This writing is certainly one of the most important political documents ever written considering the impacts it has had around the world. Given that we have hindsight and can look at how the world has turned out I would like to ask those of you who know this work what you think some of the flaws are that Marx and Engles made in their ideology. Have the positions they proposed been successful or not? What were they wrong about basically. Have at it
Very basically, authoritarian social constructs run counter to "creator" endowed individual rights to liberty.... and natural, inherent human desires to be free of mandated responsibility for perfect strangers within "the collective"
As a communist and anti-marxist. Yes, the communists are not only Marxists, I can say that the greatest mistake of the Marxism was pretending to implement a communist system from an authoritarian position. They didn't want to abolish the state directly, if not from the state with reforms convert the society in communist. That is a mistake that leads to authoritarian systems as we could see in the URSS and others. Of the rest of the analysis I think that he was right, but that flaw is really big.
The basic problem with communism is that it flies against the natural human desire to get ahead. So it stifles creativity and motivation. If the people can't get ahead, the country can't get ahead.
Great responses and puts it into perspective a little more. The book can be a bit confusing at times. Is it not true that Marx and Engles believed that socialism was only a step to the way towards communism and that all socialistic society's will eventually reach communism?
yet there is power in government, eventually capitalism triumphs, greed is the plague of the ambitious if the state would regulate the economy then both suffer, reliance on individual and collective greed is much more profitable for a nation and therefore to a government.
that appears to be the objectivethe new world order has in mind first dismantle the cultures making feminist out of the women etc, now by doiing this that will stop the independented minded rebels that will put up a fight to the nwo then its just test a few out like they had with ussr and mao did with china heres a quote i found onthe web
First of all, understand the context. At the time Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto (1848 ) most of the world was organised in such a way that Aristocracies held power and the ordinary people of Europe (apart from the French, who had successfully revolted) has NO POLITICAL POWER WHATSOEVER. It was even worse in Russia, where the majority of the population were serfs - they were slaves who were owned by their Aristocratic masters. They could be bought and sold, raped, beaten at will and forced to work for their masters. Marx and Engels decided to theorise how this system could be changed and came up with at least Two ideas: 1. Change can only come through violent revolution. (as in America and France). 2. The way to stop Aristocracies from redeveloping was through communal ownership of property. Of course like all systems, no account was taken of human nature. When the Russian communists took over, they decided that they liked the idea of becoming Aristocrats themselves - witness Stalin and the nomenclatura, or to put it in the immortal words of Mel Brooks in "The History of the world" - "it's good to be the king!" The fatal flaw in the communist idea of communal ownership of property and central planning (from each according to his ability, to each according to their needs) was that it ignored the vital role that price signals play in a market economy. Free markets are more efficient in providing maximum outputs. Of course this now begs Two questions: Are American markets truly free? I would argue that they aren't Wall Street is rigged for example. Is there an American Aristocracy developing and taking power? you betcha!
Had a friend over this WE from the US, he's a Republican and spend quite some time taking the (*)(*)(*)(*) out of the moronic US Right. He was saying that the word "socialist" was so badly (and incorrectly) taken in the US now, that it was a worse insult than "communist". What he was taking the (*)(*)(*)(*) out of reminded me of many of you guys. And he's one of yours; a paid up conservative. I assumed this nonsense was restricted to forums, but it seems the US is semi-full of ill-educated morons.
The best place for using of Communist Manifest is restroom. This book has killed hundred of millions innocent peoples, destroyed dozens of countries and many Civilizations. It is a devil's book!
Thank you Frodo, that's more of what I was looking for. How Marx and Engles view of the world in THEIR day might have flaws that they didn't know or things they did not take into account. We can easily see these things now because we can take their views and work and put it into context through historical perspective. They did not have this ability so I wanted to know what things they couldn't have foreseen and how that may have led to communism not being successful. If they had the luxory of hindsight would they have laid out their plan differently do you think? Here is the exact question i'm looking for a response too. Its for a college paper I have to write: Like any document the Communist Manifesto is a product of its time about which, with the clarity of hindsight, we are able to see certain deficiencies. What are some of the deficiencies as you see them?
Yes it is the devil's book; probably why the liberal progressives picked it up before it fizzeld out.
I think that Frodo from his point of view he told you that one of the deficiencies is the central planning, but he linked it with communal system and that is wrong. A communal system can be controlled under a central planning(statists or marxism) or each commune be independent and with no central planning on each(an anarchist organization). So the problem is the first that I mentioned, Marxism and mainly the later variants like the Marxism-Lenism are authoritarian and centralist, tend to a central planning leading to all kind of problems that we already know.
So your saying that the deficiency isn't the communal system but the fact that Marx didn't understand that it could create a centralized authority and that a cetralized authority is what leads to the many problems?
Marx and Engels didn't understand the ability of capitalism to morph into something that was acceptable, even beneficial, to its host society. You may want to go back and read some earlier Marx and Engels. May I suggest a quick browse of Marx's work before the Manifesto and, probably more importantly, Engels' "Conditions of the Working Class" etc. Engels wrote that before he met Marx. If you look at vol 1 of Capital you will see some of Marx's references to factory working conditions and the attitudes of the factory owners, which by modern standards were pretty brutal. Then look at the Manifesto and see what was driving it. I think both would be astonished if they could come back and see how capitalism has become acceptable and even humane. They would, I think, also see the beginning of its own self-destruction, as predicted, in the hyper-wealth of a few and the casino of the Stock Exchanges. But any hope for a proletariat revolution to overthrow capitalism, as predicted/called for, will not happen for the aforesaid reasons. I think capitalism will again morph into a post-capitalist form of economy, perhaps with some aspects of market socialism, out of necessity, but that's probably another issue. Remember that towards the end of his life Marx, in a letter to his son-in-law on seeing what was happening in European socialism, said, "I am not a marxist". Anyway to summarise, not realising that capitalism could adapt was the big error, the excesses of laissez-faire capitalism have been tempered in the west at least with a heavy dose of social democracy which has saved capitalism in the medium term. There is no reason for the proletariat to rise up, they're doing okay thank you.
