Karl Marx: The Communist Manifesto

Why has it been so hard for workers to join together to oppose the oppression they face?

The discriminatory attitudes and behaviors used by the upper class prevented the unity of the working class required to achieve emancipation.

How has industrialization changed where people work and how they live?

It caused a created a permanent class of underclass workers who lived in poverty under terrible working conditions and little political representation. This exists because different people have different interests.

What advice does Marx have for workers of different countries or workers in different trades about cooperating?

Marx believed that capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction. He described how the wealth of the bourgeoisie depended on the work of the proletariat. This gives the proletariat power over the bourgeoisie, and they should use that power to overthrow them. i.e. "Workers of the world, unite!"

How did Marx feel about private property?

Marx disagrees with private property. He believes that is should be abolished and that all property should be run by the state.

What kind of struggle has characterized history?

Marx writes, "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." Throughout history we see the oppressor and oppressed in constant opposition to each other. This fight is sometimes hidden and sometimes open.

What is the prediction Marx makes about an event that will inevitably happen in Europe?

Marx's prediction states that the proletariat will defeat the bourgeoisie, there will be a heavy progressive tax, private property will be taken away, there will be no hostility between nations anymore, child labor will be abolished, and that communism is inevitable and will happen.

Marx argues that the bourgeoisie has destroyed the middle class and the working class family. How has this happened?

The bourgeoisie have taken the proletariat's work and have used it to make a profit. Now there is no "middle class", it is only the wealthy who are feeding off of the working class.

Marx talks about two classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Who belongs to these classes and what is the relationship between them?

The bourgeoisie were the capitalists who own the means of production. The proletariat is the larger class consisting of the working class who must sell their own labor. The bourgeoise depends on the work of the proletariat. While the bourgeoisie are getting wealthy off of the proletariat, the proletariat's economy is falling.