Opinion Editorial | |
| Wednesday, April 29, 1998 | |
The Communist Manifesto at 150 |
This Friday, the British publisher Verso is bringing out a new edition of "The Communist Manifesto" in honor of the 150th anniversary of its publication. The Manifesto originally appeared in 1848 as the platform of the Communist League, which commissioned Karl Marx and Frederick Engels to write it. It went on to become one of the most influential books in history, being the founding document of every communist movement and nation on earth. Rereading the Manifesto, one finds it surprisingly contemporary. Although communism has collapsed in virtually every nation in which it held power, the analysis and the issues raised by the Manifesto continue to resonate in policy debates everywhere. For example, Marx and Engels' discussion of the impact of free trade is exactly correct: "The bourgeoisie [middle class] has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country....All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations....In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible.... "The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all nations, even the most barbarian, into civilization. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls." Of course, Marx and Engels decried this trend, believing that it led to alienation. Workers, they thought, were being reduced from skilled artisans, who produced to order for people they knew personally, to mere cogs in a giant world machine, mass producing standardized products for strangers. Marx and Engels saw this as dehumanizing, even as the rise in productivity reduced prices and raised living standards for workers themselves at the same time. As they wrote in the Manifesto: "Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to division of labor, the work of the proletarians [working class] has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him." Over time, Marx and Engels believed that this would lead to misery for the working class, as the owners of capital increasing exploited them. The solution was communism, which Marx and Engels summarized simply as the abolition of private property. To bring this about, they proposed 10 policies, many of which are still being debated today. Among them are a heavy progressive or graduated income tax, abolition of the right of inheritance [estate taxes?], centralization of credit in the hands of the state [the Federal Reserve?], and free education for all children in public schools. Marx and Engels concluded by calling for revolution. "The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains," they said. But it turned out that they had a lot to lose. Ultimately, millions would die at the hands of Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot and other communists, and millions more would live in poverty. They too should be remembered on the 150th anniversary of the book that caused it all. Source: Bruce Bartlett (senior fellow, National Center for Policy Analysis), April 29, 1998. For more on Culture & Political Systems http://www.ncpa.org/pi/internat/intdex3.html Home | Support Us | All Issues | Social Security Debate Central | Contact Us |