FFW (5 min; 10 sentences minimum): Do you believe a person's social class (how much money they have and how much access their money gives them in society) a choice? WHY or why not?
Marx doesn't see social class as something we choose, or as something which we have as individuals. It's imposed on us by the market. He develops this further in Capital, but the idea is the proletariat is the group of people who can only access the things they need to survive, like food and shelter, by selling their labour-power on the market for money. This means that market forces have control over their entire lives. Today, most people are still proletarians because they don't have, say, their own personal gardens where they can grow all the food they need. The bourgeoisie is the group which owns things like machinery and land that are necessary in order to produce commodities. They might work, or they might just hire other people to do the work that they would do. This class also quite evidently exists today, in the same relation to the proletariat that they had in Marx's day.
Where class structure today differs from how it was when Marx was writing, it's mostly in ways that were already evident at the time. For example, the Manifesto has a line about how all other classes are emptying out into the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. We still have small business owners (petit-bourgeois and artisans) and subsistence farmers (peasants) today, but they have less power than they once did in rich countries.
For Marx, capitalism cannot survive without the reproduction of the relationship between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. If proletarians, as a whole, got paid enough that they could save up and buy investments that would provide for them without labour, then nobody would be around to work. Likewise, if the bourgeoisie, as a whole, faced such bad financial ruin that they couldn't employ people, nobody would work the means of production. So as long as capitalism is around, Marx's description of the class relation should mostly hold.
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences minimum): How do Marx and Engels define the "bourgeoisie" and the "proletariat?"
Let's see what he wrote in The Poverty of Philosophy about the political situation in 19th century England:
Economic conditions had first transformed the mass of the people of the country [England] into workers. The combination of capital has created for this mass a common situation, common interests. This mass is thus already a class as against capital, but not yet for itself. In the struggle, of which we have noted only a few phases, this mass becomes united, and constitutes itself as a class for itself. The interests it defends become class interests. But the struggle of class against class is a political struggle.
Marx is making a distinction here between a "class in itself" and a "class for itself." The former is the reality of class, understood in relation to the means of production and its own historical development, while the latter is the working class organizing politically to advance its interests as a class against the bourgeoise.
Harkness Discussion:
Instructions:
Read Part I while annotating
in margins, write down MAIN IDEA for each paragraph IN YOUR OWN WORDS
after you finish reading, go back to page one and skim each paragraph to make connections to an idea or a theme in another paragraph. Draw arrows and write out WHAT THE CONNECTION IS and WHY it is important.
In your notebook, write 3 Harkness Questions to help us analyse this section.
open-ended, not "yes or no," can have multiple "correct" answers
can be logically answered differently by people with different political views / cultural experiences
do not require knowing outside information / references - rooted in the text
genuinely help us explore text issues deeper, not "straw man" or contrarian arguments (don't Kanye us)
Communist Manifesto & Labor Issues
Instructions:
With partner, create a list of labor issues the proletariat (workers or working-class people, regarded collectively) had according to the Communist Manifesto. You need at least 10 issues plus 1-2 sentences about the cause of the issues (historical context). Do not google for information, this should come from your reading only.
Using Just Facts Vote Smart look up each of your 10 labor issues and write down how each of the following politicians voted. You should have a list of 10 issues x 4 candidates = 40 votes
Create hallway display to teach our school community about labor issues and current politicians' voting records on these issues to promote civics for all.
America's Forgotten Populist History
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences min): What connections do you see between the Populism Movement in the US and the Communist Movement in The Manifesto?
Co-Operatives
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences min): What are the benefits of a co-operative business model? What are the challenges? Would you join a co-op? Why or why not?
B-Corporations
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences min): What are the benefits of a B-Corp business model? What are the challenges? Would you join a B-Corp? Why or why not?
Harkness Discussion
Chapter 1: Bourgeois and Proletarians
For Marx and Engels, “the [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. In this chapter they set out a sweeping history of class society, in particular the struggle of the bourgeoisie against the rotten feudal system, and explain how the bourgeoisie, having taken power in one country, is forced by its own system to revolutionise production on a world scale and with this, produces “its own grave-diggers”: the proletariat.
Harkness Discussion Questions:
How do Marxists define “class”?
What are the bourgeoisie and proletariat?
How did capitalism come into being?
What relationship exists between economic development and the political struggle? Can we find examples of this in society today?
What do Marx and Engels mean when they write, “The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part”?
How does this chapter predict globalisation?
In what sense is capitalism “like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells”?
How is the proletariat formed under capitalism?
What is the role of trades unions for Marx and Engels?
Chapter 2: Proletarians and Communists
In this chapter, Marx and Engels first explain the role of Communists in the class struggle and the confront some of the main accusations levelled at Communists by their bourgeois detractors of the time. In answering their critics, Marx and Engels also offer clarification and explanation of their own ideas, for example on the question of what is meant by the “abolition of private property” and of the “bourgeois family”: questions which are still raised to this day. Finally, Marx and Engels set out a list of demands to be raised by Communists active in the movement.
Harkness Discussion Questions:
What lesson(s) should we draw from the statement that “The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties”?
How can Communists “point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality”?
What is “capital”? What is “wage-labour”? And how do the two relate to each other?
What place would the individual have in a Communist society?
What do Marx and Engels mean by “abolition of the family”?
What is the role of the state, and what form would the state take in a Communist society?
Chapter 3 - 4: Socialist and Communist Literature & the Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties
In the final chapters of the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels analyse other Socialist trends present in society. In doing so, Marx and Engels give us even more insight into the specific characteristics of their own ideas. Today, some of the trends criticised have disappeared and so have little relevance today. However, some, and “bourgeois socialism” in particular continue to play a very powerful (and pernicious) role in the labour movement and so Marx’ and Engels’ criticisms retain their full force to this day.
Harkness Discussion Questions:
In what sense is petty-bourgeois socialism “both reactionary and utopian”?
What is “true” socialism? What gave it such peculiar characteristics?
What modern examples of “bourgeois socialism” have we found in recent political events? What standpoint should Communists take to this trend?
What positive things can we say about “Critical-Utopian” Socialism? What are its failings?
Why did Marx and Engels give support to bourgeois democratic and nationalist parties in certain countries as well as proletarian movements like the Chartists?
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