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Marx And Engels 's Marxism On Class And Class Struggle

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Marxism tries to explain things by look at the world differently, the purpose is to look at the existence of a world or of forces beyond the natural world around us, and the society we live in. It looks for concrete, scientific, logical explanations of the world. The Marxist theory developed when Karl Marx and his friend Frederich Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto in 1848, focuses on class in societies, Marxism attempts to change the world while other philosophies look to merely understand it. Marx wanted to better understand how so many people could be in poverty in a world where there is so much wealth. His answer was simple: capitalism. The Communist Manifesto discusses class and class struggle as a vital part of the capitalist system. Marx and Engels state that class is made up of people who are in the same position in relation to the ownership and control of the means of wealth production.(cite) For Marx and Engels the class struggle between the upper class, or bourgeoisie class and the working class, or the proletariat class is the epitome of modern social change. Marx identified three classes: wage for labor, profit for the capitalist and rent for the landowner (Knox, 1988: 160). Since capitalism succeeded in absorbing the landlord class, which left society with only two social classes: capitalists and workers. The Marxist theory of class is opposed by those people who explain class not in terms of ownership or lack of ownership, but in terms of prestige and

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