Comparing Marx and Toqueville Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Comparing Marx and Toqueville - Research Paper ExampleManifesto of the Communist caller In the beginning of the manifesto, Marx details the history and evolution of the means of return from feudal to modern times. As Europe expanded through colonization and evolution of its colonies, the feudal dodging collapsed, and the Manufacturing System took its place (Marx, 1888, p8). The feudal lords fell to the industrial middle pattern. Technology and trade continued to expand exponentially, and the industrial middle class was replaced by industrial millionaires, the leaders of whole industrial armies, the modern button-down(Marx, 1888, p8). The bourgeois, or new sentiment class, controlled the means of production and had all political power. The modern rub downing class--the proletariat--must sell themselves piecemeal, as a commodity, like every other article of commerce (Marx, 1888, p14). Their labor was unskilled and grueling. They worked under the eyes of the bourgeois manufactur er for minimum w era in factories. With automation came the blurring of the distinction in who was needed to work. Women and baby birdren could do crying tasks as well All are instruments of labor, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex (Marx, 1888, p15). The Manifesto contends that all history is a form of conflict between oppressor and oppressed. What changes are the name and ideologies of the oppressors, but the fundamental dynamic remains the same. At the end of the 19th century, globalization was occurring, with capitalism as its driving force. Marx and Engels were well aware of this propensity for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it the bourgeoisie has substituted naked, shameless, brutal exploitation (1888,p 10). With this in mind, Marx turns his attention to the bourgeois idealization of the family. By making into law its values and expectations, the bourgeoisie legitimizes the system of production (1888,p 24). The family in its ideal form exists merely for the wealthy. It claims to be an ideal form. Yet, the bourgeois man is the exclusively real beneficiary. As the property owner, and as the owner of the means of production, the upper class man owns some(prenominal) his wife and his children. The right of ownership guarantees him freedom to determine his own destiny. As property, the wife and children, although materially provided-for, realise no real freedom. The proletarian is unable to live even like this, because he, his wife and his children must work in order to survive The bourgeois claptrap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parent and child becomes all the more disgusting becauseby the actions of modern industry, all family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder and their children modify intoarticles of commerce and instruments of labor (Marx, 1888, p 25). Marx advocates replacing home education with social education, in order to benefit an even star t for rich and poor children. This even start as I phrase it, is a bit utopian, but it is the goal of Marxism to overthrow the unfair, elitist results of the capitalist system. The notion of complete ownership of the means of production allows the elite man to possess indiscriminately. (1888, p 25). As all women as well as set down class men are his property, then all can be used. The proletarian men are only instruments to be used in the amassing of capital. All women, rich, poor, married, unmarried and prostitutes,