This relentless expansion means that the capitalist system is exposed to risks-if it overproduces, the subsequent readjustment can lead to economic crises. That means driving down the cost of labor-in other words, the wages of the working class.įurthermore, the bourgeoisie is the first class capable of bringing about overproduction (when more product is made than the market demands). Because the bourgeoisie depends upon the competition of the market, it requires never-ending growth and innovation: “the need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe,” the authors write, “It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.” The bourgeoisie’s dominance of the social hierarchy, then, depends upon its ability to consistently revolutionize the “ instruments of production”-that is, to make manufacturing and distribution processes as cheap and efficient as possible. Marx and Engels go into great detail about how they see the bourgeoisie oppressing the proletariat. They are oppressed by the bourgeoisie, which pays them just enough for them to survive and continue to generate products (and therefore profit) for their oppressors. Now, however, this dominance cements and deepens divisions between the capitalist class and the workers who maintain it-that is, the industrial “army” of workers that constitutes the proletariat. Even the bourgeoisie itself struggled against other dominant classes, such as the aristocracy, to win its sweeping dominance over society. But all of these conflicts, including that between the bourgeoisie and proletariat, are essentially battles of an “oppressor” versus the “oppressed.” Class struggle, then, propels humanity. The authors provide numerous examples of these early conflicts, including those in Ancient Rome between patricians, knights, plebeians, and slaves.
Marx and Engels argue that all history is the “history of class struggles.” These struggles used to be smaller as populations were lower and people were dispersed more widely. According to the manifesto, every about an individual’s life is governed by economic class. History, in turn, is inseparable from class struggle-and any chance of a more equal society depends on acknowledging this.
It is this force, they argue, rather than actions by individual “great men,” that defines the world. Yet they see class not just as a way of categorizing people, but also as a force that itself shapes history. They see people as stratified into distinct categories fundamentally based on economics.
Marx and Engels’ mission is to revolutionize class and hierarchy.
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