how did Marx and Engels think the world would end up? What had to happen in order for it to get there? What were the effects of industrialization (particularly as Marx and Engels saw it)? And how might industrialization have contributed to what Marx and Engels wanted ot see happen?
Goals, "Communist Manifesto"
The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single phrase: Abolition of private property. (page 82)
In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.
And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeoisie, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at. (page 84)
You reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend. (page 85)
. . . the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible. (pages 85-86)
Abolition of the family! (page 87)
The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish countries and nationality." (page 90)
Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality. (page 92)
Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. (page 116)
Goals of Communism (page 94)
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 right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization 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 wastelands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc., etc.
Note: the above pages reflect the paperback version, 14th printing, April 1976
Note: the above quotes also reflect the tenets of the religion of humanism.
