Marx and Engels: European Industrial Revolution Accelerated History
As a preliminary matter, in order to understand Marxist theory’s critique of Liberalism, it is absolutely necessary to understand the concept of class conflict. This is because Marxist theory relies on this notion of class conflict as a theoretical point of departure without which further theoretical developments would simply become impossible. Early on in The Communist Manifesto, introducing the Proletariat and the Bourgeois, Marx emphatically declares that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." (Marx 321) The society that was modern to Marx was therefore the product of a historical evolutionary process in which struggles between and among different social classes were the fundamental evolutionary and revolutionary causes. He referred to social relationships that were predicated on slavery, feudalism, and even more primitive types of social organization. It can therefore be established that Marx viewed class struggles as a pervasive and driving force throughout all of written history and that Marx viewed his era’s forms of social organization as having developed inevitably from these historical struggles. The European Industrial Revolution severed the peasants from the land, the masses migrated to the cities and found employment in factories, and this was actually a positive development because it expedited the formation of the Proletariat which would revolt against the Bourgeoisie.
Having established to his own satisfaction the fact that class struggles were rooted in history, Marx then proceeded to more precisely define what he meant by classes in a capitalist context. The unifying theoretical thread was his conception of the means of production. The Bourgeois referred to the elite or ruling classes that owned or otherwise controlled the means of production; the Proletariat, on the other hand, referred to the working class that subsisted through wage labor and did not control the means of production. Capitalism therefore had an inherent structural feature, the means of production, which functioned to divide people into different classes with different benefits and different burdens. The Bourgeois had developed and freed itself of feudal control through its self-centered pursuit of profit and its economic power had led to increased levels of social influence and political power. Having institutionalized the source of its power, capitalism, the Bourgeois had then turned its attention to maintaining its power. This could only be accomplished, in Marx’s view, by maximizing profits through the exploitation of the masses of the working class. Marx viewed this capitalist ruling class in very deterministic ways and argued that exploitation and struggle had become systemic features of capitalism (Marx 323-324). The primary justifications that Marx provides for a working class revolution are his convictions that capitalism is systematically incapable of being managed for the welfare of the masses or otherwise being modified in ways that might harmonize the desire to maximize profits with societies that have class equality.
In sum, the only way for the masses to escape this exploitation is to revolt, overthrow the ruling class, and abolish capitalism. The European Industrial Revolution created the conditions and the masses that would revolt and this, in a very real way, might have been viewed as a positive development both Marx and Engels.
Having established to his own satisfaction the fact that class struggles were rooted in history, Marx then proceeded to more precisely define what he meant by classes in a capitalist context. The unifying theoretical thread was his conception of the means of production. The Bourgeois referred to the elite or ruling classes that owned or otherwise controlled the means of production; the Proletariat, on the other hand, referred to the working class that subsisted through wage labor and did not control the means of production. Capitalism therefore had an inherent structural feature, the means of production, which functioned to divide people into different classes with different benefits and different burdens. The Bourgeois had developed and freed itself of feudal control through its self-centered pursuit of profit and its economic power had led to increased levels of social influence and political power. Having institutionalized the source of its power, capitalism, the Bourgeois had then turned its attention to maintaining its power. This could only be accomplished, in Marx’s view, by maximizing profits through the exploitation of the masses of the working class. Marx viewed this capitalist ruling class in very deterministic ways and argued that exploitation and struggle had become systemic features of capitalism (Marx 323-324). The primary justifications that Marx provides for a working class revolution are his convictions that capitalism is systematically incapable of being managed for the welfare of the masses or otherwise being modified in ways that might harmonize the desire to maximize profits with societies that have class equality.
In sum, the only way for the masses to escape this exploitation is to revolt, overthrow the ruling class, and abolish capitalism. The European Industrial Revolution created the conditions and the masses that would revolt and this, in a very real way, might have been viewed as a positive development both Marx and Engels.
