Preview

Communist Manifesto Ethos Analysis

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1130 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Communist Manifesto Ethos Analysis
Benjamin Franklin once said, “It is easier to be critical than to be correct.” Marx, in his Proletarian and Communist part of the Communist Manifesto takes in criticism towards the Bourgeois with sarcasm to convey that what the Bourgeois is claiming is to be right is wrong according to Marx. What Marx says in his Communist Manifesto might not be entirely true, but he uses certain techniques to convince the people that what he is asserting is right. That is the power of ethos. Proletarian and Communist of the Manifesto Communist is claiming that the Bourgeois principle of a free trade and private ownership of property is destroying the society that we are currently living in. What is very interesting about the Communist Manifesto is that it …show more content…
He uses information that has obviously been aware to many. When Marx disagrees with the private ownership of property, such technique is fairly visible. He believes that “Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour.” For the Bourgeois society, “the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.” However, Marx claims that in this Bourgeois society, the workers do not work the sake of themselves but for the sake of the bourgeois and that “All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the ruling class requires it.” According to Marx, it is logic that a labour should work for the purpose of working. Thus, he believes that labours working for the Bourgeois lost their sole purpose of existence-work. He claims that in the Bourgeois society, the Proletarians are used to increase capital and the Bourgeois property only, and become useless after they have done their job. In the Communist society, “accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer.” Through the use of reasoning concepts that were obvious to the readers even before it was ever reasoned in this document, Marx persuades the audience that the function of the Bourgeoisie society is

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Best Essays

    The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, was one of the most influential texts of the 19th century. In brief, it outlines how all of human development has been forms of class struggles, first with the feudal lord and peasant, and in later years the bourgeoisie and proletariat. According to Marx, the final stage of the development of society is rebellion of the working class. It is inevitable that the laborers will come to rule themselves and overthrow the capitalists. Capitalism is heavily attacked by Marx; he describes the system as exploitative, cruel, unjust, and therefore destined to be overthrown. Through the manifesto, Marx works to call the workers together to gain control of their future, as he believes they must.…

    • 1485 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto to hopefully give some kind of guidance to his fellow workers or proletarians. It was to offer education as to their exploitation as a worker in a capitalistic society and the means to change it. When this was written it shook the social and economic worlds. It did so probably because their was some truth in what he wrote and dared to bring to light.…

    • 1280 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Marx then goes into the first part of the body of his manifesto entitled "Bourgeois and Proletarians." In this part, he goes into how society started communal but then became more unequal as time went on. Systems such as Feudalism, Mercantilism, and Capitalism benefited from the use of exploitation. He first introduces the idea that economic concerns of a nation drive history, and that the struggle between the rich bourgeoisie and the hard working proletariat would eventually lead to Communism. He goes on and on about how the bourgeois have always got what they wanted. Marx reflected more on the negatives committed by the bourgeois than the positives. He states the bourgeoisie "has agglomerated population, centralized means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands." (Marx, p.8) He then describes the proletarians, or the labor class, and how they were formed, how they have suffered, and how they must overcome their struggles. Marx declares that this “dangerous class,” the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution." (Marx, p.15) This began an inevitable revolution where the proletariats take over and dethrone the bourgeoisie.…

    • 1048 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In aversion to the issues of capitalism concerning wage labor and abuse of the laborer by the employer, Karl Marx and Frederick Engles saw the ills of society in the convention of private property. In his own words, Marx said that communism could be summed up in one sentence, “abolition of private property” (The Communist Manifesto, 23). Marx saw private property in the industrial age as the “antagonism of capital and wage labor,” (The Communist Manifesto, 23). The positive results of industry only allowed the bourgeois to obtain more capital and hire more labor. Capital, therefore, is for the bourgeois a means to accumulate labor for the individual.…

    • 297 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx is an economical and philosophical ideology that is centered on communism. Specifically, it is centered on the redistribution of wealth so that everyone in a specified nation or State is completely equal in wealth for the “betterment” of the society. This in theory eliminates the class system and as a result is intended to eliminate the oppression that comes along with the class separation and wage gap. Thankfully, for me this literary piece’s brilliance does not come simply from Marx’s economic ideals but instead it comes from the simple fact that it exists at all. What challenges me and forces me to strive towards betterment is that the Communist Manifesto serves as a reminder to me that it is…

    • 262 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Karl Marx’s philosophy has been the subject of so much judgement and Scrutiny on if his beliefs will truly save the working man. The bourgeois interlocutor believe Marx’s belief would be more detrimental to the people as a whole. They believe that by wishing to abolish private property, communism will become a danger to freedom and eventual end up destroying the very base of all personal freedom, activity, and independence. Marx responds to these comments by stating that wage labor does not create any property when considering the laborers affairs. It only creates capital, a property which works only to increase the social injustice of the worker. This property called capital, is based on class antagonism. Having linked private property…

    • 449 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the Manifesto of the Communist Party, written by Karl Marx, the author proclaims that the struggles of the poor are caused by the greedy rich members of society taking advantage of the lower class. At the time, there were many workers who were exploited by their employers due to the complete lack of labor laws. Marx’s knowledge of his audience helped him to create an argument that appealed to abused workers; and slowly eased them into his revolutionary ideas for overthrowing the upper class.…

    • 492 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In his book, “Communist Manifesto,” Marx stresses the importance of communism or the publication of private property. As stated above, John Locke was the influencer of human basic rights, which included the right to own private property. The development of the Capitalist soon came after this right was made. Capitalists were key contributors to the rise of the industrial revolution but also to the fall of small shop owners. These shop owners were without income and the only way to provide a source was by working for these wealthy owners. A clear distinction between these two types people was their level of income and property which brought on the social classes. There was an oppressor and the oppressed. Before I go further with any explanations, this picture here of classes shows that only one class is progressing. The oppressor is the class that prospers in context of human progression through technological advancements. “Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other- bourgeoisie and proletariat (Marx 9).” The bourgeoisie were the capitalist while the proletariat was the lower working class. Separation between the two came along with the industrial revolution. Romanticist like Marx would oppose this as human progression because as a whole we aren’t all included in this promotion. It seems as the Capitalists are being set up on a pedestal…

    • 2004 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    They took power from these people and finally the society is divided into two separate classes directly facing each other; bourgeois and proletarians. (The Communist Manifesto, p. 2) Now, according to Karl Marx, it's the time for the proletarians to take power from the bourgeois and create a new world order. In the document, Karl Marx also argued that in the process of doing their job in wiping out the feudal system, bourgeois created the system that will lead to their own collapse, which is full of exploitation and unequal distribution of wealth. (The Communist Manifesto, p. 4) Hence, like every time when there is a strong divide between classes in the society, it is the time for a revolution to occur. It is the necessary step for the society to progress further, and it can only be attained by "the forcibly overthrow of all existing conditions." (The Communist Manifesto, p.…

    • 427 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The manifesto embraces class conflict and seeks to write the workers against the capitalists. Society has always been arranged into a class order by which every man defines his rank or standing in society. As new lands were discovered, and colonization took place, commerce was established. Trading in commodities fueled industry. The demands for goods increased and the industrial revolution allowed men to redefine his relationship with society. With demand for goods comes more demand for production and the trade or sale of commodities. With such an increase in population, production and commodities, the bourgeoisie's power is compromised. The working class continues to be exploited and is further alienated in its attempts to keep up with the industry. Marx doesn't go into much detail about how Communists would run the economy. In the first part of the manifesto, Marx explains how society started off as communal but as time went on society has become more unequal. The Manifesto is a brief political summary rather than economic, of what Communism is about. It lacks concise, specific information on what Communist ideologies and economic theories…

    • 1103 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Working men of all countries, unite!” This conclusion to one of the most notable pieces of critical literature written, the Communist Manifesto, a philosophy of where the working class was no longer the oppressed, and sought to bring workers of all nations together and revolt against the system in place. At the time, it was obvious that those who were working hard, were also those who were not moving anywhere in the social order class system that was in place when Marx had written the Manifesto. Known as the founding documents of the Communist party, Marx argued that private property should be abolished as well as the right of inheritance, a heavy progressive income tax, as well as other things. Marx was fighting against the bourgeoisie, those who had not…

    • 1001 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Marx believed that the poor were working their fingers to the bone to create value for society, while the rich simply siphoned off a portion of that value, which had been created by the poor. The rich do this without putting any effort into creating this value or their own value. In order for society’s productivity to be maximized, rich people’s syphoning off of a share of production must be done away with. Instead, the means of production (factories, stores, natural resources, etc.)—which rich people owned and used in order to siphon off poor people’s productivity—ought to be owned by the people themselves as a collective group. This prevents the rich from using their ownership position to syphon off a portion of society’s productione. Now, the people would continue to do all the producing, but the results of production would benefit only the people. In other words, each member of society must do what he or she can to produce the good and services society…

    • 1471 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In 1848 a 23-page pamphlet entitled “Manifesto of the Communist Party” was printed in London and quickly spread across Europe. Written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the short work, now known as “The Communist Manifesto”, was an attempt to explain the goals of communism. It details the volatile nature of a capitalistic society and the struggles of social classes and capitalist modes of…

    • 65 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Karl Marx argues that the bourgeoisie use of the owners’ power to control is to bring benefit to themselves and not the whole society. The theorists look at various aspects of the society and tend to research on what conflict results to those conditions as they want to improve those who are powerless in the society. ("Three Major Perspectives in Sociology", n.…

    • 690 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Marx commences his essay by maintaining that workers' miseries are directly proportional to their level of production; the more value workers attribute to their product, by virtue of their labor, the more miserable they become. Workers themselves are a commodity and the greater the value of their production, the cheaper a commodity they become. "The increase in the value of the world of things is directly proportional to the decrease in value of the human world." The end result of labor is its objectification into a thing, and the value of labor lies only in its objectification.…

    • 586 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays

Related Topics