A Criticism of the Manifesto of the Communist Party

In modern society, no better example of this exploitation can perhaps be found than Foxconn. As a manufacturing plant providing parts and assembly for a growing global consumerism market, the workers are continually exploited in a manner that is consistent with Marx’s outline of the problems with capitalism. Not only are wages low and fail to increase congruently with inflation, but workers are subjected to exploitation by the bourgeois outside of the workplace in the form of company-owned dormitories and shops. Wage-laborers are reduced to the bare minimum of subsistence, in a shockingly modern interpretation of Marx’s accurate 1840’s writings. However, it is important to note that this drastic form of exploitation seems only to occur in non-western civilization in direct relation to the social regulation enforced in the developed world.

The Manifesto of the Communist Party is essentially a doctrine designed to appeal to and explain to the general mass of population the righteousness and underlying justification of the modern communist movement. In order to do this, Marx reiterates yet another foundation of his line of thought in private property. Without understand the principles entrenched in private property, one cannot understand how the communist revolution would be differentiated past revolutions. Private property, as defined by Marx, is not the generally assumed “groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence,” but rather bourgeois property, the property gained through exploitation of wage-labor for the purposes of generating more capital for the ruling class (Tucker, 484). In this, Marx clarifies the wish of the communist party not to eliminate the personal property of the working man but rather ...

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...ecause of the higher standard of living enjoyed by the modern proletariat in the United States. Communism, though on paper resolves the issues of capitalism, fails in a few key areas, and thus is owed consideration only as an example of an attempt to rectify economic matters that must be further clarified and reflected upon before action can be taken or even predicted.

Works Cited

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Marx-Engels Reader. Ed. Robert C. Tucker. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 1978. Print.

Smirniotopoulos, Peter. "Is the U.S. Capitalist, Socialist or Something In-between? Newgeography.com." Newgeography. 06 Dec. 2008. Web. 23 Jan. 2012. .

SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The Communist Manifesto.” SparkNotes.com.

SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 23 Jan. 2012.