The Communist Manifesto asserts that history has always been a story of class struggle between the powerful and those that work for them out of necessity. The first chapter introduces how the bourgeoise came into power, and the specific ideology they used to do so, “In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation”. They have established power not through previous methods, like a religious mandate for power or a natural separation between the nobility and everyone else. They have instead made their power on the basis of the accumulation of money. Why is this important to their justification of the power that they hold? Is it a good idea for the upper class to get rid of moral or ideological justifications? Why or why not? Is the absence of these ideas made up for with the globalization and technology that they have now, as opposed to the older ruling classes who did not?
Making the Modern World: Europe in the 19th Century
Liberalism and socialism and imperialism, oh my!
