Communism: pros and cons (well, just one big con)

Remember communism? You know, that utopian ideology that Russia and China gave their best shot, failed, and in turn convinced the Americans was a very bad global movement (which never went global). Well, whether you do or don't remember what it stands for, communism is a brilliant and genuinely sensible set of principles devised by Karl Marx, with a little assistance from a friend of his, Friedrich Engels.

Karl Marx, as well as being a philosopher, political economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist and revolutionary (a totally useless listing of his various callings by Wikipedia), was a genius; did I forget to mention he was also a communist? That one's a bit of a given. He basically constructed a revolutionary framework for the overhaul of traditional social standards, namely those of the malevolent bourgeois vultures who circled the dark skies above the proletariat (there's a wink to his love for dramatic rhetoric).

On top of writing numerous other theses and books, Marx endeavoured to duplicate his thoughts and his philosophy concerning the structure of society, something that would be the core objective of the Communist Manifesto, which Engels contributed to (Engels claimed it was Marx that provided for the manifesto the most; his modesty embodies their close relationship as dedicated social scientists).

What the Communist Manifesto aimed to establish was the grounds for arguing against the continued authority of the bourgeois over the proletariat, while equally denying the importance and disputing the relevance of capitalism to the ideal society. Marx identified the significant divide between the rich and the poor, who were subsequently termed the bourgeois and the proletariat. For the bourgeois it was a case of retaining power while managing to allow as little of it as possible to fall into the hands of the proletariat, who were subjugated as workers and as the unemployed.

Marx outlined his stance on the matter initially with the famous claim: "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles". The class struggle, or class divide, is a property of capitalist society that the bourgeois, the rich minority who own almost all property, use to oppress the proletariat, the poor majority. Another famous phrase that epitomises what Marx rivalled is this: "modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few".

The 'exploitation of the many by the few' sums up the imperative of capitalism, which is the need for there to be a divide between those who consume and those who produce - this divide is present today, although as we're part of the prosperous West we see little of it, or perhaps experience it in smaller doses such as the unemployment we suffered due to the culture of greed inherent in bankers pre-2008. Marx would firmly oppose the excessive banker salaries that continue to be paid to them, and he would most definitely be outraged by the MP expenses scandal, for it demonstrates the abuse of power by the rich at the expense of those who surrender to them their labour.

For Marx what was hugely important was a Hegelian understanding of history's progression to the state of the class divide. Marx adopted Hegel's dialectic, which resolves that the history of human society is one shaped by a three-part equation involving the thesis, the antithesis and the synthesis. One example of this complex dialectic would be that capitalism is the thesis, socialist revolution is the antithesis and the final utopia is the synthesis. This is basically a teleological path to a full stop on our developmental time line. Pretty fancy stuff.

Alongside other key areas of Marxist thought explained by the Communist Manifesto is the notion of man as the generator of his own purpose, which is recognised as historical materialism. Under this belief it is understood that man is not influenced by the time in which he lives but by the nature of himself and the history of man that preceded him, i.e. the progress from early civilisation to the advanced. A useful phrase to support this would be that "It is not history which uses men as a means of achieving - as if it were an individual person - its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their end".

What he hoped would happen in eventuality was the conclusion of man's necessity with the ideal concept of communal living, the shared experience of living among others without any obstruction to each reciprocating the needs of the other. Yet another famous phrase from the mind of Marx to accompany this factor of communism is "from each, according to ability, to each, according to need". Essentially the only principle to be lived by is that which dictates the maintenance of labour for the provision of goods and services at a sustainable level for a healthy society.

Underpinning the majority of the message conveyed by the Communist Manifesto is the goal to abolish all privately owned property, exclusively possessed by the bourgeois class in society. Once private property has been removed from the equation universal access to products built through labour is possible as there is no longer a barrier to its procurement, thus the previously oppressed people are emancipated from the stranglehold of capitalism.

In the end, though, this remarkable social concept is far beyond our capacity to realistically adopt. Our current society is so strongly grafted to the traditional system of capitalism that it would be practically impossible to implement the utopian elements of communism, which would require us to abandon our superiority over other countries who we import goods from - capitalism needs both rich and poor (there must be a compromise by one for the benefit of the other). But the stubbornness of capitalism notwithstanding, Marx was still a superb, wise old philosopher who, if reality was more forgiving, would most certainly have had his way, because it just makes so much sense. Unfortunately, humanity doesn't.