Reflection on Chapter I of the Communist Manifesto

[Cody_Bradtke]

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild‑master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.

Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm


In my own words, Chapter I of the *Communist Manifesto* argues that history is driven by conflict between classes. Marx and Engels describe how the rise of the bourgeoisie from feudal society created a modern world of industry and global markets, simplifying society into the owners of capital and wage workers. They say that the bourgeoisie has revolutionised production but also concentrated wealth and power, and that the proletariat’s struggle against exploitation grows as industry develops. The chapter suggests that these tensions make social change inevitable and sets the stage for the rest of the manifesto.

 

[aociswundumho]

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild‑master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

This is simply wrong. Apart from class, history is driven by religion, nationalism, ethnic conflicts, culture, and other stuff.

 

[Craig234]

The got some things right, some wrong. If 'social change is inevitable', so is the evolution of the power of the tools the powerful have over the people.

 

[Loulit01]

The development of the industrial proletariat is conditioned by the development of the industrial bourgeoisie. The struggle of class against class is a political struggle.
—Karl Marx*

*Marx made these comments in a Monty Python sketch.