The Communist Manifesto; Life Lessons and Epiphanies?

Ok, I was genuinely interested in the ideas and thoughts behind the Communist ideology so I decided to read it a while back. I finished the surprisingly short tome a few weeks ago and boy I’ve been stewing over it for a while! In perfect 20/20 hindsight, I wish I had taken more notes and really delved into the deeper ideas but that would take forever, so here are my thoughts on it, from the perspective of a political and economic layman.

First up, the text is pretty dry and a heftier read then it looks. The actual manifesto written by Marx and Engels consists of only approximately 15% of the total text and it features at the end. It’s also the easiest part to read. The chapters are short and feature relatively simple language, no doubt designed to be read and more importantly understood, by the masses of 19th century workers across Europe. The ideas, are fairly simple too. Everyone knows the phrase, “seize the means of production” and the manifesto follows in a largely similar manner, setting out ideas and guidelines for a communist society. The rest of the book itself consists of essays and studies of the history and conception the manifesto as well as prefaces in a variety of languages as they were published, accompanied by corrections pointed out by Frederick Engels.

What is surprising about the earlier portions of the book, those studies on the thoughts and ideas behind Karl Marx are quite philosophical. As someone who has very limited experience with philosophy, I was almost taken aback by the complexity of it all. What I found incredibly profound was the way that these essays dealt with the idea of Capitalism, most notably, the assignment of a monetary value to not only things, but also people. Ideas are presented in the aforementioned essays relate to how Capitalism creates new “needs” that are not required but are met through excessive production anyway, and in turn, everything was an object for sale.

This idea of monetising humanity was a notion that I had not considered before reading this text and now, the effects of this capitalist regime became apparent in my everyday thinking. It led to questions such as “How much of what is created out of necessity as opposed to making a profit?” and “How can someone quantify the efforts of another human being without being partial? Who decides the pay that people receive?” and so on.

The text goes on to bring forth ideas such as equal opportunity and the impact of religion in this Marxist ideal. It also outlines the political and ideological journey that predominantly Karl Marx (with Engels appearing in key parts) took in creating the final version of the Communist theory.

The manifesto itself is rather wordy for such a small text and highlights important ideas such as the class system, private property and wage labour. Unfortunately my meagre understanding of economic and political concepts meant that I could only glean a sliver of what Marx and Engels were trying to put forward, but it was engaging nonetheless. I, especially enjoyed reading about how minimum wage is used by employers to limit the means in which others can obtain “property”. It is eye-opening.

If you ever get the opportunity to read this text, I highly recommend it, even if the views do not align with your own. It is more commentary if anything else, and well worth it!