Notes from Communist Manifesto

Scott's Notes for Class

Notes on the Communist Manifesto

Engel's summary from the preface:
- the economic production and the structure of society of every historical epoch necessarily arising therefrom constitute the foundation for the political and intellectual history of that epoch
- consequently, all of history (since the primeval communal ownership of land) has been a history of class struggle
- this struggle is now at a stage where the oppressed class cannot emancipate itself from the oppressing class without also forever freeing the whole of society from exploitation, oppression, and class struggles

our epoch has condensed class from a set into a duality

history of history:
expansion of civilization (to America, four corners, etc) opened up trade, commodities, navigation, industry. feudal society couldn't cope and was replaced by manufacturing. guild masters were displaced by the manufacturing middle class. the division of labor btwn corporate guilds was replaced by the division of labor within each workshop. the explosion of the market allowed the bourgeoisie (the owners of the means of production) to rise and displace the outmoded classes.

hence the bourgeoisie is the result of a long historical development. and with each historical advance of the bourg, a political advance, too.

"The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie."

Nothing is left between people but naked self-interest, "egotistical calculation". Free Trade replaces freedom.

"veiled by religious and political illusions, [the bourgeoisie] has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation"

physician, lawyer, priest, poet, and scientist are no longer revered (in a mystical kind of way); they are all now paid wage-laborers

even the family relation is now a mere money relation (SL: huh?)

the bourg cannot exist w/o constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, hence all of society remains agitated, uncertain. the market must constantly expand. all is constant manipulation.

proles are simply yet another commodity, exposed to all the fluctuations of the market. they live only so long as they find work and they find work only so long as their labor increases capital.

the bourg includes industrial owners plus landlords, shopkeepers, pawnbrokers, etc

the lower strata of the middle class -- smaller tradespeople and shopkeepers, peasants, etc -- become part of the proletariat, too, bc their capital is so marginal, and bc their skills become worthless in the face of new production methods.

before they self-organize, proles are somewhat organized by the bourg, to simplify mgmt. so in a sense, the bourg facilitate the revolution. (they do so in a number of ways, according to marx/engels, tho I'm unclear how)

p. 484: Comm party helps national proles see common interests with other nations' proles.
But p. 476-7 complains that the bourg globalize the market, and the complaints are just about the market qua market but about it becoming transnational.

Comm party is the elite braintrust of the proles.

property in its present form is based on the antagonism of capital and wage-labor. (SL: huh?)

capital is a social power, not personal

"In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer."

private property already doesn't really exist for most people, so the bourg should stop complaining about Comm's intention to abolish it completely.

"Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriation."

bourg lament the disappearance of capital AND CULTURE. but the culture they mourn is, for the majority, a mere training to act as a machine.

the CM has a focus on history as the progression of social/class configurations.

SL Questions/Comments
the bourg are uniform, like communists, but expansive, like capitalists
but can you rule and be a prole at the same time?
can the comms really think that the emancipation of the proles is the End?
class struggle passages (section I) are cool but the communism passages (section II) are polemic and old school.
do sociologists that identity as marxists focus on class struggle bc it's the only aspect that remains valid? or is it to be PC? or what?
what do the proles become after the singularity? they can't just remain raw labor machines.

Themes
History. Bourg/Prole as final class division. Emancipation of proles as singularity.
Modern state as agent of bourg.
Proles as mere commodity, machinery.
Communist Party as braintrust of proles.
Capital as social power, not personal.
Bourg as deluded by own self-interest, blind to history's lessons of revolution.
Law as ossified class will, not justice.