Interpreting Marx
Marx believed that in communism people worked to get the same thing. There was no competition to get to the top; everyone got the same thing. He believed the limit of a man's needs is the limit of his production. This will change if demand is high and there is a chance for a profit. The person then produces excess so they can try to get ahead of the rest. This is what causes the splits in capitalism; the drive to be number one.
Cover of the Communist Manifesto’s initial publi...
Engels in 1868
Karl Marx (1818-1883)"The class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie, distinguishes communism from other socialist movements, proposes a list of specific social reforms, and urges all workers to unite in revolution against existing regimes" (http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/comm). Marx said that every class struggle is also political struggle. "This means that, if the proletarians and capitalists were ready to wage an economic struggle against each other today, they will be compelled to wage a political struggle tomorrow and thus protect their respective class interests in a struggle that bears two forms" (The Communist Manifesto). The capitalists have their specific business interests and it is to protect these interests that their economic organizations exist. But in addition to their particular business interests, they also have common class interests, namely, to strengthen capitalism. And it is to protect these common interests that they must wage a political struggle and need a political party.
There are three types of values that Marx identifies in Capital; they are use-value, exchange-value, and surplus value. The first one to discuss is use-value. Marx's says, "An object becomes a use-value by virtue of its utility, its capacity to satisfy human wants." A useful object cannot become a commodity, until we sell it to someone, and so exchange-values come into play. Exchange-value, which we must...