In the "Communist Manifesto," Marx and Engels suggest some "wonderful improvements" for society. Cite a line from the Manifesto highlighting one of these improvements, i.e, something Marx and Engels want to see changed. Would the change they suggest be a good one? Why,
or why not? Do you get a feeling of deja vu when you read through the Manifesto? Any issues raised similar to those in contemporary American politics?
9 comments:
One "improvement" proposed by Marx and Engels is the "abolition of inheritance." They don't want parents to be able to pass anything down to their children. I think that this would be disastrous. Part of why a mother or father works so hard is so that he or she can build a better life for his or her children. Eliminating that hope of a better life for a parent's children would take away much motivation for workers and result in a feeling of unknowing hopelessness -- workers would be asking "will my children grow up to live in a world the same or worse than mine?" In our capitalist society people can leave their wealth to whoever they wish in a will, and it is a gerneral rule that the children of the extremely wealthy will inherit their parents' fortune. People should have a free will to do whatever they want with their own property -- to leave it to whoever they want. Even if the other person has done nothing to deserve what is left to them, it is the choice of the person who has earned that fortune to do what he or she wants with it.
Kelli Gill
MWF 10:00
An improvement proposed by Marx and Engles is "a heavily progressive income tax." They had hopes of abolishing the extreme poverty and the excessively rich in the world. The progressive tax: "The more you make the more taxes you pay; the less you make the less taxes you pay." This "improvement" would spread the wealth evenly among the people. Though this is a stragtegy to help the poverty and put a check on the rich, this necessarily is not the best "improvement" to make. I know today that there are people who cheat and cut corners inorder to make more money but quite often, those who make more money work harder and are often more educated and skilled. These people deserve to have the priveledge of a higher income than those who are not as hard working. With present conditions, there will always be extreme poverty and extreme wealth. If we implement a progressive income tax that takes away from the hard working and gives it to those who don't work so hard just doesn't cut it because eventually those who work harder will not want to work as hard and efficiancy declines drastically. If we leave it the way it is more people have a chance to better their lives.
Carrie M. Benda
11:00 MWF
An improvement that Marx and Engels suggested is the "abolition of private property." They do not want people to have their own private property because property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence. This was direccted mostly at the bourgeois'. I think that this is not a good change because a family farm is usually passed down from generation to gernation and provides work and income for a family. Without owning it themselves the quality of the goods produced would probably decline and it would an unorganized mess. Their is alot of pride involved with owning your own land or property and if you take that away the quality would go down. Today farms seem to usually be passed down and the kids know what to do and it is an organized process. Without private ownership of land, fields would look bad and hunting would be an interesting subject!
Dustin Bonn
MWF 10:00
One improvement proposed was the change in religion. Which so many people have tried before and hasn't worked. They though that if they changed the religion to a "Religion of Marx state" that it would solve a lot. If you look at the past history of people who have tried to just have one religion and what it did to their countries you would be able to tell that it wouldn't work. And of course it just turned into another blood bath! Marx just wanted his religion to grow. After he tried to change the religion it was the final wind before the storm so to speak. After that people were not happy with what they were doing and turned it into a calmer state to a state of war and blood. In my opinion the change of religion didn't help the state at all it just made things worse then they already were. It wasn't an improvement at all, it was far from an improvement! I think that if people want to have their own religion that they will have it no matter what the law says and if you try and say you can only have one then you are just asking to go to war.
Mel Arnold
MWF 0900
One of the things Marx and Engels would like to see improved is Free public education for all children. This seems like a good idea because most children are curious about the world around them and want to learn more. There should be no reason for all children to not go unless the parents would stop them from going.
The problem that I ask is would the teachers have a choice as to what they would like to teach or would they have to teach what was dictated to them by the govt.? Most public school teachers now days do have some say as to what kind of cirriculum they would like to teach, but they must collaborate with others before making that decision.
Ellen Shclosser
MWF 11:00
A improvment mentioned by Marx and Engels was the installment of a mininum wage. You could also make no more than the mininum amount also you could not make any less as well. With no surplus of money for workers keeps them all at a level playing field. Nobody looks down on anyone for being poor and nobody looks up to anybody for being to wealhthy. This improvment is needed for a communist society to funtion. It's almost like today with most professinal sports in having a cap limit. I think this provides a society with a common purpose and goal, and keeps everyone on the same page. The problem i think i would see is workers becoming stagnent because they would never really get rewarded for hard work. So that hard work would probably never happen and your economy would have a tough time growing. But it does do a good job at keeping your workforce on one even keel. The Communist Manifesto reminds me alot some ideas and bills we see in congress today. Some are not that well thought out and seem a little over the top. Communism sounds like a good idea and makes some good points but some of the improvements would not cause improvement in the long run. Like alot of our ideas today. Another thing with communism is that it would only truly work if the rest of the world was also communism. Capitalistic countries grown and expand alot more than its counterpart.
Mark Vande Haar
MWF 10:00
In the fourth section of The Communist Manifesto,"Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties", Marx and Engels talk about the how communist work with other parties to be stronger.They agree that it is the working class that is stronger than any other.They support each other in the revolutionary movement against social and political things. They need to fight for their freedom saying that, "All working men, Unite"!
Amber Brezden MWF 9:00
One improvement Marx and Engels wanted was the union and agreement of democratic parties for all countries. I think that this would be a very good thing becuase then everyone would be on the same page and wouldn't be fighting over which type of government is better than the other. The United States has a democracy and it seems to have been working for us so I think that it is safe to say that if everyone had it, our world would be in good shape. Alot of the issues raised in the communist manifesto that are raised in politics today.
Lea Nutley
MWF 10:00
In the section labeled Proletarians and communists the Manifesto states that “Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.” It goes on to say that “Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.”
I believe this change suggested by Marx and Engles was a good one. When they stated that there should be free education in public schools, it happened. Today all kids are demanded to go to school by the age of 6. Being born and raised in LA, I see a lot of things. I see what happens when kids don’t go to school, and how certain families are raised if they don’t have enough money. Being able to send your kid to school for free is a blessing. It teaches kids about the world, and gives them a chance to do something with their life. When Marx and Engles made the decision of putting it in the Manifesto, they made a good one. Today people are still trying to make it better for those that don’t have that opportunity.
Getting rid of children’s factory labor was another good move. Making children work that hard and at that young of age is and was wrong. Today people get in big trouble if they have kids working under the age 14. And even from the age 14 to 16 I think it is, they are only aloud to work so many hours. Management is not supposed to allow them to work over those certain hours.
After reading through the manifesto, I think to myself, wow, this is how society is today. And it is like that because of what someone wrote in 1848! So in a way if does feel like déjà vu.
Stanley Kailahi
MWF 11:00AM
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