[SolarCross]

Is this an argument?

It seems like you are trying to argue that free education for kids is OPPRESSION because feelings.

The first 9 points render everyone destitute yet the state still wants people "educated" (trained to love big brother?) so of course it will be free, everybody is broke so no one would go otherwise. IngSoc's education is free too.

[Pants-of-dog]

I see.

You have no argument. Just feelings.

And an Obama picture.

[Truth To Power]

They have been very thoroughly brainwashed, as you know, not to know what socialism is. Heil McCarthy and total lying.

I don't know if they are any more brainwashed about socialism than about capitalism. Most seem to think capitalism means free markets, but of course capitalism is actually incompatible with free markets.

[The Immortal Goon]

It is always helpful to read an entire document and rational before crying hysterically. This list is even prefaced with:

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

The the document rests upon the premise that you have some understanding of how history moves and why. Once the argument is laid out, this is what is supposed to happen.

It is in no way the endorsement of the Democratic Party of the United States, or whatever other claptrap people attempt to pretend. It is a doctrine for the liberation of the proletariat.

So in this view:

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

How many working class people have a bunch of land that they own? Would it not be better that this land be put to use in an efficient way for the benefit of all? If not a public park, a farm to feed the people?

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

Since this has been accepted by virtually everyone that isn't a fan of inflicting self-harm or rich, I'm not even going to attempt to dispute it.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

Fuck the crown. And quite frankly, do you think things would be better or worse if every rich asshole in government had to start at the same starting line that you did?

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

Virtually already done with "rebels," though emigrants get to go gallivanting around the world, putting their money into Swiss banks away from anyone else. They can go fuck themselves since they seem intent on fucking everyone else for their enjoyment.

5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

We all generate money. Why shouldn't we all have a say in how it's applied, made, and used?

6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

Do remember this is a proletarian state he's talking about, not like Germany or the United States today deciding to do this.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

This is probably less important than it was a hundred years ago when malaria was killing everyone in the First World. But it's not a horrible thing to propose.

8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

When we first got industrial machines, we were supposed to do less labour. Instead, we had to do more.

When we first got computers, they were going to be time-savers. Instead, we had to spend more time at work.

When the internet first came out, it was supposed to make work more efficient so we could spend less time doing it. Instead, we are virtually always on the clock—even when not being paid for it.

Why not have a system where the good stuff we have makes our lives easier? Not just more bearable with luxury goods, but actually easier?

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

Not unlike the above, we have the money, the power, the production—why not make things easier? Why shouldn't a kid from Baltimore be able to go out and see the world when the infrastructure is there to allow it? Wouldn't that make him or her a better person with a broader perspective?

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.

Nobody seems to oppose this any more.

---

The connecting thing, I think, is the assumption that Marx or Engels thought that the existing order as it is today could somehow support these things without being endlessly corrupt. To wit:

For only when the means of production and distribution have actually outgrown the form of management by joint-stock companies, and when, therefore, the taking them over by the State has become economically inevitable, only then — even if it is the State of today that effects this — is there an economic advance, the attainment of another step preliminary to the taking over of all productive forces by society itself. But of late, since Bismarck went in for State-ownership of industrial establishments, a kind of spurious Socialism has arisen, degenerating, now and again, into something of flunkyism, that without more ado declares all State-ownership, even of the Bismarkian sort, to be socialistic. Certainly, if the taking over by the State of the tobacco industry is socialistic, then Napoleon and Metternich must be numbered among the founders of Socialism.

If the Belgian State, for quite ordinary political and financial reasons, itself constructed its chief railway lines; if Bismarck, not under any economic compulsion, took over for the State the chief Prussian lines, simply to be the better able to have them in hand in case of war, to bring up the railway employees as voting cattle for the Government, and especially to create for himself a new source of income independent of parliamentary votes — this was, in no sense, a socialistic measure, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously. Otherwise, the Royal Maritime Company, the Royal porcelain manufacture, and even the regimental tailor of the army would also be socialistic institutions, or even, as was seriously proposed by a sly dog in Frederick William III's reign, the taking over by the State of the brothels.

Socialism properly implies above all things the co-operative control by the workers of the machinery of production; without this co-operative control the public ownership by the State is not Socialism – it is only State capitalism. The demands of the middle-class reformers, from the Railway Reform League down, are simply plans to facilitate the business transactions of the capitalist class. State Telephones – to cheapen messages in the interest of the middle class who are the principal users of the telephone system; State Railways – to cheapen carriage of goods in the interest of the middle-class trader; State-construction of piers, docks, etc. – in the interest of the middle-class merchant; in fact every scheme now advanced in which the help of the State is invoked is a scheme to lighten the burden of the capitalist – trader, manufacturer, or farmer. Were they all in working order to-morrow the change would not necessarily benefit the working class; we would still have in our state industries, as in the Post Office to-day, the same unfair classification of salaries, and the same despotic rule of an irresponsible head. Those who worked most and hardest would still get the least remuneration, and the rank and file would still be deprived of all voice in the ordering of their industry, just the same as in all private enterprises.

Therefore, we repeat, state ownership and control is not necessarily Socialism – if it were, then the Army, the Navy, the Police, the Judges, the Gaolers, the Informers, and the Hangmen, all would all be Socialist functionaries, as they are State officials – but the ownership by the State of all the land and materials for labour, combined with the co-operative control by the workers of such land and materials, would be Socialism.

Schemes of state and municipal ownership, if unaccompanied by this co-operative principle, are but schemes for the perfectioning of the mechanism of capitalist government-schemes to make the capitalist regime respectable and efficient for the purposes of the capitalist; in the second place they represent the class-conscious instinct of the business man who feels that capitalist should not prey upon capitalist, while all may unite to prey upon the workers. The chief immediate sufferers from private ownership of railways, canals, and telephones are the middle class shop-keeping element, and their resentment at the tariffs imposed is but the capitalist political expression of the old adage that “dog should not eat dog.”

It will thus be seen that an immense gulf separates the ‘nationalising’ proposals of the middle class from the ‘socialising’ demands of the revolutionary working class. The first proposes to endow a Class State – repository of the political power of the Capitalist Class – with certain powers and functions to be administered in the common interest of the possessing class; the second proposes to subvert the Class State and replace it with the Socialist State, representing organised society – the Socialist Republic. To the cry of the middle class reformers, “make this or that the property of the government,” we reply, “yes, in proportion as the workers are ready to make the government their property.”

Let us go back to a true democracy that our masters have lied to us about having created for us.

[Hindsite]

We all generate money. Why shouldn't we all have a say in how it's applied, made, and used?

We should. That is the Conservative Republican view. The problem in the Party are the Rinos (Republican in name only).
When we first got industrial machines, we were supposed to do less labour. Instead, we had to do more.

When we first got computers, they were going to be time-savers. Instead, we had to spend more time at work.

When the internet first came out, it was supposed to make work more efficient so we could spend less time doing it. Instead, we are virtually always on the clock—even when not being paid for it.

Why not have a system where the good stuff we have makes our lives easier? Not just more bearable with luxury goods, but actually easier?

Those things made us more productive and our live easier too. You seem to be just an exceptionally lazy person.

Not unlike the above, we have the money, the power, the production—why not make things easier?

Things are already easier than they were in the time of my parents and grandparents.

Why shouldn't a kid from Baltimore be able to go out and see the world when the infrastructure is there to allow it? Wouldn't that make him or her a better person with a broader perspective?

That could happen if their parents are allowed to become wealthy under a fairer capitalistic system where people are taxed less and able to keep more of the money they earned. Socialism and communism are systems that oppose what you would like for your kid from Baltimore. But the "big brother" government that the liberals want will not allow that.

[Ned Lud]

In the Communist Manifesto Marx demands:

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State: the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries: gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c., &c.

All ten demands are for the wholesale theft of everything and the enslavement of free labour. Did you read it? Were conscious at the time you read it?

You can't steal from thieves, sonny - you just take your own property back, and the work of mankind belongs to mankind.. I first read the Manifesto when I was fourteen, and it made total sense about the smelly society I was living in, as it does about the current one. Are you saying that the majority of people wouldn't benefit hugely from the above? If so, you are nuts. Yanks have been carefully brainwashed to believe they can all become rich, to keep them poor.

[Ned Lud]

No thanks, I do not want to be a Marxist or Communist. Praise the Lord. HalleluYah

See the deep commitment to free enquiry of the brainwashed grovellers!

[Ned Lud]

The first 9 points render everyone destitute yet the state still wants people "educated" (trained to love big brother?) so of course it will be free, everybody is broke so no one would go otherwise. IngSoc's education is free too.

Aren't you weird, you grovellers! The whole point of socialism is that the class-organisation called the state ceases to be needed when there is no crappy 'property' to be defended by thugs and brainwashers at our expense.

[SolarCross]

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

How many working class people have a bunch of land that they own? Would it not be better that this land be put to use in an efficient way for the benefit of all? If not a public park, a farm to feed the people?

Some do, it isn't even particularly expensive in itself without any structures on it, even in the UK an acre only costs as much as a used car if it is in a rural area. Many people don't choose to own land but that doesn't mean there is any benefit in denying everyone the legal possibility. Why make it illegal? Oh for "efficiency", lol, I don't know how we are supposed to believe a communist's snake oil claims of "efficiency", your practical track record is decidedly sub-par. How gullible do you think we are?

-------

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

Since this has been accepted by virtually everyone that isn't a fan of inflicting self-harm or rich, I'm not even going to attempt to dispute it.

The key word is "heavy", yes all governments thirst for cash like a drug addict thirsts for heroin and to acquire it they confiscate it and they confiscate more from those who have more because it is just more lucrative that way. The only push back is if they take too much (ie heavy tax) they will kill the golden goose and get no more golden eggs to feast on. Wise tax collectors then moderate their appetites so that may continue to feast forever. So progressive tax is about raising revenue for government but a "heavy" one is about making everything that is not government destitute; the parasite killing the host.
-----------

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

Fuck the crown. And quite frankly, do you think things would be better or worse if every rich asshole in government had to start at the same starting line that you did?

It isn't just Royalty or the rich that make gifts of property to those they favour in the next generation, only the destitute have nothing to give. If one had an unlucky start I can see the envious malevolence at work that would delight in bringing down all those more fortunate down to the same sorry condition however civilisation as a whole does benefit enormously from one generation standing on the shoulders those that went before. Mozart's music continues to delight people today, he is often considered the foremost musical genius, in no small measure that achievement was built on the foundations of his own father's musical accomplishments. If Mozart had to have a tone deaf musically illiterate parent just so that he could start on the same level as the unluckiest musician for "fairness" then likely he would have produced less and of much less quality and we would all have missed out. Some, perhaps most, projects are too big to be encompassed by one life and must be inter-generational.
------------------

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

Virtually already done with "rebels," though emigrants get to go gallivanting around the world, putting their money into Swiss banks away from anyone else. They can go fuck themselves since they seem intent on fucking everyone else for their enjoyment.

It depends on the nature of the rebellion. Any law breaking is a rebellion, if the law says I must not drop litter and I do so anyway then I am rebel, I might rightfully expect a punishment for that, but total confiscation of all my property? That's a bit disproportionate. What is rebellion in a communist society, mocking communist policy or party leaders? But okay rebels are naughty people, from a certain point of view, and so punishment is to be expected. An emigrant though? Migrants aren't rebels or law breakers by default they are just people moving from one place to another place, that is unless it is against the law to move from one place to another.. oh right like the USSR and DPRK.. Okay that makes some dystopian sense then.
---------

5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

We all generate money. Why shouldn't we all have a say in how it's applied, made, and used?

Because that is a logistical impossibility that no one wants anyway. But Marx is saying he wants an exclusive monopoly on credit and capital which is not the same as saying he wants democratic oversight. Anyone can issue credit in "capitalism", anyone, providing they conform to the regulations created by government, that is democratic oversight. A total monopoly is a completely different beast which clearly springs not from concern over possible malpractice but from the rotten loins of the most greediest and reckless lust for power.
------------------------

6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

Do remember this is a proletarian state he's talking about, not like Germany or the United States today deciding to do this.

What difference does that make? Also I wonder how the US is not a "proletarian state" given it has universal suffrage and constitutional rights to bear arms for all citizens.

--------

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

This is probably less important than it was a hundred years ago when malaria was killing everyone in the First World. But it's not a horrible thing to propose.

It's a non point, basically a filler as by now he is running out of ideas but still wants to make an even 10 points.
--------------------

8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

When we first got industrial machines, we were supposed to do less labour. Instead, we had to do more.

When we first got computers, they were going to be time-savers. Instead, we had to spend more time at work.

When the internet first came out, it was supposed to make work more efficient so we could spend less time doing it. Instead, we are virtually always on the clock—even when not being paid for it.

Why not have a system where the good stuff we have makes our lives easier? Not just more bearable with luxury goods, but actually easier?

Marx is talking about reintroducing slavery and you are talking about how "bad" it is that some people like working for money more than they like sitting around bored and idle, a completely different thing.

It isn't illegal to be idle or work part-time but as productivity grows so do our appetites so in general we continue to choose to work so that we can afford more of all the new stuff the productivity has created. We could choose idleness but we tend to choose more luxury instead.

I say that as one who tends to choose idleness.. How will an "equal liability to work" do for idle me?

--------------

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

Not unlike the above, we have the money, the power, the production—why not make things easier? Why shouldn't a kid from Baltimore be able to go out and see the world when the infrastructure is there to allow it? Wouldn't that make him or her a better person with a broader perspective?

Food production has always been land intensive but as increasing productivity reduced its labour intensity to a tiny fraction of its hunter-gatherer baseline it became more and more adaptive to specialise land use and this results in the rural and urban divide. It is more efficient to live in the city if one is not a farmer. Marx is talking about regressing the adaptive trend of civilisation, de-specialising land use back to its hunter gatherer origins.

Fuck knows what you think are talking about with your kid from Baltimore but the fact is his travel opportunities are unprecedented in the whole of human history. If he wants to broaden his perspective he can hop on a plane to the otherside of the world and go hiking in the Australian Bush for a week or two. This has, once again, absolutely nothing to do with Marx's goofy scheme to undo all practical progress in land usage.
--------

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.

Nobody seems to oppose this any more.

It is a common enough thing these days though it isn't completely without opposition.

[Pants-of-dog]

Some do, it isn't even particularly expensive in itself without any structures on it, even in the UK an acre only costs as much as a used car if it is in a rural area. Many people don't choose to own land but that doesn't mean there is any benefit in denying everyone the legal possibility. Why make it illegal? Oh for "efficiency", lol, I don't know how we are supposed to believe a communist's snake oil claims of "efficiency", your practical track record is decidedly sub-par. How gullible do you think we are?

Yes, there are beenfits as it stops people from using land owenrship as a way of leveraging social power. While I try to not to generalise from my own experiences, many Latin American countries still deal with the latifundio system, which is a legacy of the colonial era and creates a vast inequality in terms of how people use land in these countries.

The key word is "heavy", yes all governments thirst for cash like a drug addict thirsts for heroin and to acquire it they confiscate it and they confiscate more from those who have more because it is just more lucrative that way. The only push back is if they take too much (ie heavy tax) they will kill the golden goose and get no more golden eggs to feast on. Wise tax collectors then moderate their appetites so that may continue to feast forever. So progressive tax is about raising revenue for government but a "heavy" one is about making everything that is not government destitute; the parasite killing the host.

Your pop psychology analysis of the feelings of tax collectors is irrelevant.

And your unsupported belief that all Marxist governments will always make all economies destitute is also incorrect. Cuba is doing better than most Caribbean countries economically, and this is in spite of the embargo.

It isn't just Royalty or the rich that make gifts of property to those they favour in the next generation, only the destitute have nothing to give. If one had an unlucky start I can see the envious malevolence at work that would delight in bringing down all those more fortunate down to the same sorry condition however civilisation as a whole does benefit enormously from one generation standing on the shoulders those that went before. Mozart's music continues to delight people today, he is often considered the foremost musical genius, in no small measure that achievement was built on the foundations of his own father's musical accomplishments. If Mozart had to have a tone deaf musically illiterate parent just so that he could start on the same level as the unluckiest musician for "fairness" then likely he would have produced less and of much less quality and we would all have missed out. Some, perhaps most, projects are too big to be encompassed by one life and must be inter-generational.

Good thing property is qualitatively different from musical talent, which is why your analogy is not an argument.

If rich people are so successful because they are smart and awesome, they will ahve no trouble starting from scratch like the rest of us.

It depends on the nature of the rebellion. Any law breaking is a rebellion, if the law says I must not drop litter and I do so anyway then I am rebel, I might rightfully expect a punishment for that, but total confiscation of all my property? That's a bit disproportionate. What is rebellion in a communist society, mocking communist policy or party leaders? But okay rebels are naughty people, from a certain point of view, and so punishment is to be expected. An emigrant though? Migrants aren't rebels or law breakers by default they are just people moving from one place to another place, that is unless it is against the law to move from one place to another.. oh right like the USSR and DPRK.. Okay that makes some dystopian sense then.

No, minor crimes are not rebellion, unless littering poses an existential threat to the state.

And since most immgrants arrive with very little and are forced to leave almost all of ther astes behind anyway, this situation already exists in capitalism.

Because that is a logistical impossibility that no one wants anyway. But Marx is saying he wants an exclusive monopoly on credit and capital which is not the same as saying he wants democratic oversight. Anyone can issue credit in "capitalism", anyone, providing they conform to the regulations created by government, that is democratic oversight. A total monopoly is a completely different beast which clearly springs not from concern over possible malpractice but from the rotten loins of the most greediest and reckless lust for power.

Is there an argument here?

What difference does that make? Also I wonder how the US is not a "proletarian state" given it has universal suffrage and constitutional rights to bear arms for all citizens.

This has nothing to do with communication and transportation. Which was the topic.

It's a non point, basically a filler as by now he is running out of ideas but still wants to make an even 10 points.

It is still a good idea. The other day, the city removed some contaminated soil from a parking lot near my house.

No one argued that we were being oppressed by Marxists.

Marx is talking about reintroducing slavery and you are talking about how "bad" it is that some people like working for money more than they like sitting around bored and idle, a completely different thing.

It isn't illegal to be idle or work part-time but as productivity grows so do our appetites so in general we continue to choose to work so that we can afford more of all the new stuff the productivity has created. We could choose idleness but we tend to choose more luxury instead.

I say that as one who tends to choose idleness.. How will an "equal liability to work" do for idle me?

In communism, we all earn our daily bread by working for it.

In capitalism, most of us earn our daily bread by working for it, and also earn the bread of our bosses by orking for that too.

Marx is saying that the bosses will also have to work.

Each to their ability, each to their need.

Food production has always been land intensive but as increasing productivity reduced its labour intensity to a tiny fraction of its hunter-gatherer baseline it became more and more adaptive to specialise land use and this results in the rural and urban divide. It is more efficient to live in the city if one is not a farmer. Marx is talking about regressing the adaptive trend of civilisation, de-specialising land use back to its hunter gatherer origins.

Not at all. You have this weird and incorrect notion that Marxism wants a hunter gatherer society.

Marx is discussing reorganizing land usage to make things more equitable, based on his knowledge and technology of his time.

Fuck knows what you think are talking about with your kid from Baltimore but the fact is his travel opportunities are unprecedented in the whole of human history. If he wants to broaden his perspective he can hop on a plane to the otherside of the world and go hiking in the Australian Bush for a week or two. This has, once again, absolutely nothing to do with Marx's goofy scheme to undo all practical progress in land usage.

I see that you are assuming that kids in Baltimore have enough money and free time to do this. Lol.

It is a common enough thing these days though it isn't completely without opposition.

Like the very health care system you depend on, socialism has its benefits.

[The Immortal Goon]

Because that is a logistical impossibility that no one wants anyway. But Marx is saying he wants an exclusive monopoly on credit and capital which is not the same as saying he wants democratic oversight. Anyone can issue credit in "capitalism", anyone, providing they conform to the regulations created by government, that is democratic oversight. A total monopoly is a completely different beast which clearly springs not from concern over possible malpractice but from the rotten loins of the most greediest and reckless lust for power.

What difference does [a proletarian state] that make? Also I wonder how the US is not a "proletarian state" given it has universal suffrage and constitutional rights to bear arms for all citizens.

I think this is worth harping on as it seems to be the sticking point. It seems that, ignoring Connolly and Engels posted and virtually every communist, there is this conception that the idea is to just elect Democrats and then have them tinker with society.

The idea of a revolution, in a Marxian sense, is the total transformation of society. Just as radically as the French Revolution transformed a feudal system with an absolute monarch into a bourgeois system with elected representatives.

This is a revolution in every sense. In the days before the French Revolution, you would kneel before your landlord because the landlord represented the land, and how you interacted with the land was how you conceived of society.

Now you send your landlord a check and see it as a distant commodity exchange made through capital. You do not kneel to your landlord, that would be silly. The thought would never occur to you.

But there is a consequence to this as the capital, while freeing you from feudal obligations, has also alienated you; you are alienated from your government, from your friends, from yourself, because of the way we structure society.

Even acts of rebellion, which we all testify to in some way or another on this board, are alienated from our own lips and fingertips.

This is a rather crass but appropriate metaphors for your alienation:

Part of this is the focus away from material freedom and into theoretical freedom. Dialectical, we highly covet the former as an ideal; and we actively fight for the latter as a material reality.

This is why Lenin conceded that France, the US, UK, etc, had "more or less complete democracy," while at the same time not being democratic.

In capitalist society, providing it develops under the most favourable conditions, we have a more or less complete democracy in the democratic republic. But this democracy is always hemmed in by the narrow limits set by capitalist exploitation, and consequently always remains, in effect, a democracy for the minority, only for the propertied classes, only for the rich. Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners. Owing to the conditions of capitalist exploitation, the modern wage slaves are so crushed by want and poverty that "they cannot be bothered with democracy", "cannot be bothered with politics"; in the ordinary, peaceful course of events, the majority of the population is debarred from participation in public and political life.

...Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich--that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we see everywhere, in the “petty”--supposedly petty--details of the suffrage (residential qualifications, exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of assembly (public buildings are not for “paupers”!), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily press, etc., etc.,--we see restriction after restriction upon democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor seem slight, especially in the eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been inclose contact with the oppressed classes in their mass life (and nine out of 10, if not 99 out of 100, bourgeois publicists and politicians come under this category); but in their sum total these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.

This is to say that in theory you have freedom of speech; in practice you cannot excercize it to any functional degree. You have become alienated from it both in the sense described above; and because you materially cannot practice freedom of speech in the way Ted Turner can.

The goal of the Marxist is to reconcile you with material reality. To end the alienation.

For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic. This fixation of social activity, this consolidation of what we ourselves produce into an objective power above us, growing out of our control, thwarting our expectations, bringing to naught our calculations, is one of the chief factors in historical development up till now.

I think before we get into the specifics, this must first be really understood if an argument is to be made for (or against) the Manifesto in any way.

[Hindsite]

The communist manifesto isn't magic, it wont turn you into a marxist just by reading it.

I am not taking any chances. Praise the Lord.