The Communist Manifesto

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Summary: Didn't work, Isn't working, and Won't work
Review: I find it amazing the credence that people still insist upon giving this idealogical work. After so many years and so many millions of lives lost or spent under oppression, when will this delusional hatred of the individual end? The philosophies put forth in this book simply lead to tyranny. Proof enough is the fact that not one communist nation remaining can claim to be anything more than a third-world economic, cultural, and social power. When people start living for the state, instead of living for themselves, humanity itself is lost.

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Summary: A classic tome on the need to abolish money and the state
Review: This classic text was not only the first but is still the bestat pointing out that people can free themselves of the capitalistsystem based on class divisions, production for profit, buying and selling, by working people - people who work for a wage or a salary but don't own enough capital to live off (most of us) - organizing as a class to establish a new moneyless and stateless society called socialism or communism. This book is all the more current because since his death so many groups especially during the 20th Century (Labor Parties, Social Democratic parties, Greens, Nazis, Leninists, Maoists, Trotskyists, the press, and so on) have distorted the words communism or socialism to mean nationalized industries or a society with a rigid state machine that is brought about by a party claiming to be socialist or communist. But The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels makes it quite clear that only the working class as a whole can capture the state machine in order to abolish it, and this distinction is still an important one in this world of starvation, poverty, war, racism and environmental destruction. This society, as Marx analyzed 150 years ago in this book, produces so many problems that it would take forever to address them as separate reforms, as we tend to do in our own political life. He was arguing for a moneyless and stateless society controlled not by private capitalists nor by the state, but by all the people, and this lesson is still a vital one in the face of all the problems we have today. We have lost the whole 20th Century to wars, poverty, and environmental problems, and geared our whole lives to just making other people rich, so philanthropic are we. Let us hope that in the 21st Century we will take heed of Marx's caution, and be a little greedy at last to bring about a society in which the means of production are own by all the people, and we can produce what we want from our resources, take freely from the common supply (an abundance possible with today's technology), not just produce for the small percentage who own capital while we live in relative scarcity. After all, as a class, we made everything and grew everthing! So Marx is arguing forcibly that we should be entitled to reaping the benefits of our own technology and labor and creative energies.

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Summary: Far from being the best
Review: I was not convinced by Marx's ideas and arguments. I think that the best books written those last centuries are instead Hitler's Mein Kampf and Darwin's The Descent of Man.

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Summary: Laugh Riot
Review: Never has proletarian revolt in the face of bourgeious oppression seemed so side-splittlingly funny. I could not put this book down. Down-on-his-luck Karl's musings about about violent upheaval in the thick of industrial revolution left me in stitches, gasping for air. Only rich kid Engel's new age spiritualism serves as a buffer between you and Marx's unique brand of painful humor. A must read for the beach!!!!

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Summary: a note to all who read this book
Review: No matter what anyone tells you, it is not the responsibility of govornment or state to change society for the better. it can only be changed by individuals with good intentions.

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Summary: Idealist Dream Inevitably Leading to Nightmarish Reality
Review: I consider myself fortunate to have been alive to witness the fall of the Iron Curtain. As a Cold War history buff, I figured I'd read the book that inspired generations to follow Communist doctrine. I can see how some could have embraced the ideals described throughout the Manifesto. Most people share much of what Marx wishes for humankind. However, what differentiates a believer vs. a non-believer in Marx's prescription for attaining those wishes is precisely the difference between idealistic dreamers and realists.

At one time, theorists argued back and forth over the efficacy and practicality of Communism. Yet theories meant little without real-world experience. But after decades of Communist experience, it can now be concluded that the realist's objections to Communism have been vindicated.

Those that continue to embrace Communism as a tenable system for humankind are either hopelessly deluded by idealism or are ignorant of the history that clearly demonstrates the brutality and degradation that inevitably befalls Communism (and also that of its closest cousin, Socialism).

Those that continue to argue in favor of Communism need only to look at the flow of traffic when the Berlin Wall came down - from East to West. I'd say the best judges for the utility of Communism would have to be those that were under such a system. All the pro-Communist social theorists and utopians that reside in the free world ought to stop and listen to the voices that experienced Communism firsthand.

I highly encourage people to read this book in order to get a sense how even well meaning individuals can lead us astray when offering attractive and popular ways to achieve noble goals. It is not the intention or the nobility that makes an idea good or bad. But rather whether such an idea is realistic and attainable; and whether it work with or contrary to human nature?

Communism is unattainable because it assumes a human nature that has never existed, does not now exist, and will never exist. This is also why Communism eventually leads to force since it must coerce people into doing things for some "common good" in order to realize the ideals of Communism. As such, Communism is the natural enemy of freedom and will always be the legitimate foe of freedom-loving people.

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Summary: 100,000,000 dead people can't be wrong
Review: For those who still believe in dialectical materialism, consider these two terms individually:

Materialism is an incoherent, self-refuting philosophy. If everything is matter in motion, then the human being must be a machine, or less, a random collection of organic molecules. How can the person who asserts that he is a randomly-created machine know that this assertion is true? A random, chaotic bag of chemicals must be subject to error, by definition and reason. Materialism undercuts itself. Moreover, how can materialism explain consciousness? If everthing is matter, what is contemplating matter? Matter cannot contemplate. Mind cannot be reduced to matter. (i.e., how can the concept of infinity be represented by a finite number of brain cells?) St. Thomas Aquinas regarded materialism as a very primitive philosophy.

Historicism/dialectic is equally problematic. If truth is completely subject to history (or the Hegelian dialectic), then the idea that "truth is subject to history (or the Hegelian dialectic)" must also be an idea that is subject to history (or the Hegelian dialectic). Therefore absolute truth cannot be completely subject to history or Hegel's dialectic. But we know that absolute truth exists because we can assert it's existence without contradiction, and because any attempt to refute the existence of absolute truth will be self-contradictory, as Aristotle proved in his argument with Gorgias the Sophist 2500 years ago. Unfortunately, nobody told Marx. Absolute truth exists, we can know absolute truth exists with certainty, and we can be certain that Marxism ain't it.

As for Marx himself, historian Paul Johnson paints a rather unflattering portrait. The economic genius "never set foot in a mill, factory, mine or other industrial workplace in the whole of his life." He lived off of his inheritences, his wife's family's hand-outs, and Engel's largesse. The man who complained about malevolent capitalists let his family live in squalor.

And how did Marx's mad, incoherent, "scientific" philosophy work in practice? One need only look at the historical record. But the effects of his insanity are felt to this day. Consider these goals from the Communist Manifesto:

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 right of inheritance. 4.Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5.Centralisation 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 liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9.Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of 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.

Marx will live on as long as there are State Universities.

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Summary: Communism is not that scary
Review: I liked this book. It made me think that people aren't scared of Communism but of what happened in Russia. In Russia it wasn't real communism because everyone wasn't equal. I had to read this in 10th grade History and I understood it. I think that the ideals of communism are very neat. Everyone is equal isn't that what America was going for?

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Summary: Communist Manifesto is pure genius within Marx's context.
Review: Reading communist manifesto is like breathing fresh air in space

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Summary: An excellent introduction to Communism.
Review: This is *THE* book to read if you wish to learn what Communism is about, not the Stalinist perversions of Karl's system. To all the Capitalist ignoramuses out there, read this and other works of Marx and find out how wrong, and in fact, how idiotic your assertion is that Marxism failed because of the failure of the Soviet Union, which was a peversion of Marxism created by Stalin. Being one read on the works of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, I know that True Communism, and the struggle to achieve the same, is the exact opposite of everything these tyrannical systems were. Even Lenin and Trotsky themselves realized that Stalinism was a step backwards from Communism, and needed to be stopped. It's really sad you can't accept facts that contradict your view of Socialism being wicked and evil, and can only listen to assumption-based and ignorance-based claims that Totalitarianism is the only system that can come from Socialist struggle, and that Socialism, and that Socialism is somehow supposedly anti-freedom. Socialism is anti-exploitation. Socialism is anti-domination. Socialism is anti-totalitarianism. This is what Socialism is about, and this is what Marx was about.