Communist Manifesto- Quotes And Theory

Question 1

‘Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into…

Answer 1

Two great hostile camps, into two great classes facing each other: Bourgeoise and Proletariat’

-CLASS POLARISATION

Over time the self-employed middle classes (peasant farmers, artisans) are driven under by more effective capitalist firms, and society polarises into two classes Bourgeoise and Proletariat

Question 2

‘Entire sections of the ruling class are, by the advance of industry…

Answer 2

precipitated into the proletariat’

-WEALTH CONCENTRATION
Wealth becomes concentrated in fewer hands and in larger units

Question 3

What quotes are there about WORKER IMMISERATION?

Answer 3

In the long run workers wages and working conditions are driven down to a bare minimum

‘Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organised like soldiers’

Worker = ‘an appendage of the machine’ and is ‘enslaved by the machine’

‘As the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases’

Question 4

‘Modern bourgeoise society with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer, who…

Answer 4

is no longer able to control the powers of the nether worlds which he has called up by his spells… it is enough to mention the commercial crisis that by their periodical return put on trial, each time more threateningly, the existence of the entire bourgeoise society…’

SLUMPS- capitalist society lurches into ever more frequent and severe slumps

Question 5

‘At a certain stage in the development of these means of production… the feudal relations of property becomes no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces: they become…

Answer 5

so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder.’

• the relation of production in societies have to change as the material productive forces develop.

Question 6

Explain the materialist theory of the state

Answer 6

The state is a ‘legal and political superstructure’ which acts to support and sustain a given economic structure, that is, a set of relations of production. In class-divided societies, relations of production are exploitative. Exploitation entails class conflict. The state defines and enforced the relations of production; it helps to hold society together despite the conflict due to exploitation.

Therefore, if the relations of production ever become non-exploitative, then the state may ‘wither away’.

Question 7

What is the difference between feudalism and capitalism?

Answer 7

Feudal- serfs has obligation to work (perform surplus labour) for the lord and this was directly enforced by lord running the local state apparatus

Capitalism- no legally enforceable obligation to work but lack of property means proles are compelled by poverty to work for a capitalist ( on terms that involve surplus labour) state does not directly enforce exploitation but contributes to it by enforcing unequal property rights (under which proles lack property)

Question 8

What is the role of ideology in class division?

Answer 8

Class divided societies are stabilised not only by the state but by ideology, belief systems that interpret the social world as natural/legitimate/inevitable/appropriate

State has a role in propagating a dominant ideology

Question 9

How does Marx see the state in capitalist society

Answer 9

1. As a state that serves the interests of capitalists

2. In the hands of capitalists

Question 10

‘The executive of the modern state is but

Answer 10

a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoise’

Question 11

How did Marx’s conception of the state change due to Louis Bonaparte?

Answer 11

In the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852) Marx explained how Louis Bonaparte used the crisis created by the revolution of 1848 in France to rise to power, culminating in a coup d’état in 1851 in which he established a personal dictatorship.

This made Marx realise the state was not simply an instrument in the hands of the capitalist class, but an instrument of oppression held over society as a whole including the capitalist class.

To control the proletariat, the bourgeoise must call into being a strong state; but the strong state it calls into being to contain the proletariat May then develop as a force in its own right and push the bourgeoise itself from power.

Marx seems to suggest that shrewd political actors like Louis Bonaparte can manipulate the class struggle to establish their own rule. Bonaparte is seen as seeking to appeal to all social classes, posing as a paternal neutral figure who will arbitrate fairly between their demands.

Question 12

Does the state elite have to be made up of the capitalist class itself?

Answer 12

Nope

The state has a qualified independence or ‘relative autonomy’ from the capitalist class: state actors like Louis Bonaparte, have their own agenda, through in Marx’s view they do and must still act in the interests of capital.

This shows a change in Marx’s view from the time of the communist manifesto.

Question 13

Bonapartism represented to Marx a model that other capitalist nations would probably follow as class conflict intensified

‘In reality, it was the only form of government possible at a time when the bourgeoise has already lost, and…

Answer 13

the working class had not yet aquires, the faculty of ruling the nation’

(Marx, Civil War in France)

Question 14

What is the authoritarian thesis?

Answer 14

As capitalist society moves closer to revolution, the form of the state will become more authoritarian in order to keep the proletariat in check

Therefore, the proletariat revolution will not only be a overthrow exploitation and immiseration but one to overthrow an authoritarian state: it will be a revolution to win the battle of democracy against authoritarian dictatorship.

Question 15

What mechanisms mean that the capitalist class can control the state elite even if it does not directly rule?

Answer 15

1) personal connections between the capitalist class and the state elite making the latter sympathetic to the former
2) campaign contributions give influence
3) dominance of the media, leading to the perpetuation of ideas that suit the capitalist class
4) control over the investment process, politicians can’t get elected if the economy is in trouble. Through control of investment, capitalists have it in their power to make or break the economy, so politicians always respect their basic interests.

Question 16

What did Marx see as the model for the dictatorship of the proletariat?

Answer 16

The Paris Commune described in Marx’s Civil War in France 1871

Local elected workers councils
Federation of local communes into regional and National Assemblies
Councils have own police power (workers militia)
Officers paid same salary as average worker
Supervise economic life

Question 17

Explain the ‘withering away’ idea?

Answer 17

Does not mean that there would cease to be laws

More likely meant that through the commune system the state merges with society, people are involved in making the laws, agree with them, help enforce them and so don’t experience them as an alien imposition.

The state is not ‘them’ doing things to or for ‘us’ but is ‘us’ organising our lives for mutual convenience.

Question 18

What issues are there with the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat?

Answer 18

1) problem of peasantry
- Marx envisages revolutions occurring in societies that still have a large peasantry (eg late 19thc France). But might the peasantry oppose the proletariat? How can the DOP handle such conflict and remain as democratic as Marx seems to want

2) problem of the communists
- what is the proper relationship between the proletariat and the communists? If the communists are not in a majority In the communes do they accept the leadership of non-communists or seek to rule as a minority?

3) problem of the skilled worker
- Marx envisages that in the shift from the first to the advanced stage of communism , distribution will switch away from rewarding skilled workers for their more valuable contribution towards a more equal distribution.
Why won’t skilled workers resist this? Will there be a need for a dictatorship to control this resistance?

4) the problem of class reductionism?
- the ‘withering away’ trajectory seems to assume that all significant political conflict is rooted in class conflict. But aren’t there other sources of conflict? E,g. Value pluralism that makes this vision of society beyond political conflict unrealistic.

Question 19

In modern economic theory how do we see labour working?

Answer 19

Workers are willingly attracted by wages and volountarily work a certain number of hours, which is traded off for leisure time.

Marx seems that workers are forced by circumstances to subordinate themselves to capitalists.

Question 20

‘In bourgeoise society capital is independent and have individuality,…

Answer 20

while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.’

Question 21

Alienation from self, constraints upon the self-realisation Marx conceives of.

Under capitalism work has ‘lost all…

Answer 21

charm for the workman.’

Under communism no more specialisation of occupations. He believes the activities of self realisation (which doesn’t seem to include mundane factory work, though it is difficult to see how a communist society could function without this) will be subject to increasing marginal utility as skills improve.

As workers take up activities esteemed by others, his self esteem improves and he will be happy. Under perfect communism, labour ceases to be a means to an end, but the means it itself, the source of pleasure and fulfilment in a man’s life. ‘Not only a means to life, but life’s prime want.’

Question 22

What is self-realisation?

Answer 22

Once relations of production are stripped away and we interact authentically with each other, individuals will be free to desire what they authentically desire, a desire which can actually be met under the new system.

Under capitalism, the formation of desires occurs in a way the individual does not identify with.

Question 23

‘Law, morality, religion are to (the proletariat) so many bourgeoise prejudices…

Answer 23

behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeoise interests’

Social relations have become merely relations of buying and selling, to the point where even family relations are subverted.

Question 24

Why does Marx see capitalism as inferior to communism?

Answer 24

Under communism our relationships will no longer be subverted by buying and selling, since buying and selling itself will be abolished.

After the competitive system has been abolished. Both national and class antagonism will be abolished.

When class antagonism has been abolished there will no longer be political power (Marx sees this merely as one class oppressing another)

When the whole people govern, there will no longer be a political character to the state- it merely becomes a matter of business of allocation of income and means of production.

Question 25

What moral judgements underpin Marx’s work?

Answer 25

That exploitation is wrong and unjust. And that we ought to care about injustice.

What Marx describes as selfrealisation is good

BUT Marx doesn’t advocate a certain concept of justice. Confusing Marx what u playing at.
Elster concludes ‘he did not really understand what he was doing’

Or maybe he doesn’t base upon justice but merely that exploitation leads to discontentment and consequent rioting.

Question 26

What is the economic reasoning Marx gives for the superiority of communism?

Answer 26

Capitalism is prone to economic crisis, he believed this could be avoided with a centrally planned system.

Marx believes the profit motive caused capitalists to overlook some socially useful innovations. Once free from relations of production innovation would increase rapidly, to the point there would no longer be material scarcity.

Thus humans would b free to pursue the arts and sciences and progress would increase exponentially.

Question 27

Does Marx believe communism is better than capitalism?

Answer 27

Perhaps not, perhaps he only thought that it was inevitable

His lack of belief in non relativistic values makes it hard to see how he could value communism over capitalism.

He likes communism because of his commendation of alienation and exploitation as well as beliefs about economic process but he has no reason to judge a society without these as better than one with them

Question 28

What does Miliband say about Bonaparte?

Answer 28

‘For Marx, the Bonapartist state, however independent it may have been politically from any given class, remains, and cannot in a class society but remain, the protector of an economically and socially dominant class.’

Question 29

What does Miliband say about authoritarianism and Marx?

Answer 29

‘Far from bearing any authoritarian imprint, the whole of Marx’s work on the state is pervaded by a powerful anti- authoritarian and anti-beaurocratic bias, not only in relation to the distant communist society but also in the period of transition which is to proceed it.’