READING THE MANIFESTO

1. History is the history of class struggles - class struggles are the
most important source of historical change

2. Class struggles end in either qualitative, revolutionary change or in
the decline of all the classes

3. Earlier class structures were complex, presenting a gradation in terms
of social status/rank

4. Bourgeois (i.e. capitalist) society has not abolished class antagonism;
it has given rise to new classes and new forms of class conflicts

5. In Bourgeois society, class conflict has been simplified - it is
divided in two main classes, bourgeoisie - proletariat

6. The consequences of European exploration and exploitation of the other
continents contributed to the rise of capitalism

7. The expansion of markets entered in contradiction with the narrow forms
of production

8. Small scale production under the control of the direct producers is
replaced by large scale, industrial production.

9. The emergence of the bourgeoisie and modern industry lead to the
development of the world market

10. Changes in modes of production and exchange lead to changes in class
relations, the decline of old class systems and emergence of new class
structures, relations and conflicts.

11. As classes develop socially and economically, their political power
grows and eventually take hold of the state

12. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the
common interests of the entire bourgeois class

13. The historical role of the bourgeoisie has been revolutionary

a. the end of feudal, patriarchal relationships

b. feudal ties replaced by cash nexus

c. ideological, religious, political legitimations of economic
exploitation replaced by direct exploitation

d. individual utility replaces feudal, paternalistic, ideological
constructions of duty

e. personal worth replaced by exchange/market value

f. Free Trade - market rule

g. work becomes waged work

h. family relations=money relations

j. unleashed the power of human labor and human knowledge - revolutionized
the forces of production, the relations of production and the entire
social fabric

k. All that is solid melts into air....

I. World market - cosmopolitanism - movement - change - interdependence -
material and intellectual production become global - emergence of a world
literature/culture/intellectual life/massive processes of cultural,
political and economic change restructuring personal and public lives

m. market forces undermine national protectionisms of all kinds commodity
prices batter Chinese walls...

n. urbanization - undermines the "idiocy" of rural life.

o. concentration of population, centralization and concentration of
capital - political centralization - emergence of nation states

p. the achievements of the unleashed productive forces far greater than
those of the preceding generations

14. social change is endogenous; capitalism emerged from within feudalism,
feudal property relations incompatible with emergent capitalist forces of
production

15. modern capitalist society like the sorcerer's apprentice; crises
ridden - overproduction/underconsumption/production of wealth and
poverty/class struggles

16. The weapons against feudalism turned against the bourgeoisie and
wielded by the modern working class 

17. The development of the bourgeoisie depends on the development of the proletariat.

18. Alienation of labor - workers become appendages to the machines -
organized like soldiers; there is no economic democracy

19. decline in skill and strength work requirements open the door to the
exploitation of child and female labor

20. workers exploited by other portions of the bourgeoisie

21. Economic change destroys the self-sufficient strata - the proletariat
is recruited from all classes

22. The political development of the proletariat is not automatic -
especially if they do not real a critical mass

23. Early struggles target individual employers, technology, other
workers; they are used by the bourgeoisie to fight its enemies -
eventually the proletariat is concentrated - conditions equalized,
livelihood precarious - political awareness leading to organization.

24. Technological change leads to concentration. politicization,
organization as a class, as a political party

25. as the bourgeoisie struggles to defend itself it educates and
strengthens the proletariat.

26. the proletariat alone is a revolutionary class - all other classes
have something to ose if the system is changed.

27. the proletariat is the only class that has nothing to lose but its
chains - unionization, revolutionary association. Modern industry
undermines the stability of the bourgeoisie