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pascalibrary's review against another edition
3.0
3/5. The rating is hard to quantify and somewhat arbitrary.
Personally, I found myself agreeing with a lot of the objections regarding Capitalist society. This is easily the strongest part of the Communist Manifesto, and the most clearly outlined and argued. The criticisms are well founded and prophetic. Marx and Engels made a list of immediate principles to be followed, and I also think these worked for the most part.
I also think that a lot of the economic objections to Communism are really weak and can easily be refuted with a light reading of this book. Most of those objections only work when viewing a Communist system as an immediate alternative to Capitalism, and in this manner it is clearly doomed to fail. The 'revolution', in Marx and Engel's view, is only supposed to happen once the means of production and industry are well founded. If it happens before, then yeah, any kind of planned economy is going to have a tough time. Not impossible, but tough, and this has been shown to be correct.
This leads into a big part that I don't hear much about, the fact that Capitalism is a necessary step in the progression of society, according to Marx and Engels. The things that Capitalism does well are outlined in this piece. Its great at making massive quantities of things, and innovating, and bridging the gap between disparate peoples. The objection to this is that, in doing all these great things, it commodifies and dehumanizes most of the population, so it follows that the same oppressed class should take the means of production and make them a public commodity.
What I can't ignore or agree with is the vehement advocation for violent revolution. This is a bad idea in principle, and has historically been shown not to work. It creates a power vacuum which is inevitably filled by power-hungry people. They hijack the principles of revolution, and then gradually or immediately shift the new society into one that is just as awful. This is sometimes combined with revolutions that take place before industrialization has fully taken place. Communism cannot work in such situations. This is the major reason why I took off so many points. It's such a large moral objection for me, and huge blunder on the author's part, that I can't give it a higher rating.
Regardless, I am glad that I read this book. Its influence on modern society is unquantifiable, and Marx's ideas have been distilled and disseminated throughout the world so much as to be nearly ubiquitous. It was great to finally read the original document to see what's what. If you want to be informed, politically speaking, I think you should read this. Its short and, even if you disagree with everything Marx stood for, it is always better to have a good understanding of the opposing view.
Personally, I found myself agreeing with a lot of the objections regarding Capitalist society. This is easily the strongest part of the Communist Manifesto, and the most clearly outlined and argued. The criticisms are well founded and prophetic. Marx and Engels made a list of immediate principles to be followed, and I also think these worked for the most part.
I also think that a lot of the economic objections to Communism are really weak and can easily be refuted with a light reading of this book. Most of those objections only work when viewing a Communist system as an immediate alternative to Capitalism, and in this manner it is clearly doomed to fail. The 'revolution', in Marx and Engel's view, is only supposed to happen once the means of production and industry are well founded. If it happens before, then yeah, any kind of planned economy is going to have a tough time. Not impossible, but tough, and this has been shown to be correct.
This leads into a big part that I don't hear much about, the fact that Capitalism is a necessary step in the progression of society, according to Marx and Engels. The things that Capitalism does well are outlined in this piece. Its great at making massive quantities of things, and innovating, and bridging the gap between disparate peoples. The objection to this is that, in doing all these great things, it commodifies and dehumanizes most of the population, so it follows that the same oppressed class should take the means of production and make them a public commodity.
What I can't ignore or agree with is the vehement advocation for violent revolution. This is a bad idea in principle, and has historically been shown not to work. It creates a power vacuum which is inevitably filled by power-hungry people. They hijack the principles of revolution, and then gradually or immediately shift the new society into one that is just as awful. This is sometimes combined with revolutions that take place before industrialization has fully taken place. Communism cannot work in such situations. This is the major reason why I took off so many points. It's such a large moral objection for me, and huge blunder on the author's part, that I can't give it a higher rating.
Regardless, I am glad that I read this book. Its influence on modern society is unquantifiable, and Marx's ideas have been distilled and disseminated throughout the world so much as to be nearly ubiquitous. It was great to finally read the original document to see what's what. If you want to be informed, politically speaking, I think you should read this. Its short and, even if you disagree with everything Marx stood for, it is always better to have a good understanding of the opposing view.
r9278's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
tense
fast-paced
5.0
isaac_badger's review against another edition
3.0
Feels weird to give the communist manifesto a star rating but I’m nothing if not consistent
dyno8426's review against another edition
4.0
This review is for the Introduction by Gareth Stedman Jones, which I found to be really thorough, complete and interesting regarding the origins and evolution of Communism, considering that before reading this, my knowledge about communism was limited to the first literal meaning that comes up with a Google search. It is very enlightening about the philosophical ideas and their development which led to the revolutionary point of Karl Marx's and Frederich Engel's of conception of this one of the most historical contributions in the development of human societies. It is dense with footnotes and references to tons of scholars and literature which both preceded and followed this publication of an important step in the communist movement. This is a heavy read as a result and without any formal (or even introductory) background, my retention of it is very humble and very abstract. But still, reading it has been an interesting experiment with thoughts that I could resonate with, like the philosophical rationale of mutual "estrangement" caused by capital, the role of property relations in our present societies, the position of religion with respect to these social movements, the historical evolution of class systems across the modern civilised world etc.
Regarding the manifesto, I can only comment that it is very well written. Prophetic, convincing and evocative. I also think it is important as readers to understand that essentially, it is an ideal of human politics, economics and society as a whole and it should be taken as an ideal. Whether or not it will work, speculating that completely is as difficult as predicting future. And like an ideal, it should be used as a template for reality check and developing our 'social' conscience (in this case) to know what to strive to; but with caution, as it's equally easy to get disillusioned with idealism as well.
Regarding the manifesto, I can only comment that it is very well written. Prophetic, convincing and evocative. I also think it is important as readers to understand that essentially, it is an ideal of human politics, economics and society as a whole and it should be taken as an ideal. Whether or not it will work, speculating that completely is as difficult as predicting future. And like an ideal, it should be used as a template for reality check and developing our 'social' conscience (in this case) to know what to strive to; but with caution, as it's equally easy to get disillusioned with idealism as well.
jeyjeyyy's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
nate_maulding's review against another edition
challenging
informative
slow-paced
4.5
What can I say? Incredible.
7ft_rat's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0