He was the son of a Westphalia textile manufacturer. In addition to collaborating with Marx he also translated several of his works after Marx’s death. He also paid Marx and Marx’s daughter a stipend to support their activism.

2. The purpose of the Manifesto is not to outline a plan of action but to describe events unfolding before and during the time of the writing, thus it is an explanation of events from a dialectical perspective, put into a historical , political framework, so the purpose is information, or so the following passage would have you believe:

“Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as Communistic by its opponents in power? Where is the Opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of Communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?
Two things result from this fact.
I. Communism is already acknowledged by all European Powers to be itself a Power.
II. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of Communism with a Manifesto of the party itself.”
The Manifesto has a device often used by Pre-Twentieth Century Social Sciences (of which Engle was one) which is the Moiety System that is definition by defining what something is not, not what something IS:
“In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?
The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working-class parties.
They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.
They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.”

And the Manifesto stands as a warning to the members of the Bourgeoisie Class that an inevitable revolution of the class of wage earners is close at hand due to their untenable business practices:
“The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The
development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of
the proletariat are equally inevitable”.

Pt 2

[thedemonnemo]

3. Marx and Engles chart a fairly straightforward plan:
Step one, organize the wage laborers into a single party: “The immediate aim of the Communist is the same as that of all the other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of
political power by the proletariat.”
Step two, overthrow the current government: “The immediate aim of the Communist is the same as that of all the other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into
a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat”.
Step three abolishes all private property: “In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property”.
Step four abolishes the family unit: “Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists”.
Step five abolishes the concept of national citizenry: “The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish countries and nationality. These measures will of course be different in different countries”.

4. Communism is the opposite of what it is not, and what it is not is the continuation of the old established order. So the institutions we as humans hold dear; family, religion, nation, property, etc. are the enemy and are to de discarded in favor of creating a level playing field, which because it is a statistical average, will lower the current position of ½ of the participants and raise it for the other ½.
“In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.
In all these movements they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.
Finally, they labor everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries”.

5. In the United States there has never existed an established aristocracy; therefore, it seems to most Americans that they are not barred by law from the ownership of property. In fact because the United States has vast land reserves, even the relatively poor have had some degree of land ownership. In fact, at times even the very poor have been granted free land by the government in the Western United States.
Furthermore, there is no “state” religion imposed, certainly, it is very looked down on not to practice some form of religion, preferably Christian in belief, but no formal restriction has been placed on Americans, thus to tell an American that they cannot do the very thing that they are not forced to do in the first place is ill received as it does not form a reaction it just creates a restriction of action, and is not seen as a freedom.