The Communist Manifesto: The Bourgeois and The Proletarians

Marx started the Manifesto with a description of the never-ending struggle between classes of the society. The rise of the Bourgeois and the Proletarians was no different from the class antagonism in history. The new classes that were developed was nothing more than a simplified form of the old ways of oppression.

The Bourgeois
All throughout the reading, the idea to keep in mind is communism. Communism, as defined in dictionary.com, is a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party. The bourgeoisie is that single and self-perpetuating political party.
In the Rise of Industrial Revolution, the trade system pushed for a feudal system that is monopolized. The guild masters were replaced by the manufacturing middle class and the division of labor between different guilds was replaced with division of labor in a workshop. From the series of revolutions in production and exchange, the modern bourgeoisie was born and from each step was always accompanied with a political change.
Among all these political change, the bourgeoisie has played the most revolutionary part. They were the exploiters. They exploited not just the land, the environment, materials and resources, and most of all, they exploited people. They have needs that cannot be satisfied and knows no limitation because they were never given one in the first place. It was as if they own the world, wanting to conquer everything. They can buy everything and everyone. To be more precise, their money can buy everything and everyone.
And then the epidemic of over-production came about. It was a crisis that the bourgeoisie has no control over. Their solution is either a "destruction of a mass of productive forces, or by the conquest of new markets, or by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones." We can easily relate this with outsourcing. As soon as laborers organized unions and protested for higher wages, manufacturing companies responded by outsourcing jobs and sometimes the whole company to other places where labor and resources are cheap. This solution worked out so well and we can see that it is slowly working its way up to labors that we never thought can be outsourced such as those in the medical field.

The Proletarians
Marx described the proletariats as the "people that the bourgeoisie has called upon to wield weapons for them, which is also what will kill them." To the bourgeois, they were referred to as commodity. They are a possession, belonging, merchandise. Yet they are important to their survival.
The topic in the reading that I found interesting was the alienation in proletarians. Alienation emerged during the Industrial revolution because men became nothing more than an "appendage of the machine". They are an attachment, a supplement, an accessory. There was no connection between the producer and the product. As these continues on, the repulsion of the nature of one's job grows. The working class were not only are they enslaved by the bourgeoisie and the over-looker, even the machines are superior of them. Yes, we have reached the point where gender no longer matter in the labor industry. Everyone is now equal as instruments of labour.
In my work experience in the hospital, alienation is probably something that is not very common. Most of the time, the problem is that workers are too involved in their work, in which case, alienation is not from their work but from their own self. They become too involve with their work that their work starts to define who they are. There is a lost of personal life. I'm sure that this is something that is common to anyone that is passionate about their work. I guess is to find balance. Or maybe just finding that something that you can passionate about so that working will never feels like work.

CHAPTER 18: REVOLUTIONS OF INDUSTRIALIZATION

In the beginning of the chapter, there was a question asked that I found very interesting:
"Are we at the beginning of a movement leading to a worldwide industrialization, stuck in the middle of a world permanently divided into rich and poor countries, or approaching an end of an environmentally unsustainable era?"
If you ask me, I think that we're way past the beginning of a worldwide industrialization. Are we stuck in the middle of a permanently divided rich and poor countries? Yes, we are currently stuck in that situation but I wouldn't say permanently because there is certainly an awareness and effort to help struggling countries. Are we approaching an end of an environmentally unsustainable era? I would like to think so and from the level of awareness that we have now, I think that we have a big chance on heading towards that direction.

Another interesting idea that I found from the reading is that Europe is not the initiator but it is the center of the Industrial Revolution. The surge in industrial productivity in Britain started between 1750 and 1900, with the invention of steam engine, enabling them to produce locomotive machineries and oceangoing ships. Way before this event, the Islamic world and China had already experienced technological and scientific expansion but declined for some reason at the same time that Industrial Revolution began in Europe. We can see here that once again, the author was making an effort of pulling away from Eurocentrism.

The key for their success was the "culture of innovation". It was the obsessive belief that there is an infinite ways to make things better. Their Scientific Revolution did not focus much on logic and reasoning but more on observation and experimentation, invention of mechanical devices and practical commercial application. This is almost like comparing people that are book smart and street smart and in this case, those that are street smart became more successful because they were able to apply to their knowledge in real world.

As the first Industrial Society developed, each social class experienced its effect differently. Landowning aristocrats did not get most of the benefits as they lost political power from the rising middle class that eventually abolished high tariffs on foreign agricultural imports. In other words, they were not the only that had access on lavish textiles and food. And just as middle class business became successful, they were also able to send their children to Oxford or Cambridge University and eventually earned nobility titles from Queen Victoria.

I find it interesting that during this time, women suddenly became the center of middle class families. Men found the capitalist world as cutthroat and heartless, and home is the one place where they can find refuge. The idea of domestication was preferred by women because they were given authority to take charge at home and to manage the family's food expenses. We can still see this type of family setting in many parts of the world. Women are the homemaker, in charge of taking care of the house, children and feeding the family. But we are also in the transition of a change in family roles as more men become stay home dads.

To end this blog, I thought I'd show the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony in London.

The French Revolution

King Louis XVI called an assembly between the Estates General, made up of the clergy, the nobility and the commoners, wanting to discuss a new tax system that is modern yet still in favor of the upper estates that makes up 2% of the population. At this time, majority of the commoner, the French soldiers that had just returned home from assisting the American colonists are still fired up from the revolution that they have just witnessed, and decided to put an end to the unfair taxation by forming a resistance group called the National Assembly. From this group, the Declaration of the rights of Man and Citizen arise, stating, “men are born and remain free and equal in rights” (p. 504). And this how the French Revolution started.

The French Revolution was much more violent compared to the American Revolution. People attacked castles of their lords and burned payment and debt documents. I wonder if the main reason for such violent reaction was the desire for fast results, which seems to be what was accomplished, even with slavery. Compared to the American Revolution, the new government structure still excluded women and slaves and seems to be something that we are still struggling to resolve until now. But these fast results came with a high price of ten thousands of lives during the Terror of 1793-1794. The irony was when committee leader Maximilien Robespierre, who was prosecuting the enemies of the revolution, was subjected to the guillotine himself after he was accused of tyranny and dictatorship. Coming such dark past, when the French people decided to create a new society, they decided to wipe off everything in order to start in a clean slate.