The Communist Manifesto

 

The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels says: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." But in fact it’s the history of liberty struggles. More broadly, it’s the history of freedom vs. slavery, civilization vs. savagery, and liberalism vs. illiberalism.

The Communist Manifesto states that in human history: "Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to each other, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight…" But the fact is that thruout the 5300-year history of government, some people believed in a version of freedom, and wanted to live freely; while others believed in a version of tyranny, and wanted to enslave their brothers. Marx and Engels are the latter.

Their radical treatise argues that: "The modern bourgeois society" – by which Marx and Engels mean the economically free and large business-ownership 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." This is actually true. Feudalism has died out. The failed, evil welfare state and crony capitalism has emerged. Wealthy individuals and groups today, often including Big Business owners, pressure and bribe government leaders to coerce their business competitors and the masses, to the unjust advantage of the rich. The business rivals and the consumers suffer. This is because this new type of regulation, like all regulation, is a form of tyranny.

The welfare state, or corporatist state, or crony capitalist government, is a type of slave state or authoritarianism. It’s plutocracy or oligarchy or fascism – not real economic liberty or capitalism. The more the welfare state regulates or coerces, the more it reduces everyone to slavery. The more it "helps" and "benefits" people, and the more it promotes and advances "the public interest" and "the common good", the more it destroys everyone and everything. Collectivism harms everybody. The simple truth is that the coercive welfare state – which violates rights and dictates to all – is hell on earth.

This phony and crony "capitalist" government attacks, damages, and destroys people and property. Personal happiness and social cooperation are mostly terminated. In a just and free society, such government regulation and coercion doesn’t exist.

But Marx and Engels don’t understand this. They think economic liberty – with its concomitant social and personal liberty – yields "oppression", "exploitation", and even "enslavement". To combat this horror, they actually advocate expanding the welfare state. Marx and Engels misunderstand, fear, and hate Big Business owners and propose to coercively eliminate them. They even propose to eliminate private property – which is the foundation of civilization and human liberty.

Max and Engels oddly label economic freedom "capitalism". They denominate business owners "the bourgeoisie" and business employees "the proletariat". Unfortunately, Western Civilization has accepted these misleading and hostile terms. Economic, social, personal, and political freedom has suffered badly because of it.

Marx and Engels claim that the capitalist world is divided up into these two permanently antagonistic groups or "classes". They say that the business owners, "bourgeoisie", "exploiters", and "oppressors" are naturally and inherently at the throats of the business employees, "proletariat", "exploited", and "oppressed". They say the employers are "dictators" and "parasites" while the employees are "slaves" and the only true "workers". The Communist Manifesto argues that no peace is possible between these "two great hostile camps" and that’s it’s vital for "the poor and working class" to win this war.

The absurdity and malevolence of these claims is hard to overstate.

In fact, under capitalism, company owners and employees naturally cooperate with each other, and live in great harmony. They’re business partners who easily work together to immense mutual benefit, profit, pleasure, and happiness. These two allegedly antagonistic "classes" also frequently switch sides or belong to both groups at once. Practically the only thing that prevents the "bourgeoisie" and the "proletarians" from living and working together in perfect peace and bliss is the welfare state and our crony capitalist society. Incredibly, this is what Marx and Engels seek to radically expand.

In the end, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels have a great deal of difficulty understanding "giant, Modern Industry". The Scientific and Industrial Revolutions of the 1600s and 1700s leave them baffled. They see the tremendous and unprecedented size, organization, and wealth of the new commercial enterprises and foolishly conclude that the "industrial millionaires" which run them are "slave-masters" to the whole world.

But the truth is, in a free society – in a civilized society and government based upon economic, social, personal, and political liberty – no-one seriously exploits or oppresses another, and no-one is a master or a slave. Ultimately, Marx and Engel’s proposed "dictatorship of the proletariat" means tyranny, poverty, and misery for all.