8 Matching Annotations
  1. Nov 2024
    1. That indictment is Marx’s vision of what modern bourgeois society forces people to be: they have to freeze their feelings for each other to find a place in a cold world. Bourgeois society “has left no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous cash payment.” It has “drowned every form of sentimental value in the icy waters of egotistical calculation.” It has “resolved personal worth into exchange-value.” It has collapsed every idea of freedom “into that single, unconscionable freedom—free trade.” It has “torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.” It has “converted the doctor, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage-laborers.” “In one word, for exploitation veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.” It forces people to degrade themselves in order to survive.

      I think this is.a very crucial part of the text to read slowly and analyze. It elaborates on the peoples feelings towards the way they'd be treated. Arguments they make in oppose to it, arguments o suggest they lose their freedom, their unique value and job expertise, things that make them special and feel more self worth. Like the text says, "It forces people to degrade themselves in order to survive". Which I get that I would not appreciate a lifestyle where I feel that I cannot express myself, feel special for the job that I perform especially if it was a highly respected career such as a doctor. To me it would be a life of dulness and I would not enjoy that either so I get the argumentative people and their opinions.

    2. But the problem with that whole discussion was that it converted questions of human experience into questions of numbers;

      What does it mean when the text says "it converted questions of human experience into questions of numbers"?

    3. We could call the Manifesto’s style a kind of expressionist lyricism. Paragraphs break over us like waves that leave us shaking from the impact and wet with thought.

      This made me think and view the Communist Manifesto in a new point of view. Before I only interpreted it as like someone who was complaining and speaking of struggles he is aware of and ideas he has to make a change. The highlighted text made me rethink that and consider it to be an influential and deep connecting emotional passage. Like the text mentions, the Manifesto is called a "kind of expressionist lyricism" meaning it is a display of beauty and creativity through emotion. Reading this, giving me a change in view for the Manifesto and Marx in his methods through writing.

    4. Marx’s contemporaries didn’t miss them, and some of his fellow radicals, like Proudhon and Bakunin, saw his appreciation of capitalism as a betrayal of its victims. This charge is still heard today, and deserves serious response. Marx hates capitalism, but he also thinks it has brought immense real benefits, spiritual as well as material, and he wants the benefits to be spread around and enjoyed by everybody, rather than monopolized by a small ruling class

      I think this is a crucial point within the text that readers should understand. This piece of text first mentions Marx's appreciation of capitalism. Which may confuse a reader at first as we know he was against it and wanted to move away from capitalist society as it meant for class separation along with unequal opportunity and lifestyle. It then elaborates on the specifics that Marx's liked from capitalism and gave credit to the things he did feel were positive outcomes of it. I think understand that Marx didn't just despise all of capitalism and was able to mention the things he could see as relevant or positive outcomes.

    5. The bourgeoisie has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam navigation, railways . . . clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalization of rivers, whole populations conjured out of he ground—what earlier century had any idea that such productive powers slumbered in the womb of social labor?

      I don't understand why the narrator considered this to be an example of "sense of being caught up in something magical, uncanny". To me this is just elaborating on the concept or opinion that the bourgeoisie constructed and pathed way for the biggest increase and development in production forces.

    6. said now that the Wall was down, I shouldn’t be allowed to teach Marx anymore, because “1989 proves that courses in Marxism are obsolete.”

      I disagree with this statement and agree with Marshall Berman. Just because something is now viewed as obsolete, doesn't mean it shouldn't be allowed to be taught. An old view of something can have lasting worth and teaching points. The ideas of Marxism may had become considered obsolete, but similar to old school topics within the United States, we use them till this day as teaching points, helping us to make better judgement calls and learn from others triumphs or downfalls and the actions they took to get there. So in summary, I agree that an old "obsolete" method of something, can still hold value along with valid teaching points.

    7. Marx and Engels monuments were torn down.

      This can be related to incidents we have had in the US within the last few years. Incidents such as the vandalization and destruction of memorials and monuments as a movement during the George Floyd protests. Along with the vandalism of the statue of George Washington at the tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary War Soldiers. Along with other occurrences of destruction of monuments and memorials by civilians.