Communism Essays - Political Philosophy, Politics, Philosophy

Communism Communism is a concept or system of society in which the community owns the major resources and means of production rather than by individuals. (Beers 670) Which means if that theory was true, everything should be shared between people. That also suggests that society wouldn't need a government because this society would be without rulers. However, communism also involves the abolition of private property by a revolutionary movement. In the early 19th century the idea of a communist society was a response of the poor and dislocated to the beginning of modern capitalism. (Carr 28) At that time communism was the basis for a number of Utopian settlements. Most Communistic experiments, however, failed eventually. Most of these small private experiments involved voluntary cooperation, with everyone participating in the governing process. Later the term communism was reserved for the philosophy advanced by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their Communist Manifesto and movement they helped create in Central Europe. Since 1917 the term has denoted those who regard the Russian Revolution as a model that all Marxists should follow. (Beers 670-71) Beginning with the Russian Revolution the center of gravity of global communism has moved away from Central and Western Europe from the late 1940s through the 1980s, communist movements were often connected with Third World strivings for national independence and social change. (Beers 729) Karl Marx was born on May 5, 1818 in the city of Trier in Prussia now Germany. He was one of seven children of Jewish Parents. Marx attended high school in his hometown in (1830-1835). During high school years he was always politically rebellious and often was drunk and disorderly causing him to spend a lot of time in jail. After high school he went to university in Berlin. In October of 1842, Marx became an editor of the paper Rheinische Zeitung and as the editor wrote editorials on socioeconomic issues such as poverty. However, the Prussian government suspended it because of"pressures from the government of Russia." So, Marx went to Paris to study "French Communism." In June of 1843 he was married to Jenny Von Westphalen. Paris was also the place were Marx and Engels joined forces at the end of August in 1844. This time they had more in common. Engels had rejected the Young Hegelians and other "radical bourgeois" acquaintances. And Marx had moved rapidly into communism. They had reached a common point. Marx had introduced Engels to the editors of a new radical journal in Paris called Vorwarts which after a vague beginning had become an organ of revolutionary and communist propaganda. But later on, a Prussian government in 1845 closed down the Vorwarts. Forcing Marx along with a small group of others, among them the Russian radical Mikhail Bakunin to move in Brussels, the capital neighboring Belgium. The rest was history. (Rice 1-74) In their writings Marx and Engels tried to analyze society which they described as capitalistic. They pointed out the differences between ideals and reality in modern society. Rights granted to all had not done away with injustices, constitutional self government had not abolished mismanagement and corruption, science provided mastery over nature but nor over fluctuations of the business cycle and the efficiency of modern production methods had produced slums in midst of abundance. (Beers 495-96.) They described all human history as the attempt of men and women to develop and apply their potential for creativity for the purpose of controlling the forces of nature so as to improve the human condition. In this ongoing effort to develop its productive forces, humanity has been remarkably successful; history has been a march of progress. Yet in developing productivity, various social institutions have been created that have introduced exploitation, domination and other evils humanity pays for progress is an unjust society. Every social system of the past, Marx argued had been a device by which the rich and powerful few could live by the hard work and misery of the powerless many. Engels and Marx believed that the capitalist system too was flawed and therefore bound to destroy itself. They tried to show that the more productive the system became, the more difficult it would be to make it function. The more goods it produced, the less use it would have for these goods, the more people it trained, and the less it could utilize their talents. (Rice 55-60) Capitalism in short would eventually choke on its own wealth. The collapse of the capitalist economy, it was thought, would turn in a political revolution in which the masses of the