Summary: The Communist Manifesto (page 3)

The problem with bourgeois society lies in the very nature of the creative yet destructive dynamism on which it is founded—this dynamism inevitably drives the system toward its own destruction. Marx employs the metaphor of an engine running out of control. He observes that modern bourgeois society, having fostered such immense means of production and exchange, resembles the sorcerer who can no longer control the forces he has conjured up.¹.

In bourgeois society, as in feudal society, the relations of production can become misaligned, falling out of step with the actual state of society. However, capitalist society is different. While in feudal society such misalignment manifested in famines (since production was insufficient to meet basic needs), in capitalist society, the issue takes the form of overproduction:

During crises, a plague breaks out that would at any earlier period have seemed an absurdity—the epidemic of overproduction. [...] And why? Because society has too much civilisation, too many means of subsistence, too many industries, too much commerce ².

In other words, the productive forces have become excessively powerful. The bourgeois system is now too narrow to contain the wealth it generates ³.

These crises have several consequences. On the one hand, workers—labourers and proletarians—turn against the factories themselves, smashing machinery. Marx highlights the strikes that rocked Europe, interpreting them as the revolt of the productive forces against the modern relations of production and property ⁴. These seemingly irrational acts (workers destroying the very instruments of their own labour) effectively serve to reduce production, thereby mitigating the crises.

The bourgeoisie, on the other hand, responds with imperialist wars. By the same token, these wars create new markets to absorb surplus products, providing new consumers and producers. Additionally, these conflicts, fought by conscripted workers, result in mass casualties, reducing the labour force and alleviates the problem of overproduction.

However, this merely delays the issue. The new markets opened up by colonisation bring new resources into the system, setting the stage for further crises of overproduction—crises that become even more challenging to manage as they affect a broader, globalised market:

How does the bourgeoisie overcome these crises? On the one hand, by destroying productive forces on a massive scale; on the other, by conquering new markets and intensifying the exploitation of existing ones. And what is the result? The preparation for more extensive and devastating crises while simultaneously reducing the capacity to prevent them ⁵.

The bourgeoisie has forged its own gravediggers: the proletariat, the modern workers. Compelled to sell their labour by the day, they are reduced to the status of a commodity, just like any other article of commerce ⁶. They sell their labour power to the bourgeoisie, the owners of the means of production—factories, machines, and so on.

The division of labour, with its resulting specialisation, further entrenches their status as mere commodities: The worker becomes nothing more than an appendage of the machine, required to perform only the simplest, most monotonous tasks ⁷.

Their meagre wages are reduced almost entirely to the cost of the bare necessities of their own survival and that of their families ⁸. Thus, they are simultaneously slaves to the bourgeois class, the machine, and the foreman. This despotism is all the more odious for openly declaring profit to be its sole aim ⁹.

From this, we can understand why communism insists that the means of production—machines, factories, and the like—should belong to those who operate them, the workers, rather than the bourgeoisie.

¹ ibid.
² ibid.
³ p.34
⁴ p.33
⁵ p.34
⁶ ibid.
⁷ p.35
⁸ ibid.
⁹ ibid.