Today's World and Our Search for Ultimate Meaning - Essay Example

Running Head: Communist Manifesto Of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels The Communist Manifesto", Todays World and Our Search for Ultimate Meaning Introduction The Communist Manifesto was published on February 1848 and as scholars say it marked the first unquestioned entrance into history. To that date are referred all decisions and all praises on the development made by the proletariat in these last fifty years. That date marks the beginning of the new era. This occurred, or, rather, is unraveling itself from the current era, and is on the rise by a procedure unusual to itself and thus in a way that is essential and expected, whatever may be the vicissitudes and the consecutive phases which cannot yet be predicted (Katz 2001) . All those in the ranks who have a desire or an occasion to have a better understanding of their own work should carry to mind the causes and the moving forces which is firm on the genesis of the Manifesto, the circumstances under which it appeared on the eve of the Revolution which rupture forth from Paris to Vienna, from Palermo to Berlin (Katz 2001). This is the only way will it be probable for people to find in the current social form the clarification of the propensity toward socialism, thus showing by its present the requirement the predictability of its triumph. Is not that in fact the fundamental part of the Manifesto, its core and its distinguishing character? (Labriola 1999). People should be taking a false road if it is looked upon as the essential part of the measures advised and proposed at the end of the second chapter for the unforeseen event of a revolutionary success on the part of the proletariat, or again the suggestion of political relationship to the other revolutionary parties of that era which are found in the fourth chapter (Labriola 1999). These indications and these measures, although they have the right to be taken into contemplation at the moment and under the conditions where they may be very vital for forming a exact estimate of the political action of the German communists in the revolutionary period from 1848 to 1850, hereafter no longer form for people a mass of sensible judgments for or against which we should take sides in each contingency (Labriola 1999). The Communist Manifesto The political parties since the International have recognized themselves in dissimilar countries, in the name of the proletariat, and taking it obviously for their base, have felt, and feel, in amount as they are born and expand, the domineering requirement of adopting and in compliance in their program and their action to conditions are always different and multiform. But not one of these parties feels the totalitarianism of the proletariat so near that it experiences the need or desire or even the enticement to examine once more and pass judgment upon the measures proposed in the Manifesto (Labriola 1999). There are actually no historical experiences but those that history makes itself. It is as unfeasible to predict them as to plan them in advance or make them to order. That is what happened at the moment of the Commune, which still remains up to this day the only experience) of the action of the proletariat in gaining control of political power. This experience, too, was neither desired nor sought for, but imposed by circumstances (Ahmad 2000). It was courageously accepted through time and it has become a helpful lesson for people today. It might effortlessly happen that where the socialist movement is still in its beginnings, petition may be made, for need of personal direct experience to the authority of a text from the Manifesto as if it were a precept, but these passages are in reality of no importance (Ahmad 2000). Globalization and the subsequent theory of imperialism were anticipated by the book Communist Manifesto. Though globalization was seen as the target of the manifesto, the resulting theory which is the theory of imperialism provided a more direct theoretical basis for understanding it than the theories associated with Keynesianism. The latter theory approached economic problems in purely national terms (Sivanadan 1997). This paper will focus on globalization which is a more relevant topic considering how fast the process occurred, specifically the budding productive process and the laws of capitalist development, which questioned the neoliberal view of globalization. This view bridged the gap of the transformation of division of the labor process, new forms of investment, mergers and technological changes to an increase in the internationalization of production and give emphasis to how this process contributes to increasing exploitation, unemployment and poverty (Sivanadan 1997). Furthermore, this view points to the difficulty of analyzing globalization from purely commercial or financial point of view. On top of that, it inspects the problems associated not only with an inflexible rejection of the new phenomenon but also with naming completely in political terms. It concludes by emphasizing the enduring significance of the Manifesto for the production of a socialist project based on the politics of working-class internationalism (Sivanadan 1997). The paragraphs of the Communist Manifesto dedicated to the worldwide development of capitalism keep on impressing commentators on the text. Marx and Engelss (1967) 1848 images of the creation of a world market, economic cosmopolitanism, the universal extension of commercial rules, and the demolition of tax barriers have an astoundingly modern ring to them. The Manifesto anticipated the international character of buildup with the same approaching as Capital foreshadows the cyclical crises of capitalism. These two texts have a deeper connection with our contemporary economic reality than with that of the nineteenth century (Xing 1998). It is ironic that as the world approach the third millennium humanity seems to have to deal with problems which should have been solved a long time ago (Boyer 1998). To put it differently, the more things changed the more that they remain the same. When the Communist Manifesto was published by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848, the document started off with the phrase "A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French radicals and German police-spies." – Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels (1948). As humanity is getting ready to enter the third millennium, it is seen as kind of anticlimax because the situation of the socialist alternative look likes the ones which existed when the popular document was published. Communism, at present, looks to be not much more than a ghost to the ruling classes of genuine existing capitalism. Acknowledgment of the present flaw of socialism brings forth an analogy with the situation 150 years ago, when the equilibrium of forces appeared to be in favor of reaction. In spite of its current fate, socialism has been a part of modern history (Brun 2000). The manifesto has been an eventful period in the evolution of mankind for more than a century and a half now. The events include colonial wars, imperialism, world war I, the October revolution and the founding of the Soviet Union; the Great Depression of the 1930s and the mounting of fascism and Nazism; bloc formations within the world economy; world war II which resulted in the defeat of Germany and Japan, the expansion of the atomic bomb and its employment over both Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States; the breaking out of isolation by the Soviet Union and when it gained control over east and central Europe; wars of liberation in the colonial world and the success of Asian communism; the Cold War; the hot wars in Korea and Vietnam which stood for defeats for US imperialism but at the same time enthused the capitalist economies of east Asia; the Cuban revolution; the Cuban missile crisis; the defeat of colonies by the European powers and Japan; the Golden Thirties, all the way through which reformation and economic growth took place in the capitalist world on the foundation of the welfare state; the so-called benevolent American hegemony over its allies and the capitalist system authorizing catching up; the founding of military parity between Washington and Moscow; the arms race and the competition in space, which added to the list who had a technological revolution chiefly in the west (Brun 2000). The list above has included many but it is nonetheless not exhaustive. It is called by Hobsbawm as the short 20th century and also an era which was contested. Along with fall of the Berlin wall which is symbolic among other else, the power relationship has tipped in favor of the capitalist state when talking about that of the above said and the state socialist (Xing 1998). The fact is that there is more than a quarter of humanity lived in less than perfect societies than in societies that is half-liberated from the control of capitalism, it is somewhat clear that the meltdown of state socialism in the Soviet Union and the termination of proto-socialist regimes in east and central Europe, hand in hand with the moves towards market socialism in China and Vietnam, were said to stand for the final victory of liberal capitalism in what Francis Fukuyama called the end of history (Xing 1998). This success was further highlighted by the move away of social democratism in western societies and the catastrophe of the nationalist catching-up strategies in most parts of the third world. What people are thus witnessing may very well be the end of the phase of developmentalism which distinguished the period after the World War II as Samir Amin has suggested in numerous writings (Xing 1998). Even though these momentous negotiations had not made complete breaks with the logic of capitalism, Sovietism, social democratism and the Bandung project did force capital to respect the social gains which had come about as a consequence of the shift in the balance of power following the explosions of the Great Depression and World War II (Xing 1998) . As Karl Polanyi shared, the fantastic determination for the self-regulating market was one of the major causes behind the events of the 1930s and the shifty movement which led to fascism and Keynesian politics as well as the course of socialism in one country in the Soviet Union. As a result, what the world may be experiencing with the completion of the neo-liberal project of Globalization is not the end of history but a return to a deja vu phase of capitalism - the liberation of capital from social and political controls and constraints (Brun 2000). Amin hold that this symbolizes a qualitative change in the post-war workings of the capitalist system. He says that with the wearing away of the three post-war models framing the market the conditions have been made in such a way that the dominant capital tries to compel unilaterally the utopian logic of managing the world as a market, through the ensemble of the presently prevalent deregulation policies (Brun 2000). It is becoming clear to open-minded observers that one can do much worse than look at the Communist Manifesto and other works by Marx and Engels for conceptualizations which can throw light on the present state of capitalism and globalization which is very important issues nowadays. As the national editor of the American magazine Rolling Stone remarks, although doctrines of socialism have shown their insufficiencies, the investigation of capitalism which can be found in the Marxist classics is still appropriate to the present: Marxism is dead, the communist system completely discredited by human experience, but the ghost of Marx soars over the global landscape, perhaps with a knowing smile (Katz 2001) . Conclusion The unpleasant conditions that inspired Karl Marxs original critique of capitalism in the 19th century is nearby and flourishing again (Xing 1998). The world has reached not only the end of ideology but also the flourishing of the next great disagreement over the nature of capitalism (Ahmad 2000) The main question which occurs from a short tour d horizon of the events in this century is: How are we to understand and mitigate the propensity of capitalism to self-destruct, on the one hand, and the reformist struggle of the labor movement for superior conditions, on the other, without continuing the system? In this respect, a rereading of the Communist Manifesto offers some constructive insights which can help modern people understand what is happening in the world now (Chato 1998). Particularly now that Marxism is no longer the restricted property of any group, organization or state, there is no reason for not returning to these writings if the object is not only to understand but also to change the world (Katz 2001). This is an intellectual task whose time has come. References Ahmad, A. (2000). The communist manifesto and world literature. Social Scientist, 28(7), 3-8. Brun, E. (2000). Globalization and the communist manifesto. Economic and Political Weekly, 35(3), 105-108. Boyer, G. (1998). The historical background of the communist manifesto. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 12(4), 151-174. Chato, P. (1998). Communist manifesto and Marxian idea of post-capitalist society. Economic and Political Weekly, 33(32), 1. Katz, C. (2001). The Manifesto and Globalization. Latin American Perspectives Journal, 28(6), 5. Labriola, M. (1999). In Memory of the Communist Manifesto. Social Scientist, 27 (4), 3-48. Schumpeter, J. (1989). The communist manifesto in sociology and economics, 287-305. In Essays on Entrepreneurs, Innovations, Business Cycles, and the Evolution of Capitalism. New Brunswick, NJ. Transaction Publishers. Sivanandan, A. (1997). Capitalism, globalization, and epochal shifts. Monthly Review, 48(2), 19-32. Xing, L. (1998). Capitalism and globalization in light of the communist manifesto. Economic and Political Weekly, 33(32), 2223-2227. Read More