The Communist Manifesto

[btpound]

I remember when I use to be an Anarchist, I read the communist manifesto for the first time and generally enjoyed it. Until I got the this part:

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.

I read it, and being an anarchist, i was incredibly confused. This looked like an awful idea, and these very specific ideas are still mysterious to me. It has never been explained to me fully, and it seems like something important for me to comprehend. If someone could elaborate what the more cloudy points mean, like "confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels", as well as what these ten points represent, as in the context in which Marx is introducing them, I would really appreciate it. Thank you.

[chegitz guevara]

Keep in mind the context. These were very radical demands in 1848 in Germany. Germany was still, largely, a backward agrarian nation (divided into many tiny states) with a feudal power structure and a rising capitalist economy.

They aren't really that important today.

[Muzk]

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. Property of land will be confiscated, so it serves the greater good, why would someone own a strap of land and not use it?

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. Pay less if you have less, and pay more if you have more, get it? : ]
Example: When you can barely live off of your money, you should have 0% Tax. When you get 5000$ a month, you would give everything until you're on the societies "standard", but I don't really think unequal wages should exist at all anymore... since the bank is controlled by the state nevertheless.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. Seriously, why would people get anything off of dead family members, it's not like they worked for it

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. People leaving the country because it's socialism don't need their propety anymore. Take it. And take the property of the ones who refuse to hand it out.

5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. The bank is owned by the people... yes.

6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. self explanatory, telephone&internet&buses/trains owned by the state(everyone)

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. Mass producing, produce more food or whatever and use all the available fertile land you can get

8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. Everyone should do the "same" amount of work for the community, not just one doing the work for 5 + Every type of industry gets an army for itself, to defend against... things

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country. If you look at Cuba you can see that people grow a lot of food by themselves, so country and towns are not complete opposites
also, if there are 200 million people in towns and 2 million on the country, its... not even, part of industrialization

10. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, Children should do some kind of half work half school thingy, this way even the "intellectuals" get to work once in their life.. heh.

This should cover most of it, any more questions?



And of course they are just as important today, they serve as some kind of dogma, amiright?

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Even if you're still a communist, you don't need to believe everything Marx writes. Some of those things are unnecessary and dated. Look at the section about dividing childhood education with industrial labor. That's a ridiculous dated idea. If Johnny wants to work half of his days, that's fine. But there is no reason Bob (the A++ student with a future in advanced quantum mechanics) should have to spend half his day working in a factory.

Marx might have been suggesting those ideas due to a historical context where people thought child labor was necessary to maintain optimal levels of production. That certainly isn't the case now with advances in modern machinery.

[Искра]

I don't recall to see some of this stuff you wrote here. Did some one kick those things out of Croatian version of Manifesto?

[amandevsingh]

I don't recall to see some of this stuff you wrote here. Did some one kick those things out of Croatian version of Manifesto?
Pages 20-21 of the Communist Manifesto has this exact list.
Check the English MIA version.

[Die Rote Fahne]

Pages 20-21 of the Communist Manifesto has this exact list.
Check the English MIA version.
Page 32 of mine.

the "great ideas" edition from penguin books.

[ZeroNowhere]

But Herr Heinzen also promises social reforms. Of course, the indifference of the people towards his appeals has gradually forced him to. And what kind of. reforms are these? They are such as theCommunists themselves suggest in preparation for the abolition of private property. The only point Herr Heinzen makes that deserves recognition he has borrowed from the Communists, the Communists whom he attacks so violently, and even that is reduced in his hands to utter nonsense and mere day-dreaming. All measures to restrict competition and the accumulation of capital in the hands of individuals, all restriction or suppression of the law of inheritance, all organisation of labour by the state, etc., all these measures are not only possible as revolutionary measures, but actually necessary. They are possible because the whole insurgent proletariat is behind them and maintains them by force of arms. They are possible, despite all the difficulties and disadvantages which are alleged against them by economists, because these very difficulties and disadvantages will compel the proletariat to go further and further until private property has been completely abolished, in order not to lose again what it has already won. They are possible as preparatory steps, temporary transitional stages towards the abolition of private property, but not in any other way.

Herr Heinzen however wants all these measures as permanent, final measures. They are not to be a preparation for anything, they are to be definitive. They are for him not a means but an end. They are not designed for a revolutionary but for a peaceful, bourgeois condition. But this makes them impossible and at the same time reactionary. The economists of the bourgeoisie are quite right in respect of Herr Heinzen when they present these measures as reactionary compared with free competition. Free competition is the ultimate, highest and most developed form of existence of private property. All measures, therefore, which start from the basis of private property and which are nevertheless directed against free competition, are reactionary and tend to restore more primitive stages in the development of property, and for that reason they must finally be defeated once more by competition and result in the restoration of the present situation. These objections the bourgeoisie raises, which lose all their force as soon as one regards the above social reforms as pure mesures de salut public, as revolutionary and transitory measures, these objections are devastating as far as Herr Heinzen’s peasant-socialist black, red and gold republic is concerned.

Herr Heinzen of course imagines that property relations, the law of inheritance, etc., can at will be altered and trimmed to shape. Herr Heinzen — one of the most ignorant men of this century — may, of course, not know that the property relations of any given era are the necessary result of the mode of production and exchange of that era. Herr Heinzen may not know that one cannot transform large-scale landownership into small-scale without the whole pattern of agriculture being transformed, and that otherwise large-scale landownership will very rapidly re-assert itself. Herr Heinzen may not know what a close relationship exists between today’s large-scale industry, the concentration of capital and the creation of the proletariat. Herr Heinzen may not know that a country as industrially dependent and subservient as Germany can never presume to undertake on its own account a transformation of its property relations other than one that is in the interests of the bourgeoisie and of free competition.

In short: with the Communists these measures have sense and reason because they are not conceived as arbitrary measures but as consequences which will necessarily and of themselves ensue from the development of industry, agriculture, trade and communications, from the development of the class struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat which is dependent on these; which will ensue not as definitive measures but as transitory ones, mesures de salut public arising from the transitory struggle between the classes itself.

With Herr Heinzen, they have neither sense nor reason, because they take the form of quite arbitrarily conceived, obtusely bourgeois visions of putting the world to rights; because there is no mention of a connection between these measures and historical development; because Herr Heinzen is not in the least concerned about the material feasibility of his proposals; because it is not his aim to formulate industrial necessities but on the contrary to overturn them by decree.

The same Herr Heinzen who is only able to adopt the demands of the Communists after he has so cruelly confused them and transformed them into pure fantasies, that same Herr Heinzen criticises the Communists for “confusing the minds of the uneducated”, for “chasing fantasies” and for “failing to keep their feet on the ground (!) of reality"!
-Engels, 1847, from 'The Communists and Karl Heinzen'.


They must drive the proposals of the democrats to their logical extreme (the democrats will in any case act in a reformist and not a revolutionary manner) and transform these proposals into direct attacks on private property. If, for instance, the petty bourgeoisie propose the purchase of the railways and factories, the workers must demand that these railways and factories simply be confiscated by the state without compensation as the property of reactionaries. If the democrats propose a proportional tax, then the workers must demand a progressive tax; if the democrats themselves propose a moderate progressive tax, then the workers must insist on a tax whose rates rise so steeply that big capital is ruined by it; if the democrats demand the regulation of the state debt, then the workers must demand national bankruptcy. The demands of the workers will thus have to be adjusted according to the measures and concessions of the democrats.

Although the German workers cannot come to power and achieve the realization of their class interests without passing through a protracted revolutionary development, this time they can at least be certain that the first act of the approaching revolutionary drama will coincide with the direct victory of their own class in France and will thereby be accelerated. But they themselves must contribute most to their final victory, by informing themselves of their own class interests, by taking up their independent political position as soon as possible, by not allowing themselves to be misled by the hypocritical phrases of the democratic petty bourgeoisie into doubting for one minute the necessity of an independently organized party of the proletariat. Their battle-cry must be: The Permanent Revolution.
-Marx, 1850. It's not a position he continued to hold (he called that section of the manifesto antiquated, for that matter), but it perhaps explains some things at the time, they were basically trying to support proletarian independence from the petit-bourgeois democrats.


Yet our programme is a purely socialist one. Our first plank is the socialisation of all the means and instruments of production. Still, we accept anything which any government may give us, but only as a payment on account, and for which we offer no thanks.
Engels, 1893.

I discuss it a bit here (http://theinnermountingflame.blogspot.com/2009/09/state-machinery-ten-planks-and-paris.html), as well. In retrospect, I could probably improve that quite a lot, but it does have some stuff.

[#FF0000]

words

If I remember correctly, these planks were pretty much like a platform for the party. Just a few things that Marx would have immediately have put into practice back in the 19th century when he wrote this. It's all really useless outside of that context. I don't see why you find any of that disagreeable though.

[*Viva La Revolucion*]

I haven't read the other replies so I could be repeating stuff.

1. Abolition of property in land is OK. If it's just land and you don't have anything on that land it's not really in use, but because the rents go towards 'public purposes' everyone is benefiting from it. All it means is that you can't actually own land.

2. Tax is better than no tax. Because it's a progressive system, people would be taxed depending on how much money they have. So again, the rich pay more in taxes and it isn't a burden for those who can't afford it. But all taxes would go towards improving standards of living etc. This is one of the most important points because currently there are billionaires who manage to dodge tax and pay nothing at all whilst people with less money struggle.

3. Inheritance is not a good idea. If a millionaire dies, his money could go straight to his children when they've done nothing to earn it. That's unfair. I'm not certain what would happen about property and possessions, though. Perhaps that would be different.

4. This is where it's obvious how dated the Manifesto is. I don't think this would even apply anymore. I can't see anyone putting that into practice today.

5. Surely that's a better idea than having lots of competing private banks. It also means that money and resources could be distributed more evenly.

6. I don't see the problem with this idea. It's just like having public transport which is controlled and owned by everyone.

7. Again, a good idea. Basically it's extending factories and the means of production. Is this what the Soviet 5 year plans were based on? Anyway, cultivation of waste-lands and improvement of soil can hardly be a bad thing. It would hopefully create more jobs and more resources.

8. I've never understood the phrase 'industrial armies'. Equal liability to work just means that everyone who is healthy and able can share some of the work in the community.

9. I disagree with this one. I think there needs to be a distinction between town and country.

10. Free education is great and (at least in developed countries) there is no such thing as ''children's factory labour''. Again, it was written a long time ago so not everything applies in the same way today. I think the education & industrial production idea is comparable to work experience or vocational courses at college. Students would learn both academic and practical skills.

[revolution inaction]

I don't recall to see some of this stuff you wrote here. Did some one kick those things out of Croatian version of Manifesto?

they are about 2/3 the way down the page one this copy http://libcom.org/library/communist-manifesto-marx-engels-0 just before chapter 3

Regarding these ten points I think the introduction http://libcom.org/library/prefaces-communist-manifesto is interesting


no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today. In view of the gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848, and of the accompanying improved and extended organization of the working class, in view of the practical experience gained, first in the February Revolution, and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this programme has in some details been antiquated. One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.”