Brody Bitsoi

April 20th 2017

Philosophy 1000
Final Paper

Roots of socialism

As a young adult in college, its hard for me to tell you exactly

what I want to be when I grow up. However, I am always trying to

figure it out, as if doing a mathematical question in my head, equating

if all my social communication skills, will balance out with my

leadership skills. All at the same time wondering what happened to all

of my teachers, idols, and even parents telling me to do something I

love in life. I just wish it were that simple. Its hard to imagine a world

that everyone just did what they loved no matter if it was silly, weird,

or simply didnt pay enough. German philosopher Karl Marx saw this as

a tragedy, as he was able to witness some of the first signs of

alienation. Marx published Manifest der Kommunistischen (The

Communist Manifesto) which was his grand introduction of socialism to

the world.

Karl Marx took aim at capitalism for he realized that it was simply

unfair. He didnt understand why the proletariat (working class) are so

underprivileged, yet are the foundation of the bourgeoisie (middle

class). He thought as if he was the only one to see that if the

proletariat stopped working then the bourgeoisie would crumble.

Matter of fact Marx believed that the proletariats only way to break

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Philosophy 1000
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out of this trend was to overthrow the bourgeoisie. I myself work in

production, and I currently am getting 10 hours of overtime a week and

soon to be more. Backbreaking work to say the least, and its hard for

me to say with all of my overtime, and coming in on weekends still

doesnt

equate to the amount of money the boss can make just from standing

watching me work all day.

Marx felt sympathy for the proletariat, for during his

research he figured that most that worked in the proletariat class were

often stuck there for their lives. Personally, I look at myself and I find it

hard to think that I have the possibility of working the way I am, for the

rest of my life. Almost if Im only here to make the rich richer, in order

for me to put food on the table. The proletariat were victims of society

for they were only a low wage away from being considered slaves.

Marx saw the proletariat for what they really were, they are the hard-

working engine to the car, whilst the bourgeoisie were merely the

drivers of the vehicle. This revolving reason is exactly why Marx

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Philosophy 1000
Final Paper
believes that these two should be paid the same amount, because one

may not work without the other.

Marx also touched on the face that workers only went to their job

so they can somewhat enjoy their life while it is so restricted. It did not

matter to them because they must work in order to survive. He

believed that slowly these workers were giving way to alienation. This

terms means that you have disconnected from your job, and that you

would eventually make you convince yourself of a lack of self-worth and try

to ideally think of other ideas that you could contribute to society. Marx tried

to combat this suppressive job feeling that if everyone just worked and did

what they loved, then society as a whole would get paid for their combine

efforts to uphold a country. This is a easy way to re-create everyone as

equals which would then give a total satisfaction of what they had because

everyone in the socialist society survives as a whole.

See now Marx lived in an era that capitalists were just starting to take

its toll on society, so he had the first-hand experience of a proletariat life

feels like. Marx became very involved in the communist party in his earlier

life, the group was set on overthrowing the class system. It almost makes

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April 20th 2017
Philosophy 1000
Final Paper
sense that Marx was the guy to perfect the view of socialism to the point

where it became a factor towards a capitalist standpoint. Now, Marx has

completely created a revolutionizing system of government that the world in

one way or another in his opinion will run into. Thus, his reasoning that the

world would never be able to run off primarily capitalist governments. To this

day, Marxs prediction that capital governments were too superficial and

controlling that it wouldnt be long before the only option to settle social and

political disputes would be to reform their government into a

communist/socialist standpoint.

The reasoning that Marx presents on how implementing socialism will

work wonders for a failing capitalism, which we seem to be approaching very

soon. Its hard to understand how Marx was the only philosophers to even

consider the way that this new era of capitalism is going to lead them. He

found it harder to spread the word about socialism until Marx ran into a man

named, Friedrich Engels who was a journalist, businessman, that believed

that Marx expression of socialism should be spread. In turn Engels agreed to

publish some of Marxs writings to where the world can see them. Together

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Philosophy 1000
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the duo boasted about the newfound socialism that is going to help us co-

opted humans out of this trick that this is the way life is supposed to be.

Marx looked at the world and could not help to think that us as humans

do not need to work so hard. Bring that the modern economy is so

productive that everyone may have the same wages and He doesnt think

that in order to keep the country alive every citizen necessarily had to

contribute to society. Being that society would make it fine with or without

their help so that means that those people would be free. Us humans just

give a bad rep to unemployment. It is wither lazy to not have a job, but it is

just sacrificing your time into something that the world already has too much

production. It almost just makes no sense to have all the citizens work so

hard for something that can be given so that every family in the

socialist group would be able to live comfortably no matter what their jobs

were, only as long as they helped. This makes you wonder why capitalists

would turn their shoulder to practically, harmony and equality of all citizens

of the socialist society.

A big problem with Marxs arguments was that he was ahead of his

day. To the people that were in society back then couldnt imagine anything

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Philosophy 1000
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even close to what Marx was saying could be right. However only a few

decades later his writings became relevant in many countries developed

thats key was based off of the teachings of Marx. It makes you wonder if

someone within the government had listened to Marx and socialism was

implemented what would that change today?

I think that Marx had a very convincing argument towards

capitalism. It seemed as if he traveled in time in order to predict the future of

capitalism. On top of that argument he had come up with the solution of

socialism. Its a shame that he was able to propose this so fluently and not

get anyone a nibble. I do believe that if Marx could find maybe just a few

more people to take his side, there would have been a lot more falling into

his teachings shortly after. I think that if Marx would have won though the

humans would naturally screw it up based off of greed, money, and glory. All

this talk that Marx has is based upon basically the maturity of the society to

agreeably function with the government.

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Brody Bitsoi
April 20th 2017
Philosophy 1000
Final Paper