/lit/ - Literature

>Marx and Engels take the position that globalisation is bad and that the spread of trade and free exchange of ideas is bad as it means people aren't satisfied with the old way of doing things after they are exposed to new ways. They don't like technology, adopting the luddite position that it makes everything worse. They believe technology makes workers redundant and take less joy in their work. Before I go any further, does anyone agree with this nonsense? It's like they want to freeze time indefinitely, they're so anti-progress! So far, so dumb.

>Their anti-machine spiel continues as they fume that the bourgeois are in control of the machines and therefore the direction the world is taking. They want the working class to control this instead. So it's just one group of society jealous of what another group of society have. Nothing revolutionary here.

>I had to include this quote from the manifesto as I found it ironic - "He (the working man) becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him." Ironic as they claim this is the state of the working man under bourgeois rule but this is ultimately what would happen to countless millions under communist rule in the 20th century.

>The manifesto contains largely sweeping statements that aren't backed up with examples or facts, and bizarre statements about the communist utopia that go along the lines of "if everyone were communist then there would be no competition and nobody would be better and so there would be no war". There's a lot of this “anti-competition” sentiment in the manifesto as apparently we should all be equal and competition means some would be better than others. And all the even weirder stuff about all private property is abolished - those so-called reasons behind that argument make no sense at all.

>I think besides the idealistic posturing, behind which there are no practicalities for how to bring about their “utopia”. I mean who is to oversee that everyone does a certain job or where all products of production are directed, etc. etc.? There is very little of substance here. But then it's aimed at the 19th century working classes who, especially at this time, were very poorly educated, if at all, and so they wouldn't have the critical thinking to dissect the propaganda and lack of pragmatism that the manifesto contains, they would simply swallow the message of "bourgeois bad, working class good, we will make the working class have better living standards". Like a politician, all style, no substance.