The Communist Manifesto (A Penguin Classics Hardcover)

“The Communist Manifesto originally titled Manifesto of the Communist Party is a short 1848 publication written by the political theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It has since been recognized as one of the world's most influential political manuscripts.’’ Of course, I’ve heard about this document since youth. Never read it. But, seems so influential, especially recently, decided to examine it. “Commissioned by the Communist League, it laid out the League's purposes and program. It presents an analytical approach to the class struggle (historical and present) and the problems of capitalism, rather than a prediction of communism's potential future forms. The book contains Marx and Engels' theories about the nature of society and politics, that in their own words, "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles".It also briefly features their ideas for how the capitalist society of the time would eventually be replaced by socialism, and then eventually communism.’’ This from preface. Marx penned this in 1848. This English translation by Engels in 1888. Some highlights . . . These measures will of course be different in different countries. Nevertheless in the most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable. 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. Abolition of all right of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. 8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country. 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.’’ Fascinating that most of these programs have been implemented in many western societies. Another is this rejection of history. “There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc. that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience." Recalls Daniel’s prophecy about the king of the north . . . “He will show no regard for the God of his fathers; nor will he show regard for the desire of women or for any other god.’’ Marx . . . “Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists. On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form this family exists only among the bourgeoisie.’’ How abolish family? Forbid private property. “The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. They have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property.’’ ‘Destruction of all property’ seems to be now coming to pass. “ All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interests of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air.’’ ‘Official society cut loose’ from its world. “Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie. In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.’’ ‘Violent overthrow’ and ‘veiled civil war’. Well . . . Another heartfelt cry of anguish . . . ““ The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones.’’ Note Marx complaining about ‘everlasting uncertainty’. Marx’ personal life was just that - uncertain, troubled, turbulent. His family eventually refused to support him. He was furious. He is really demanding that someone else guarantees him a comfortable life. In fact, Engels (rich factory owner) did eventually support Marx. “All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.’’ And this unique facet of capitalism, its turbulent, uncertain, constant change to unknown directions obviously disturbs many. Marx nailed it! Last paragraph — “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.’’ Lots of familiar ideas that seem current. I wonder how many recognize the influence of this German philosopher on modernity. I didn’t realize how much of his thought still remains. One thing which has not endured is his analysis of economics. The labor theory of value which he borrowed from Adam Smith is now known to be completely wrong. Capitalism has not self-destructed. In fact, world dozens of times richer than when Marx lived. Nevertheless, this goal, desire to destroy is stronger than ever in the mind of many.

Marx and Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto in 1848 at the request of the Communist League, a secret association of workers driven underground by political oppression aimed at preventing concerted revolutionary activity against bourgeois regimes throughout Europe. The Manifesto was written to provide a theoretical foundation and a practical program for the advancement of international communism and eventual elimination of bourgeois domination of property-less wage laborers. The title of the document, simple and purely descriptive though it is, is commonly regarded as inflammatory, arousing derision, disdain, and virulent hostility among many, including those whom it was written to benefit. Nevertheless, there is much in the Manifesto, especially in the first chapter, that with the aid of hindsight could have been written by a contemporary neo-conservative intellectual, someone like Harvard sociologist Daniel Bell. Specifically, Marx and Engels begin with a tribute to the unparalleled productive capacity of the capitalist organization of production. They freely laud the technological innovations fostered by capitalists' pursuit of surplus value, a process that has dramatically transformed the forces of production and the social relations of production. The result has been rapidly expanding output of industrial and agricultural goods of all kinds. In accomplishing this, capital has extended its markets beyond national borders, creating a world market and a world economy. Raw materials from Latin America, Africa, and Asia are routinely used to manufacture finished goods in England, Germany, and other European countries. The same manufactured goods may then be sold in the very places that supplied the raw materials. All this, Marx and Engels observe, requires concentration of vast numbers of people in swollen industrial cities. Small manufacturers and family farms are swallowed up by larger enterprises with which they have neither the capital nor productive capacity to compete. Marx and Engels find it particularly noteworthy that men like Thomas Jefferson had envisioned America as a land of independent yeoman farmers with small land holdings, but the concentration of agriculture was rendering this vision obsolete. As we get farther into this brief document, Daniel Bell, the other neo-conservatives, and people generally may take angry exception to its tone and substance. Concentration of resources in capital-intensive enterprises, Marx and Engels argue, reduces the vast majority of people to the degraded status of wage labor, workers who own nothing but their labor power. It is in the interests of the bourgeoisie -- of capital -- to pay workers as little as possible, increasing surplus value by buying labor power for no more than its natural price, the amount needed to survive and reproduce. The culture of workers is nothing more than a brutalizing culture of production, lacking in scope and richness due to the pitifully small part that each worker plays in the overall production process. Families of working people are men, women, and children who labor for the natural price and have little time, energy or emotional sustenance to offer each other, having been wrung dry by capital's conditions of employment. The more productive the worker, the more he or she strengthens the hand of capital. However, capital's immense productive power and its success in keeping wage rates abysmally low are not an unmixed blessing for the bourgeoisie. Periodic over-production crises wreck havoc with national and international markets, undercutting profits and threatening the commanding position of capital. As a timely example, the U.S. economy is currently approximating an over-production crisis: unemployment is high, wages are low and falling, capital has roughly two and a half trillion dollars to invest, but in the absence of demand the bourgeoisie has become risk averse, and money is not being invested in productive endeavors. The long-term solution to all this, for Marx and Engels, is elimination of bourgeois property and the property relations that capitalism has created. This is not to say that private property must altogether disappear, but private property as capital, as that which creates a two-class system of exploitation of labor by the bourgeoisie, certainly must cease to exist. Marx and Engels were entirely too sanguine about the eventual joining together of members of the working class to present a united front in their conflict with capital. They realized that there were ethnic, racial, religious, national, linguistic, occupational, and other barriers that would be difficult to overcome, but I doubt they expected the workers of the world to be as fractionated as is currently the case. If Marx and Engels were alive today, they might take the view that things would have to get much worse for labor before a revolution becames possible. If you're not inclined to read the Manifesto, just read the introductory remarks by Vladimir Posner, once a member of the Communist Party of the USSR. Posner spent much of his childhood and adolescence in the West, and his insights into the appeal of communist ideals and the failure of the USSR to develop communism as Marx and Engels sketchily envisioned it are extremely interesting. Posner is no apologist for anything, just an honest and intelligent journalist whose idealism is genuine but far from boundless or excessive.

I bought 30 of these to hand out at school, and there was so much demand! I managed to hand out all of them within a day, people were so excited to get a copy of it. We all took ours to the Mexican Bakery. The content is also really good, it's very enlightening and brings some interesting thoughts to mind. Me and my friends have had some really good discussions about communism. This version is also quite nice, it's just the manifesto, no unnecessary filler that some other versions have, it makes it much lighter to carry around and smaller, and makes it so that it's all communism, all the time. My main critique and the reason for the only 4 stars is that although this version is cheap, having to spend money for it goes against the communist vision, which is why I give them away for free, but it's cheaper here than most other places. Would very highly recommend!!!!!!!

I got this book for the Kindle, because I wanted to compare some of the stuff that I was reading in another couple books (which reference and discuss Communist, Marxist idealogy and intents). A fair bit of what was discussed DOES appear to be in this book, though I do think the actual context has been somewhat lost in the modern book I'm reading. --- CONTENT: -Review of the material product -Review of the content therein -Final thoughts (and a TL;DR) --- FIRST -- REVIEW OF MATERIAL: Overall, the book had NUMEROUS flaws, specifically in grammer, spelling, and punctuation. I can almost guess what caused this, too -- it appears that it was scanned in with OCR (Optical Character Recognition), but whatever handwritten content was not clear enough to read in perfectly. Moreover, with a pricepoint of $0.45, I would assume the hiring of a proofreading editor was likely out of the question. The formatting is borked on MANY pages, commas and periods are swapped, and (what really tipped me off as to the possibility of OCR failure) some letters are swapped with similar, but not identical, font characters -- 'h' in clear place of 'b', etc. --- REVIEW OF CONTENT: The overall concept seems to be a dated and more aggressive version of what might have, in much more recent history, become known as "Techno-Socialism". It's interesting to realize that the idea of pushing automation and factories to their limits, often (if not primarily) through their machines, was conceptualized as far back as the mid-1800's, moreover and especially with the idea that the extreme over-production capacity would drive subsistence costs well through the floor, potentially enabling free resources of such (food, etc.). Obviously, this book includes a lot of ideas that never pan out well, and very few countries have ever come close to the theory without turning into authoritarian dictatorships. Human Nature and all. On the other hand, "the theory", after reading this, appears to be more complex (albeit not comprehensively explained -- but far more-so than I had previously thought this pamphlet would be). Some of the critiques of the society back then still seem relevant today, however, and it's not like the concerns were objectively wrong. The method of solving these concerns, the theoretical and/or practical alternatives, and the emotionality of it, however, have multiple issues. The content of this manifesto (any prior or subsequent material not considered in this review) comes down to this: an emotional call to arms to solve a reasonably well thought out and categorical list of perceived and actual failures and/or inefficiencies of a system, but with an almost abstruse "game plan", per se. It explains, from a historical standpoint, an interesting view of how this "oppressor-oppressed" relationship played out under different eras and systems, and it's hard to say that the view is incorrect. What I think the biggest concern to consider is how "private property" is defined -- the manifesto seems to go back and forth between 2 definitions, and it is unclear where/if they are separated. The concept that "private property" is the production means owned by the capitalists, rather the tools, factories, and such, follows a route somewhat more extreme than countries that own all the railways, utilities, and such; but it does also make reference to further interpretations, which would affect individuals, at least those not living in a post-scarcity utopia or such (everyone, should that interpretation be valid) -- in some places, it seems against taking away "personal" property (and claims that this barely even exists, anymore), but in other areas it is vague. Over all, the content is definitely different than I thought it would be. If nothing else, it was an interesting read, for historical purposes, and to understand where the other books I am reading are coming from (in their references to this book/pamphlet and/or relevaant ideologies therein). It is, surprisingly, less of a pseudo-utopian and thoughtless push for radical conspiracy and social destruction, than I had been led to believe; and it's more of a calling out of practices and conditions that a specific group disagrees with, practices and conditions which probably few people will see absolutely no flaws with -- that is to say, the concerns are probably concerns of the large majority of people, whether or not the full range of them are or even should be. --- FINAL THOUGHTS: So, after that essay, it might be difficult to figure out what I'm trying to say, so I'll put it in the TL;DR format: -The concerns presented in this pamphlet are not entirely objectionable (as concerns -- they are relatively common concerns), and I think that several of them would not even be alien to readers -The content is probably different than you will have heard it to be, so it's worth reading for historical context, if nothing else -Whether you agree or disagree with the ideas, always remember that people are still people... and you can't rely on them to NOT screw things up (whether the idea is good or bad) ++I have no interest in telling you what to believe, just that the book is an interesting document, similar to how you might read Hitler's own Mein Kampf, but you have no interest in becoming a Nazi -- in fact, that very book is one of 2 (the other being a modern book about growing Marxism movements in the USA) that convinced me to read this, so I can truly grasp the context and see how all of it fits together -- to read the source material of the other material++

The Communist Manifesto is a book I have wanted to read for quite a while. I have always been interested in the Russian history for some reason. I read this book in two days. All in all, whether you are for or against Communism, it is a book that studies its times and knows the balance and process in Socialism and knows the rules of Capitalism, through basic wages, labor and property. Marx shows his awareness of the economic, political and religious dynamics especially in England, France and Germany where he shows the class antagonisms between the rich Bourgeois and the working Proletarians. Whilst writing this in England and making case studies of France and Germany, he notices the hierarchial inequalities in social and economic divides between the nations in the World. Taking the side of the Proletarians, he issues reasons and evolutions of culture through Feudalism to Industrialism. By marking his understanding from his experience, he has made a philosophy that challenges the powers and authorities of exploitation to influence more rights and leisures, even identities and individualities for the laborers in the working classes. I imagine that he knew the socialites of the times, the way they dressed, acted, played and partied and the way the workers struggled in their dirtied clothes day and night and saw the unfairness of the political socialism created by the ruling classes. This seems like a conscience influence to write this for the Communist League. It is a deep, intellectual and memorable manuscript and it is well worth the reputation that it has formed over the years. I am sure his followers believe in him and his work. There is enough proof to see his philosophy is true in history and yet there are also critics that I am sure will undermine or disrupt his purpose that was laid down in this book. It is truly a great and enlightening book. Yet maybe enlightenment comes from a greater will above than just the human will that he mentions. It is however, one book that I will remember and look back upon. My subjective critique is that he seemed more for the Feudal Aristocracy rather than the middle class Reactionists yet neutrality is not the main theme of this book but a bias exists in this book to empower the health of the working class and for the success of the whole society even the ruling class. It is a book that may have been a precursor to many historical moments in the 20th century in Europe and North America. It is a historical book of momentous events.

I talked to someone once who made the claim that the Communist Manifesto was written as a satire of some sort and was not meant to be taken seriously. I haven't been able to find any further information to corroborate this claim, so for the time being I'm going to assume it's false. Certainly many nations have, at this point, taken it very seriously and to catastrophic effect, the most recent of which playing out in real time in Venezuela. If you think the ideas presented in the manifesto are at all worthy of being taken seriously, just read the news about that unfortunate country. The basic flaw with Communist theory is that it fails to take into account basic history. Obviously when it was written historical record was not quite as good as it is now, so there may be some things I take for granted that Marx and Engels may have reasonably been able to claim ignorance of, but I'm fairly certain it was good enough at the time for the purposes of debunking Communism. The claim of Communism is that the industrial revolution essentially enslaved the proletariat class to the bourgeoisie, leaving individual members of the class with factory jobs only sufficient to provide a barely subsistence standard of living. This is debatably true, and certainly probably seemed much truer in the late 1800s than it does now. I certainly have sympathy for the romantic ideal of individual craftsmen whose work is valued by and essential to the community in which they live. I also don't disagree with the tracing of class struggles through history presented in the manifesto, which certainly did happen. So what's my problem with the Communist Manifesto? Simple. For all of Marx and Engels' outrage at the poor conditions of the working class, they fail to take into account that the situation of the working class during the industrial revolution could also be argued to be better than it had ever been before, and thanks to the industrial revolution at that. For most of history mankind existed as primitive tribesmen struggling to endure the elements, fend off wild animals, and avoid dying of thirst or starvation. Life was defined by such a great degree of uncertainty that a significant weather event, a drought let's say, could reduce an entire tribe to skeletons rotting in the dirt. As societies formed, inequality was introduced, sure, but so was stability. Societies allowed for permanent settlements to be formed, with things like walls to keep out animals, and houses with sturdy roofs and fire places to keep people reliably warm and dry. So while all citizens of a given locale may not have been equal, most, at least, had a drastically improved standard of living compared to scratching out an existence on the plains or in the forest praying to the rain god du jour for mercy. Or getting eaten by wolves, or bears, or whatever else, as Joe Rogan is fond of pointing out, many of which will eat you alive and start where the sun don't shine. I don't know about you, but I'll take a little inequality over that any day. Now, as I said before, the Communist Manifesto is not wrong to point out the problem of inequality, which certainly wasn't solved during the industrial revolution, just as it hadn't been solved in the countless millennia prior. However, tearing down the existing societal framework and casting out the bourgeoisie will only ever accomplish the destruction of society and the bourgeoisie. As soon as all that remains is the proletariat, ask yourself if the coal miner would feel "equal" to a tailor, a septic tank cleaner "equal" to a school teacher? You might solve this by forcing a rotation of labor between fields, but as soon as you do that you lose all benefits of specialized labor, and who could blame the school teacher for resenting being forcibly removed from their classroom to pump excrement from a septic tank, or a farmer for being removed from the fresh air and sunlight and shoved into a hole to dig out coal? The point being, it's easy to write a 30 page rant decrying the shortcomings of society as it exists at any given time, but to think that a mere pamphlet, no matter how well thought out, could solve such a massive and enduring problem convinces me only that people who support such a claim are naive and sort sighted at best, but much more likely deranged, covetous, psychotically resentful and/or mentally deficient at worst.

I've given this a 5 star rating because it is the authoritative edition and most well articulated appeal to communism I've ever read. After reading this book one has to take a long hard look in the mirror and ask did communism empower the working class? Did it create equality? Did it provide a more prosperous happier life for people? And if not why are its contents still so appealing to humanity and surprisingly to many Americans? And although it is the extreme of socialism why does socialism continue to appeal to so many? And why does its rhetoric continue to influence our political and social dialogue? Marx's writes with such powerful clarity where he crystallizes his appeal to the working class with the resounding first line of the book: "A spectre is haunting Europe - The spectre of Communism." And it indeed did haunt Europe through two world wars, the cold war and continues to do so into the 21st century. It is now 2012 and we have the hindsight of the great scientific experiments of the German socialist Nazis, the Bolshevik driven communist, the Maoist Chinese and many more highly socialist European nations. We also have the recent financial breakdowns within the European Union and major financial crises in America all still heavily influenced by much of the contents of this manifesto. I am reminded daily of its power as the Manifesto still rings in many of today's conversations whether it is the cry of Occupy Wall Street or the discussion of redistribution of wealth or more equality between classes. Much of what Marx called for has come to fruition such as the introduction of the progressive tax, even private ownership is under assault in the United States. Moreover, one must fully understand this call to communism to have a perspective on such things as the Federal Reserve and income tax. How should one digest today's political banter of "what is a fair tax" and a "fair share of taxes"? After all a heavily progressive or graduated tax is the second pillar of the Communist Manifesto only trumped by the abolition of private property. So how could a nation such as the United States which fought so hard to provide the individual with the most liberty in the history of mankind agree to allow an income tax and at that one that at times in mid 20th century exceeded 90% and today sits at 35%? Prior to 1913 the US had no income tax and it amended the constitution to not only add an income tax but also add a federal reserve both of which resulted in the greatest transfers of power away from the individual to the federal government in the history of the United States. This is in direct alignment to the second pillar of the Communist Manifesto. By definition income tax suggests that the government owns a portion of our lives and labor. In socialism it owns a lot more of it and in communism it owns all of it. Intrigued? Then read this book and see how it continues to apply to our lives, liberty and freedoms.

If you want to truly understand government you absolutely must include this book in your studies. Now that I have read it, I want to read it again and again. Then I want to go back and read works like "Ten Days That Changed The World" just to see where they went wrong. It is my belief that if one completely understands the principals stated in this book and dynamically applies them to their own government, it is possible to form a society that functions fairly and responsibly to all of its people. I further believe that seeing a day when this will be done is as likely as seeing hell itself freeze over. Overreaching by one class or another ultimately spells a disaster that is also described in the pages of this book. I think that communism ultimately destroys the incentive to succeed and capitalism ultimately leads to such a desparate condition to the working class that they have no choice but to revolt. I agree with those who refer to capitalism and communism as twin evils. One thing is for sure, this book provides enough fuel for thought that it is easy to see never-ending debates arising from its pages. It seems to me that a new edition that includes an update for the 21st century is in order. Computers and globalization of the economy give rise to new circumstances that are evolutions of the principles of Marxist philosophy. As an example: With the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs from America to other countries to exploit cheap labor sources and fewer environmental restrictions, is there a moral obligation that is being overlooked by America's bourgeois? That being the compensation of the American proletariat for the jobs they lost. It was only through their hard work that the bourgeois success was sufficient to provide the capital necessary to move the jobs to other countries. In many cases the tax shelters utilized by the bourgeois cause it to be taxes paid by the proletariat to provide foreign aid to countries that then use that aid to construct manufacturing facilities as an incentive to American businesses to relocate. And who was it that helped lobby for the legislation and even write the legislation that made it all happen? American bourgeoisie. Of course this is an interpretation that will be refuted by many. But that doesn't mean that it's wrong. So pick it up and give it a read and then join the discussion of the ages! You can't beat the price!

Very good, no frills edition of the text. What more could you want?

I’m not a fan of communism per say, but what a philosophy on problems faced with capitalism. An eye opening read, great historical gem.

It is worth reading the book to get an understanding of what the de-facto founders of communism thought. Luckily, the book is short and a quick read. It feels to be composed of two parts: their understanding of the evolution from feudalism to capitalism and the overall environment at the time, plus their understanding of what communism should be. Based on the book, it seems that the countries that claimed to be communist were mostly communist, as the main principle seemed to be to abolish private property. It is also clear that Marx and Engels did not understand human psychology. They also did not have the foresight to realize that in communism, the ruling class ownership (the single party) would replace private property or that there would even be a ruling class and that a much worse type of oppression would replace the injustices of the time. Based on their definition of communism, it is also clear that China is no longer a communist country but a one-party rule country - an oligarchy.

Very quality print and it's a nice looking pocket book as well.

I'm a beginner to communist discourse and am not well versed. This was my first foray into communism and I have to say, this has been an incredible read. Without talking too much about the book, there's people here that are much more knowledgeable, here's my review. I researched a lot for what the best translation would be and I was very pleased to be lead to the Penguin Classics translation. I love a good hardback book, and this is one. I can't comment on the introduction as I skipped it. Great value for money .