Marx

In class we talked about Karl Marx and his theory about communism and the way he perceives life. We started by talking about how he said the existence of classes is bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production. Also, the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, the rule of the working class. We then went on to discuss how the dictatorship of the proletariat is only a transition to the abolition of all classes.

Marx broke the historical phases down into five stages and he called them the Development of Production. The first stage was the primitive stage. The second stage was the feudal stage. The third was the slave. The fourth stage is the capitalist stage, which he says is the stage we are currently in. He also says that the fifth stage is basically is prediction of the future and he says it is the socialist/communist stage.

He goes on to say that the class struggle under capitalism becomes particularly violent because of three reasons. The first reason is because capitalism forces everyone into only one of two classes. Those classes are the bourgeoise and the proletariat. The second reason is the relationship based upon a fundamental contradiction. The fundamental contradiction says that although both classes participate in the act of the production, the mode of distribution of the goods does not correspond to the contribution of each class. This basically is saying that the people who do more, gets less and the people that do less, gets more. The last reason is because the conditions for the workers will only get worse and worse. That means that the poor will become poorer and more numerous while the rich become richer and less numerous. Marx believes that in the end, a workers'  revolution will begin.