Communist Manifesto(Jeff Barnard)

In this week’s reading, it talks of the middle class, the Bourgeoisie, and the advancement of industry around the time it was written. It goes on to mention about how there were different social ranks and how there was a constant struggle between them. Also with the new land of America coming into use for trade and commerce, industry got a boost in production and money. This kind of reminds me of what’s going on these days where the middle and lower class are suffering the most, but the rich are keeping themselves rich with the bailout money. I guess that things haven’t changed much from then; the problems just changed their colors to look different.

Chapter two deals with the Proletarians and how the Communists are better than them in various ways through government and connection to the people. There is mention of wages being unfair by being based on production as well as other errors that the Proletarians as well as the Bourgeoisie have made against the people of the middle class. The more I read this, the more it seems the writer wants to promote thought about this issue and possibly join the communists if they want out. I know if I were around at the time this was written, this writing would make me think of going against my government and joining them. But things at this time seem to be more manageable since then and people don’t have to worry as much.

In conclusion, this was an interesting read because it was clearly written to make people more aware of their situation and go against it. The way this is written would make any person who felt wronged by the ruling body angry and want to switch to a better way of life. I can see why through history, the communist party was seen as a threat to most governments because it promoted revolution and a loss of money for the rich. But I guess through time people saw that it was more of a smoke screen created by those ruling the party so they could use the people for their goals instead. In the end, I think that the manifesto was a great tool but it was used wrongly and thus failed its purpose.