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The Communist Manifesto (Penguin Classics)…
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The Communist Manifesto (Penguin Classics) (original 1848; edition 2002)

by Karl Marx (Author), Gareth Stedman Jones (Editor), Samuel Moore (Translator)

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15,015137359 (3.46)1 / 170
It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom—Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

What can or should be said? This screed appears both pivotal and yet fantastic. How should we proceed and parse? I found it strange that I had never read this pamphlet. It goes with out saying that I had absorbed all of its aims previously by osmosis and secondary references. I marveled at its poetry and shuddered at the displayed certainty. Such ruminations on historical inevitability are simply chiliasm.

No one could fathom in the 19th Century how pernicious and gripping nationalism would prove nor, the ghostly strains of Islam, especially in Central Asia. The fact that capitalism could turn matter into liquid should've tipped off Karl and Fred about the nature of their foe. We have proved to be whores. We are also driven by baubles and thrive on peer recognition. Self Criticism was always going to be a hard sell. Marx and Engels announced their agenda in this manifesto. It was calmly stated that private property would be abolished. Collectivization flashed across my mind but appearing just as suddenly was the bloody strikebreaking in South Africa in 2012. Do you have a world to gain, Jacob Zuma? Oh those imps of our natures. ( )
  jonfaith | Feb 22, 2019 |
English (120)  Italian (4)  Spanish (3)  Portuguese (Portugal) (2)  Portuguese (Brazil) (2)  Catalan (2)  Dutch (1)  Swedish (1)  French (1)  German (1)  All languages (137)
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Jones does a great job contextualizing the Manifesto beforehand (with a whopping 184-page introduction, not to mention footnotes for the actual text of the Manifesto), and connects the reader to many other philosophers and social theorists in Marx's influential circle. In fact, this edition seems more like a history book than simply another published copy of the Manifesto. As for Marx, his opinions on the harm of capitalism are very well elucidated, but when it comes to his solutions, they are very vague and seem to be merely based on what happened in the French Revolution. His thoughts on capitalism make it all worth it, however, and thus I will move on to his other works, especially [b:Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844|85954|Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844|Karl Marx|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1521042866l/85954._SY75_.jpg|82945]. ( )
1 vote stargazerfish0 | Jan 13, 2024 |
Not an easy read and definitely not the book I thought it would be. Will have to look for Communism elsewhere.
  MXMLLN | Jan 12, 2024 |
One of the founding documents of possibly the single most substantial political movement of modern times, THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO lays out in relatively simple terms what the philosophy stands for, at least in its pure form. It expresses the desire, at its essence, I believe, to obliterate selfishness as a political force and to eliminate greed as an effective obstacle to man's happiness. That it has not succeeded in doing so despite its successes as a political game plan is perhaps more a factor of the nature of man than a fault in the concept. Despite the idealism that seems to have been at its roots, communism seems doomed to failure in its ostensible hope of achieving idealistic results. But it is hard not to agree that many of the evils of a class-divided society need addressing. Far too many people know far too little about the philosophy of communism and make their opposition (and perhaps even their support) based on misunderstanding and lack of information. A quick study of this slight book which shook the world would go far in creating an informed response to the philosophy it propounds. ( )
  jumblejim | Aug 26, 2023 |
Over my head.
  blueskygreentrees | Jul 30, 2023 |
The 277 pages introduction in the Penguin Classics edition is absolutely abysmal for non-academics, which is why I gave it a 2*. Just read the actual text of Marx and watch YT videos for further understanding, your time will be much better used. ( )
  pic18f | Jul 11, 2023 |
Finally got around to reading this and I can see why it's one of the most influential works of all time. It proposes a new economic system that the world had never seen before in mid 1800s. It explains a lot of class dynamics that's amazingly still relevant 170 years later, and it makes predictions that are incredibly interesting, and in a few places, amazingly accurate. Marx is also just a really good writer. I was very impressed with the quality of the writing and prose at times. He is also very good at breaking down concepts to the reader, and both over-explaining something, but also giving a blunt summary, ensuring that the reader takes away at least something, from each point he makes. ( )
2 vote Andjhostet | Jul 4, 2023 |
Facciamo ordine: il comunismo funziona o non funziona? O meglio, il marxismo ortodosso, come accennato in questo manifesto e poi portato avanti dal suo autore poteva funzionare o era nato già fallito? Non mi interessa. Io ho la mia idea, voi avete la vostra, e questo non è il luogo dove discuterne.
Parliamo del libro. Questo breve manifesto -e la brevità è il suo primo pregio- è diviso in due parti. La prima è destinata ad un pubblico piuttosto ampio ed enuncia, con incredibile carica di pathos, le tesi del comunismo: i perché e in parte i come. La seconda parte sputa fuoco su tutte le forme di proto-socialismo e socialismo borghese ed è una sorta di critica politico-letterario-filosofica di questi personaggi e movimenti largamente dimenticati, perciò risulta più datata. Cosa che non si può dire per la prima parte, poiché le idee rimangono attualissime. Questa è la potenza del libro, chi disprezza l'ideale comunista può bollare il manifesto come male supremo, tuttavia farebbe grave errore a non volerne coglierne le lenti per dare uno sguardo su quel passato tumultuoso dell'indomani della rivoluzione industriale, sui movimenti di massa e sulla presa di coscienza del proletariato. Salvezza o peccato originale, il libro è, da un punto di vista storico e delle scienze umane, un documento assolutamente essenziale e una lettura decisamente agile.
Personalmente lo trovo diverse spanne sopra a ciò che poi hanno scritto i suoi "successori", in particolare Lenin. ( )
  AsdMinghe | Jun 4, 2023 |
The abolition of private property. It simply cannot match the inalienable right to the pursuit of property, as Locke put it, but better popularized by Jefferson as the pursuit of happiness. Nor do Marx and Engels understand the the Smithian notion of economics. Nevertheless, Marx and Engels do paint an incredible poetic picture of the power of capitalism (having plowed through Wealth of Nations, the Manifesto is a much easier read). And their predictions of globalism and the power of capitalism to transform society (remember, this was written in 1848) is quite remarkable. Of course, one cannot read this book and not forget the tens of millions who died because Lenin, Stalin, and Mao did not really understand what the book was talking about. ( )
  wahoo8895 | Nov 20, 2022 |
Pass Marx
The layman's review
No one asked for this, but still...
Okay first advice: keep a dictionary around(or the Google assistant).
One might say that this book is too much information in a short number of pages (me being 'one'), but we have to understand that Karl(my childhood friend) is trying to explain the entire idea of communism(which is kind of complex) in less than a 100 pages(that's a manifesto). The book is amazing. It makes you understand communism to the core and what it stands for. The sentences are too long with too many commas. Bear with it. Oh yeah and you'll have to actually pay attention while reading(it's not Percy Jackson), or else it won't make sense at all. This book makes you want to rebel but then you realize your family belongs to the bourgeoisie and not the proletariat (and then you thank god that India is capitalist). I know you didn't understand those words. Bourgeoisie: middle class (kind of upper middle class)
Proletariat: working class, the one who work on minimum wage
Chill, even I googled this.
The book is full of words, which if used in random conversations, can make you look extremely knowledgeable.
Now comes the main question, would this book make you a communnist?! The answer lies in the impressionability of your mind. I personally think it wouldn't because the communist movement wasn't for the class of the society that you belong to. Maybe your maid or your driver might become a communist after reading this book. But then again, if they are able to understand these long comma filled sentences they wouldn't be doing what they are doing in the first place.
  Azmir_Fakir | Oct 31, 2022 |
scary how accurate this still all is ( )
2 vote Danisstillalive | Sep 6, 2022 |
I'm only giving this a four star rating because as a political science major I respect Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles' opinions but I'm also too much a believer in capitalism.

My edition (a Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition 2011) was good but I think the manifesto itself had too many big words (which seemed odd giving that it was for the lower classes) and it constantly repeated how the bourgeois = bad and the proletarians = good. There seemed to be no middle ground for the independent thinker. I think, Marx and Engles had too much anger towards the rich; this reflected off Lenin who, in part, influenced the assassination of the Romanov family (including the innocent children).

I don't believe Marx and/or Engles envisioned there communistic ideas as the anti-human rights nations of the modern world (i.e. China, Vietnam, Cuba, and North Korea) where "free" property can lead to mass starvation, countless international sanctions, and/or extremely moderated free speech. ( )
  Jazz1987 | Aug 27, 2022 |
interesting as a historical document.

Excessively flawed philosophy and outlook. ( )
  kburne1 | Aug 13, 2022 |
The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx and Fredrick Engles

Why I picked this book up: The USA had a huge push from Black Lives Matter (BLM) during Donald Trump's presidency (2016-20) and the leader of the movement said she was a Marxist. It was a horrible movement to me. Not because black lives don't matter but all lives matter. God values all lives and no that is NOT racist. I started reading Atlas Shrugged (I'm on part four now) and there us a crazy push for socialism which leads to communism. I picked up this book to understand more about Markism.

Authors info:
Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a German philosopher, political economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, communist, and revolutionary, whose ideas played a significant role in the development of modern communism. Marx summarized his approach in the first line of chapter one of The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." Marx argued that capitalism, like previous socioeconomic systems, would inevitably produce internal tensions which would lead to its destruction. Just as capitalism replaced feudalism, he believed socialism would, in its turn, replace capitalism, and lead to a stateless, classless society called pure communism. This would emerge after a transitional period called the "dictatorship of the proletariat": a period sometimes referred to as the "workers state" or "workers' democracy". In section one of The Communist Manifesto Marx describes feudalism, capitalism, and the role internal social contradictions play in the historical process: We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged...the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder. Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class. A similar movement is going on before our own eyes.... The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring order into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property.Marx argued for a systemic understanding of socio-economic change.

About Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels (English /ˈɛŋɡəlz/ or /ˈɛŋəlz/; German: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈɛŋəls]; 28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895) was a German philosopher, social scientist, journalist and businessman. He founded Marxist theory together with Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research in Manchester.
In 1848 he co-authored The Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx, though he also authored and co-authored (primarily with Marx) many other works, and later he supported Marx financially to do research and write Das Kapital. After Marx's death, Engels edited the second and third volumes. Additionally, Engels organised Marx's notes on the "Theories of Surplus Value," which he later published as the "fourth volume" of Capital. He has also made contributions to family economics

Thoughts: from the get this books is set up as social ranks and conflict. The class ranks are set up with conflicts right away. Labor vs industry, proletariat vs bourgeoisie. Capitalist vs laborers. Social status always has people more well off and less so. This book was a book was a call for revolution this book put forward history is steeped in class struggle. I do not think it is only about finances. That is one thing but there are also other things. There us always hierarchical structures in biology. We struggle for life in this world against the world and that is not just economic as Marxs lays out in this book. This books makes claims but does not at all talk about his those thing would actually happen. I think Marx and Engles say thing work in capitalism which they argue against I guess. In the end, even communism and socialism there is going to be inequality even though they try to make everybody equal.

Why I finished this read: I am thankful for capitalism, not the social aspect how Marx described it but the free market we live in is the greatest wealth producing system the world has seen. The risk is there and it is set by the consumers. If people do not value the good or service they don't have to pay it and ibe t will feedback to the system and prices will have to change. Socialism does not work, it just does not and that is not ask people often say nowadays, “because it was not done right.” History show people starve because of it and they often need to eat their pets to survive. And communism is very similar. We can't have the government outlawing citizens making money.

I rated this book one star as it is greatly lacking depth and there has not been the claimed working class revolt. ( )
  DrT | Feb 16, 2022 |
I'm not rating this because I don't want to but as a sociology and a political science major, I have read parts of this or the whole work enough times to appreciate the impact of this work. Marx and Engels writing in order to convince common people is so different from some of their other writings I have read of theirs when they are writing for other academics. Though we may view this work as hopelessly idyllic and impossible, I don't think you can over state the impact this work has had on many fields. Marx is considered one of the fathers of sociology and not because all sociologists are communists but rather because of his theories on class and alienation. Even though the society Marx and Engels propose here looks very different from out society today, there are still some changes that have been made to fit this vision in some countries, such as universal education in the U.S. I think there are lots of fair criticisms of this work (many later theorists have elaborated on or refuted this work) but I don't think the reputation this book has is always a fair one and I would encourage people to read it for themselves.
  AKBouterse | Oct 14, 2021 |
The Communist Manifesto makes a good case against communism. Enough said. ( )
  bdgamer | Sep 10, 2021 |
I don't really know how to rate this, so assume my 3 stars is neutral in this case. Really interesting and insightful read. ( )
  SarahRita | Aug 11, 2021 |
I’ll be doing a real review when I read the book end-to-end. I read the actual manifesto part, and I read some of the prefaces of the editions/translations, so I’m counting it as a read. ( )
  historybookreads | Jul 26, 2021 |
A classic of political thought

Written in 1848, this seminal work inspired the likes of Vladimir Lenin, Fidel Castro and Mao Tse Tung, although nowhere are, say, doctors paid the same as everyone else . ( )
  Jimbookbuff1963 | Jun 5, 2021 |
i re-read this today while listening to Kim Petras' new album, "Clarity."
make of that what you will, but this is the definitive description of my year. ( )
  rosscharles | May 19, 2021 |
My pick for 2021 PopSugar Reading Challenge prompt #46: A book from your TBR that you meant to read last year but didn’t.
I stopped reading the first sentence, so I'm giving this a chance this year. Economics is my least favorite subject, so I can't tell if it's a good read.
(just hiding this review not for spoilers but for my note)

Last year, I met someone from a communist country. He is very passionate about discussing politics with me. The problem is, I am not fond of it. I work in a government establishment, but I still avoid talking about politicians and such. My friend is interesting and he is fun to be around, so I decided to try reading The Communist Manifesto.
From what I know, communism is deemed a problematic ideology in my country as of today. We have a rebel group, an armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines a.k.a. CPP, called New People's Army (NPA) that want to overthrow the government. The members in the "battelfield" tend to extort money from businessmen and some government workers/officials. (I witnessed it myself.) If the latter don't give in the NPA's demands, their vehicles and buildings will be destroyed (mainly by fire/arson). Even indigenous people in tribal areas were victimized. Some ex-members testified against the group, saying "Is this really what communism is all about?"
  DzejnCrvena | Apr 2, 2021 |
Some good ideas, and still a lot of important messages, but it hasn't aged all that well. Worth reading but in need of an update to bring it back into the 21st century ( )
2 vote TCLinrow | Mar 17, 2021 |
Some good ideas, and still a lot of important messages, but it hasn't aged all that well. Worth reading but in need of an update to bring it back into the 21st century ( )
  TCLinrow | Mar 17, 2021 |
A modo de micro-reseña, pego de una conversación que tuve con algunos familiares poco después de haber leído el libro:

Habría que leer [las] otras obras [de Marx], pero el resumen del Manifiesto es:


«La burguesía nos ha traído progreso, tecnología y orden, la verdad es que sin ellos estaríamos en las cavernas matándonos unos a otros (“¿¡qué han hecho por nosotros los Romanos!?”); pero el lumpen está esclavizado y lo estará cada vez más; así que vamos a nivelar a todos por abajo con una revolución violenta en la que no haremos prisioneros ni respetaremos ni siquiera la propiedad modesta y legítima; y de las cenizas y de los cadáveres surgirá… surgirá… bueno, no sabemos muy bien qué surgirá, pero será mucho mejor.»
( )
  tripu.info | Jan 5, 2021 |
Obviously this isn’t a review of communism or communists (for whom rotary aviation is my prescription), but of the Manifesto as propaganda. It has serious flaws (dated in language, but especially in entire areas of concern which don’t matter), but at core it tries to pull one trick with respect to production and categorizing goods as “capital” vs other goods, and basically doesn’t correspond to how actual economics work — it is sort of a revolt against mercantilism but not contemporary or modern capitalism. The attempted differentiation vs forms of socialism was also pretty tortured and definitely out of date. ( )
  octal | Jan 1, 2021 |
How did this spark off the ruination and misery that spread across half the world? It's deranged. ( )
  Paul_S | Dec 23, 2020 |
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Penguin Australia

5 editions of this book were published by Penguin Australia.

Editions: 0140447571, 0141018933, 0143106260, 0141194898, 0451531841

 

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