jakewelch • read

07/04/2025-07/17/2025 – I decided to give this an honest read with notes considering its notoriety and the flippant use of the adjective "Communist" in contemporary politics. This particular edition is from the 60's and has a lengthy intro from Francis B Randall that I didn't particularly care for. It's immediately evident in his writing and point of view that he was an American man living in a time where the entire system was working rather well for people like him. He has this obsession with tying all of Marx's ideas, writings, and behaviors to Romanticism, which, isn't a completely moot point, but was overused in the intro and rather dismissive. The first chapter of the manifesto itself is perhaps the most relevant. It lays out the basis for the rest of the manifesto and does a good job of describing the class struggle. I found it especially interesting to read knowing it came from a mid 1850's context when the industrial revolution was in full swing, and that, while certain things like child labor are no longer as pertinent in the west today, the points Marx was making have become all the more relevant. I found myself reflecting on things that I hadn't before (except maybe when I read News From Nowhere by William Morris) such as the concentration of power in cities and its effect on rural people. Throughout this section I kept thinking "it's ironic that the modern right is so predominantly rural people, because this is written for people like them". Where the manifesto lost me is in chapter 2 when Marx starts to lay out what should be done about this. Things like heavy taxes, centralization of transportation, communication, and free education aren't totally irrelevant and are the focus of modern leftist views, but his ideas of abolishing private property, forming a central national bank, abolishing inheritance, and equal liability of labor, raise red flags for me in that I don't see how extensive violence and risk of corruption are to be avoided. I feel like the ideas are idealistic, but ignore human nature and its complications. I don't know what the answer is and I think these systems ought to be questioned and heavily regulated, but these interventions, in my opinion, aren't and shouldn't be in their final form. The rest of the manifesto is perhaps the least interesting. It is very contextual to when it was written and I didn't get a lot out of it. All in all, I'm glad I understand communism more and am interested in reading some of his other works (like Capital), and I know for a fact that I don't think capitalism in its current state deserves to continue to exist–but I am no communist and disagree with a lot of Marx's views. More people ought to read and understand this, especially with how much modern Americans don't understand what it actually means to be communist even though they are so deathly afraid of the label. 3/5 stars