"Marx-Engels Reader" about modern capitalism

Essay by ocaronUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, April 2004

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1. Society's mode of production is based upon the relationship between the superstructure and infrastructure of society. The infrastructure, or base, is a combination of the force of production, known as how the goods are produced, and the relations of production, or the social distribution of the means of production. These are the two key elements of production in a society and the bourgeoisie and proletariat are both equally key to this combination in the base. The bourgeoisie has the power of capitalism; the force of production, and the proletariat does the labor to make the product, the relations of productions (p. 475). Marx and Engels state that all societies are "class societies" always have been and always will be. This means that all societies have two main groups; the oppressors and the oppressed. Feudalism had the lords and the serfs, in times of slavery, the plantation owners exploited the slaves, and even now, with capitalism, the bourgeoisie control the proletariat (p.

474).

2. As societies transform from one to another, Marx and Engels emphasize the importance of revolution of such societal change, especially to the capitalist society. This revolution is one that as time goes, the bourgeoisie's goal is make money and become wealthier. The more time that passes, the more money he makes, and then he can buy more machinery to make even more. Soon new kinds of machinery are being bought, and then the more proletariats are hired (ppg. 478-479). As a chain reaction, a cause and effect phenomenon, the proletarians become of over-whelming proportion to the bourgeoisie, that a revolution, the proletarians abolish the previous mode of appropriation, to destroy all previous securities and insurances of individual property, the only way of becoming the masters of production (p. 482). Therefore the fall of the bourgeoisie and...