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Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Bourgeoisie and Proletariat (2 of 4)

As most people know, Karl Marx was not very fond of the capitalist system.  While in Germany, Marx learned of the harsh conditions the German workers had to deal with in the factories and how little money they made at these jobs.  Marx also saw the poor environments that these workers lived in and he was appalled.

Karl Marx believed that history was a series of class struggles.  Marx thought society was made up of two class groups: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.  The bourgeoisie was the wealthy, factory owners and the proletariat was the workers.  In Marx’s theory, the proletariat would eventually tire of being mistreated by the bourgeoisie and would revolt.

This revolution would be very violent and bloody but Marx believed that it was inevitable.  Marx thought that capitalism would overthrow itself.  Because the bourgeoisie depend on the workers in the proletariat, capitalism cannot survive without the presence of a lower class.  When this revolution occurred the existence of the lower class would dissolve and in its place would be a classless society.

That is what Marx asserted was best for society: a society with no class system.  Marx wanted a society with free education and for wealth, land, and labor to be shared by the society.  “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” is Marx’s motto when it comes to how people should live in society.

Marx’s idea of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat is outlined in his book that he wrote with his life long companion, Friedrich Engels, entitled The Communist Manifesto.

Once again I got this information from here and the Little History of Philosophy textbook by Nigel Warburton.

By: Lauren Williams Section 9 Group 3
 

1 comment:

  1. Just to be clear: Engels was Marx's collaborative WORKING companion. Karl was happily married.

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