What Are Marx & Engels Concerns About Capitalism?

“The Manifesto argues that capitalism produces both monumental achievements that in some respects exceed those of all other world civilizations – yet it also produces monumental inequality and misery.”

I like the example given in the article “The Manifesto of the Communist Party” about Wal-Mart in which they explain how Wal-Mart changed the way goods are made and marketed, and the changes in relationships that have occurred as a result. Marx and Engels, although they couldn’t see in the future, were correct when they hypothesized that capitalism would lead to “monumental inequality and misery” (1). As stated in the article, our history is composed of a series of class struggles, the most recent (and ongoing) of which is the Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. With the growing class of Bourgeoisie, “Modern Industry” (2) has exploded, for better and worse. Marx and Engels explain how the bourgeoisie eliminate the old feudal system of superiority and replace it with a bottom line mentality of making money. “It has resolved personal worth into exchange value” (3) and exchanged freedom for free trade. Now there are both good and bad effects of this. For one, since the products and relationships of society are always changing, every man is forced to face the “real conditions of life” (4). We learn that the world is becoming more and more of a unified village. Old traditions, practices, and ways of life are being demolished under the industrial tractor and as a result, nations are becoming more and more dependent on the ones that have joined the bourgeoisie bandwagon already. “It has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilized one, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West” (4). The main point that can be gathered from this article is that the growth of capitalism will lead to the death of freedom. As Wyclef would say, “cash rules everything around [us]”.