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Using this basis of historical materialism, it can be seen that Capitalism must run its course and be replaced by scientific socialism. After reading the Communist Manifesto, I gained the emotional effects of the work, in that I desired to gain such a system though I found it impractical. The reasoning for such a belief of impracticality is that emotional socialism is equivalent to utopian socialism, in that there is an idea of an ideal, but which cannot be obtained.
The purpose of this work is to clarify Marxism as not of this utopian type but as a science, which does not lack for empirical evidence. This work truly is the Manifesto of scientific socialism, and should be a must-read for anyone interested in Marxism. Jun 26, Rob Keenan rated it it was amazing. Nov 26, Herman Gigglethorpe rated it did not like it Shelves: Despite my two-star rating, this is an interesting read for those interested in the history of communism.
This is primarily a work of historiography. Engels interprets the history of Europe from the Middle Ages to the 19th century as class struggle. Feudalism was undermined by increasing commercial activity and finished off in the French Revolution. However, the French Revolution and its aftermath revealed the flaws of "bourgeois liberalism".
Liberalism is designed to protect the property of the Despite my two-star rating, this is an interesting read for those interested in the history of communism. Liberalism is designed to protect the property of the wealthy, according to Engels, so in practice none are equal before the law. He includes the ideas of early predecessors to bourgeois rule i. He usually portrays them favorably, but sees Marx as the pinnacle of socialist thought.
Engels also discusses the dominance of philosophical materialism i. However, Engels includes the fatal flaw of communism: The idea that the state will fade away when no longer needed, even though it takes harsh measures to end capitalism for good. We need only look at the real communist countries to find out how that went. Engels also does not give an idea as to how the revolution will take place. Will it come through a general strike?
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Winning a supermajority in an election? Another historical irony is that the prospect of radical socialist movements gaining made states paranoid enough to offer social programs that weakened the appeal of Marxism. Think of Bismarck creating the world's first social security program.
All in all, an interesting read, but it has the same problems that all Marxist thought does. Tekrar okumalarda bu ay Dec 15, Luke rated it really liked it Shelves: Good summary of the economic thought of Marx and Engels. It should be noted that this essay does skew more towards Engels views, especially in regards to inevitability of a take over of the means of production by the state and a stricter technological determinism than Marx advocated. Utopian and Scientific is among the essentials for understanding Marxism and the dialectical materialist approach to socialism.
Frederick Engels, himself a rather undervalued influence on Karl Marx, is clear and concise in this book, laying out simply how it is that Marxism is a more viable way of looking at the world, and why workers' self-emancipation accompanied by an overthrow of capitalism points the most realistic way fo Much like The German Ideology and The Communist Manifesto , Socialism: Frederick Engels, himself a rather undervalued influence on Karl Marx, is clear and concise in this book, laying out simply how it is that Marxism is a more viable way of looking at the world, and why workers' self-emancipation accompanied by an overthrow of capitalism points the most realistic way forward in winning a truly just world.
Starting in the philosophical realm, he posits that "modern socialism" is best understood as an outgrowth from the far left of Enlightenment philosophy that really flourished with the French revolutions. Ideas of "reason" began to take precedent, and scrutinized the previously unchallenged systems of governance, i. These were, of course, the ideologies of the bourgeoisie struggling for power with the strongholds of feudalism, and reached a certain limit in the insistence that "equality" would be best achieved with all humans equal before the law this is a theme returned to frequently in The German Ideology.
Given that property was sanctified as a right, and the relations that provide for property in turn, these limits were more or untouchable unless one wanted to beyond them, which material conditions had to provide for. But just as these Enlightenment ideas reached their apex in the antagonism between bourgeois and feudalism, so does socialism find traction in the contradictions of capitalism.
Specifically, these contradictions are the class antagonism between worker and bourgeoisie, and the tendency towards crises in the relations and mode of production inherent in capitalism. Because the bourgeoisie was in battle with the aristocracy, and was itself an oppressed class struggling for power, it was better able to present itself as a "universal class" of sorts, its emphasis on equality before the law a meaningful vessel with which to capture people's imaginations.
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
Even here, however, the tensions find expression in the advent of communist movements such as the Levellers during the English revolution: All three were in their time worthy of the description of socialist mostly because they were concerned with the depravities of capitalism -- the degradation, the poverty, the violence and anarchy.
They saw the irrationality of the system and therefore saw it worthy of being tossed aside. This was not, however, the same as being animated by workers' self-emancipation, the main thrust of Marxism and dialectical materialism. Accompanying this was again the appeal to the Enlightenment ideal of a trans-historical "reason. Despite a great amount of assumptions arising from this pamphlet being a polemic of sorts, Engels voices a fair degree of admiration for the utopians.
He comments on Saint-Simon's recognition of the French Revolution's character of a "three-way" class war, not just between bourgeois and aristocrat, but with the "non-possessing" classes thrown in their too. It was with this third class that Saint-Simon was most concerned. Likewise, Engels praises Fourier's criticism of the existing conditions of society. Fourier also held strength in his insight of history's "four main stages of evolution -- savagery, barbarism, the patriarchate, civilization.
What's more, Fourier had a sense of capitalism's propensity toward overproduction in his critique of "poverty born of superabundance itself. Robert Owen's brand of utopia was raised of a decidedly non-continental character. A Welshman, he saw the breakneck industrialization that gripped the British Isles in the late 's and early 's. The industrial revolution brought on a fevered proletarianization that also thrust workers and homeless alike into filthy slums; it also brought with it horrid unsafe and dirty working conditions.
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Owen himself was an industrialist who made a tidy sum as a managing partner at a Scottish cotton mill. He treated his workers with a dignity virtually unknown at the time, and yet also managed to turn a massive profit. But when he attempted to put it into large scale practice, he was shunned from bourgeois society itself. Given that the application of his vision was predicated on convincing the bourgeoisie, this naturally was a huge obstacle. And clearly, given that the rise of capitalism and social systems generally emerge from scientifically placed realities -- the collision of certain social factors rather than from someone's head -- one would have to say that it is of absolute necessity that we do so.
This stands in contrast to the utopians' basis, which is that socialism is borne out of a desire for rationality, reason and the virtue of its being reasonable. Diving into the pamphlet's second section, Engels steps back a bit, elaborating on the meaning of dialectical materialism. Immediately, in his description of more static empiricist schools of thought, we see a similarity to many though by no means all of the Enlightenment thinkers -- particularly in the insistence that things are what they are and nothing more.
There is also a refutation of the wooden dialectician, pointing out that opposites are as inseparable as they are opposed to each other. The two are moving parts of a whole, and in this we see the ever-changing nature of all things.
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Existence itself is a process. That he was an idealist is notable, but does not detract from his realization of a natural dialectical reality and its application to societal questions. It is in this context that we must understand the rise of proletarian class struggle, which takes place roughly alongside the leaps forward in science and philosophy. Engels makes it a point to mention the rebellions of weavers in Lyons in the 's and the Chartist rebellion too. Just as advances in social, political and economic thought and science made for the philosophical breakthroughs of the Enlightmenment, so had the advent of capitalism made possible rebellions against the exploitation inherent within it.
And yet, most Hegelians, as well as utopians, had little to say about these developments. The idealism of utopian thought had little to do the application of dialectics to the inner workings of the system of capitalism itself. It was historically blind to the social forces around it or what had given rise to them. Applying dialectical materialism, taking an honest look at those social forces, we see that all history of civilization is -- as Marx and Engels both frequently pointed out -- the history of class struggles arising from economic conditions.
Summing up, while the utopians were able to see the injustice and vicissitudes of capitalism for what they were, they were not able to explain these injustices, let alone propose solutions other than pulling the blueprints of an ideal society out of their heads. They saw themselves as beyond historical forces, but that didn't make these historical forces any less real. Looking at the actual forces themselves, we see that the contradiction of capitalism lies in the extraction of surplus value from a proletariat.
Therefore, the accomplishment of socialism falls historically to the proletariat there are broader and more finely fleshed out arguments about why the working class elsewhere, but this quick explanation will have to suffice for our purposes here. Socialism must be a science. The next section is straightforward in its aim: He briefly lays out that the structure of a society is entirely dependent upon its productive forces -- what is made, how it is made and how it is distributed.
Ergo, the prime contradiction of capitalism is that between its productive forces and its mode of production, ie. Under feudalism, production was more localized and individualized, with the small producer owning his or her tools and products for his own use or exchange. But in order for capitalism to take root, for products to be made at a greater scale and be exchanged in a wider realm, production had to take on a wider, collective character. And yet, the fruits of the labor go back not to those who produce, but those who own.
Introduction to Frederick Engels Socialism: Utopian and scientific | Socialist Alternative
The family produced most of what it needed for itself under feudalism, as well as that which was owed to the king or lord. Only if there was anything left over did it take the form of commodity ie. Bringing this to a large scale, particularly if it is unplanned which it normally is induces anarchy. Commodity production -- previously limited to the mere crevices of global economy -- became universalized. And with this the anarchy inherent in unplanned production spread too. So too did the contradiction between labor and capital, between the mode of production and the forces of production.
Conflicts that had previously been limited in geographical scope took on a different shape and spread with greater ease. And as colonization spread -- itself intertwined with commodity production after a certain point -- so did these contradictions. Engels turns his attention then to the key moving part of revolution: There is a continuous subjugation of workers described in this section, brought about by the anarchy of production.
Because nothing is planned and competition is never-ending and a bottom line of sorts, the push is to constantly revolutionize the means of production. In The Communist Manifesto , Marx describes it in that way, but Engels here refers to it as "the perfecting of machinery. Engels affirms repeatedly that German philosophy in particular provides tools for a rigorous analysis of how societies develop, fall, and rise.
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John Ervin rated it it was amazing Sep 21, Patrick rated it liked it Jul 17, Erasamo Da rotterdam rated it liked it Jan 29, Karen rated it really liked it Oct 28, Che rated it really liked it Nov 28, Lau rated it really liked it May 11, Ella marked it as to-read Jul 15, Tyler Kendrick marked it as to-read Jan 12, Michael marked it as to-read Jun 16, Mohammed marked it as to-read Jun 04, Alex Galton marked it as to-read Jun 29, Aron Book Collector is currently reading it Jan 27, Richard Schuyler is currently reading it Jun 01, Mohamed Ateaa marked it as to-read Mar 28, In Chapter Two, he summarizes dialectics , and then chronicles the thought from the ancient Greeks to Hegel.
Chapter Three summarizes dialectics in relation to economic and social struggles, essentially echoing the words of Marx. Utopian and Scientific was one of the best selling and most widely-read socialist publications of the period to Engels began this chapter dealing with the history of Germany between the revolution of and the ascension to the office of Chancellor by Otto von Bismarck in , with particular reference to Bismarck's policy of "blood and iron.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Henderson, The Life of Friedrich Engels. Frank Cass, ; vol. Marx and Engels, International Publishers, ; p. Kerr, "Publisher's Note," Socialism: Introduction by Ernst Wangermann.