By: Mark Tisdale
June 9, 2014
It is interesting today to look at the Communist Manifesto from a current prospective and see how closely the beliefs and theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels still relate to our society today. We still observe as they did years ago, the obvious separation of wealth between the rich and the poor and the drastic imbalance of power among the nations that divides the contents into classes. However, perhaps the most convincing concept that gives credence to their work is the globalizing trend we see that Marx and Engle’s once predicted in our society to this day. This globalizing trend in our economic system has been for some time now been giving the Bourgeoisie a permanent strong hold over the Proletariat and continues to exploit the working class.
The separation of wealth and division of classes that where discussed in the Communist Manifesto are more evident in today’s society than ever before. We can see this through the wealthiest of political forces pushing to expand our economy into a free market. Although, there have been changes in the way governments intervene to keep this power out of the hands of the elite. The ruling class (Bourgeoisie) has still found ways to dominate the majority of the wealth and to manipulate the economy within our nation. They have done this through privatization of industries and a capitalistic drive to maximize production through economic unity among the wealthy. This distinct separation of classes however, has now occurred on a much larger scale. Instead of just looking at class separation domestically in a micro-scale as Marx and Engle’s once did, we can now begin to see it even through the class distinction of now entire countries on a macro-scale.
On this note, we can see this exploitation through such political creations as the International monetary fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB), where the upper class can now control and manipulate the wealth among nations. They do this through a globalized effort by the elite that has allowed them to work together to create institutions such as the WB to lend money to developing nations and increase capital programs towards their own advantage. They exploit these developing countries that they lend money to by forcing them to adopt and restructure their economy that is geared directly towards the benefit of the elite. They then have the power to charge the developing nation at unaffordable tax rates to ensure that they have rule over the developing nations. However, Marx has already outlined this occurrence of the rich working together to ensure political power over others when he states,
The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation
(Marx, K & Engels, F., 1848).
We can see through this how the Bourgeoisie has continued to maintain their upper hand through creation of political forces to exploit the working class. Although this occurrence has