Tendencies in Capitalism According to the Manifesto

1. Simplification of class structure: capitalists vs. workers (p. 9) (see also #8)

2. Technical progress in manufacturing technique ("revolutionizing the instruments of production", p.12)

3 World-wide expansion of capitalism in search of markets and raw materials (p. 12-3)

4. Creation of new wants and needs more difficult to satisfy ( p.12)

5. Concentration of property and power in fewer hands (p. 12)

6. Periodic crises and recessions/depressions--"boom and bust"; crisis of overproduction (p. 14)

7. Larger, more uniform working class, trade unionism. (pp. 17)

8. Destruction of small business, middle class sinks into working class (p. 17)

9. Labor more burdensome, more alienating (p. 16)

10. More uniform, lower wages: "iron law of wages" (pp. 16, 24)

11. Capitalists give workers political education (p. 19)

12. Some bourgeois ideologists side with workers (p. 19)

13. Increased pauperism (unemployment, welfare roles) (p. 21)

14. Workers inevitably overthrow capitalism (p. 21)

The Manifesto's argument that overthrow of capitalism is inevitable because it creates its own "gravediggers":

How increase of productive forces molds working class:

Development of industry
|
V

Concentration of workers
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V

More equal conditions ("iron law")
|
V

Expanding union of workers
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V

Organization of workers into class
|
V

Organization into a political party

Bourgeoisie further forms working class by giving it a political education to serve the needs of bourgeoisie, which the working class can then use to pursue its own goals.

Effects on workers of capitalist development: (a) alienation in work (b) "iron law" lowers wages to subsistence (c) General law of capitalist accumulation: unemployment and "pauperization" increases faster than population and wealth.

Capitalism produces working class that is oppressed, and has no better future, but has political consciousness (of a sort-but what sort?). That is why the overthrow of the bourgeoisie is inevitable, according to the Manifesto.

"Class consciousness" can mean a variety of things in Marxist theory:

(a) Awareness of class membership. This is not very high in the U. S., but much higher in Britain and Latin America

(b) Agreement on a program for common action for the class. This doesn't follow from (a) since it goes beyond awareness of common situation to awareness of common plan.