In his article, Marx discusses the history of human civilization, what led to the state it was in his days and his projections for future. His main claim is that in each its step, the history of humankind was defined as the struggle of classes – the exploiters and the exploited. In ancient times, they were slaves and masters, in medieval ages – peasants and lords, and in industrial age – bourgeois and proletariat. The proletariat is the workers of the factories and small property owners while bourgeois is the major industrial power and land owners. Marx argues that there will soon come an end to this system because the conditions which the bourgeois make for the proletariat (low wages, routine work, hard life) undermines their own positions as the latter are drawn towards revolution. He also mentions that the revolution is the only way proletariat can change the way of things they’re in.
Response
Karl Marx is one of the most known 19-th century thinkers, and by far his works influenced the world much more that of any other philosopher. His works influenced a whole epoch and determined the way of development of the whole human civilization. As his ideas were adopted and developed by other thinkers and public activists, they’ve become an ideology of a whole country, but not simply “some country”, but the giant country which played a massive role in 20th-century history - the Soviet Union. What, however, Marx got wrong was that the proletariat will be able to govern all the property and means of production properly.
Marx’s main assumption didn’t stand because he was wrong in estimating the capabilities and the desires of the masses. He is reasonable to mention that the life of the wage workers was harder than the life of artisan masters and hereditary craftsmen. Their work was full of routine, this is why they were interchangeable, and later became only additions to the machines (Marx, 1848, p.2 pas.3). He says that not only the labor of the workers has become routine but also the prestige and beauty of the craftsmen has been annihilated by the industrial system. Yet, what he forgets to mention is that the proceedings of the industrial society have increased the amount of goods available for lay people. The unification of labor was the necessary mean for such progress. The craftsmen who performed their job well haven't lost their job because their works have become exclusive and were valued much more than the goods produced industrially. However, his largest flaw was that he assumed that the masses, the proletariat, were developed to the same extent that he was. As the history shows us, the desires and competencies of the masses were totally different from his assumptions (revolution in Russia and its results). The main goal of the majority was to do less, preferably nothing and earn not less than everyone else. Of course, a society with such attitude cannot rule effectively.
The other thing that Marx failed to notice is that state and property are better governed by people who have proper competencies and experience. It is obvious that not all people are the same – some are younger, some older, some have more knowledge, other have less experience, therefore, it is impossible to avoid hierarchy and division of labor.
References
Marx, K. (1848). Communist manifesto.
