Day 277 – 52 Books in 52 Weeks

So I spent Saturday reading The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. After reading it and doing just a little research on Marx, I’ve come to the conclusion that he created his socialist/communist agenda to support his lifestyle. According to what I found, he lived in exile off the wealth of his friends and relations. He had minimal income of his own (to support his wife and children. He fathered seven children, only three of whom lived to adulthood; and it is rumored that he fathered a child by his housekeeper). Basically he was broke, exiled, and suffered the loss of four children, and supposedly an adulterer.

Take all of that and look at how he thought government should be run: there should be an abolition of private property (he apparently didn’t own any), an abolition of money (he died with less than $250 to his name), and an abolition of the free market (which since his work was minimal, he had minimal income). He believed in destroying individualism.

On pages 54 and 55, here are a few things that he thought was bad for people:

• Industries that use raw materials from remote areas (as opposed to using only indigenous raw materials)
• Products consumed around the globe (he believed products should only be consumed in your local area)
• Universal inter-dependence of nations for materials (he believed countries should be secluded nationally, if not locally)
• Intellectual creation (he believed in national one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness – his words page 55)
• World literature (he believed in only local and national literature).

What is ironic, especially looking at his last two on the list, is that his work as a “journalist” and his other writings he pushed onto the world. He was, in effect, doing what he claims to be bad for people. Talk about hypocrisy.

He even says that the improvements in production and communication “draws” even the most barbarian of nations into civilization (page 55) as if that is a bad thing. He believes that too much civilization, too much industry, too much commerce will lead to capitalism’s own downfall because it is too powerful and too disorderly.

He states (page 64) in no uncertain terms that the proletarians’ mission (proletariate = working class) is to “destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property.” And on page 67: “…the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.” And that in order to do this the proletariate must first of all acquire political supremacy… which he fails to mention would put them into the place of the bourgeoisie (“exploiter” or “oppressor” ruling class) and that they’d be doing unto others that which he condemns from doing onto him.

In any case, I do want to read Das Kapital to get a better understanding of his theory since this little book really doesn’t go into detail. It did, however, give me enough information to realize he was off his rocker.