Anthropology:

the study of humanity - our physical characteristics as animals, and our unique
non-biological characteristics we call culture. The subject is generally broken
down into three subdisciplines: biological (physical) anthropology, cultural (social)
anthropology, and archaeology.
Linguistics The science of language.
Provocative: Challenging.
Frank: hOnest
vague: Obscure
sarcastic: Ironical
Whimsical: unusual
Dialectical: A pattern of change that begins with some state of affairs (thesis);
which then is overturned because of its own contradictions, giving rise to its
opposite (antithesis); and which then reaches an equilibrium where the best
features of the original state of affairs are preserved (synthesis). Marx argues
that historical change is dialectical: each stage of class society contains
contradictions that lead to its overthrow, yet this series of revolutions is
progressive.
Manifesto: a public declaration of intentions (as issued by a political party or
government)
presence: specture.
Communism: An economic or political system based on the sharing of all work and
property by the whole community
Proletarians: is a term used to identify a lower social class; a member of such a
class is called a proletarian. Originally it was identified as those people who have
no other wealth than their sons; the term was initially used in a offensive sense,
until Karl Marx used it as a positive term to identify what he termed the working
class.

Bourgeoisie: "[B]y bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern Capitalists, owners

of the means of social production and employers of wage labor" (79). The
bourgeoisie developed out of feudalism and will be destroyed by the proletariat,
whom they necessary exploit on account of their economic position.
Capital: Money, or the bourgeois form of private property used to produce
wealth. Exchange of capital replaces the exchange of commodities in feudal
economies. Labor is valued in terms of capital, and workers receive monetary
wages in compensation for their work.
Capitalism: An economic system based on the exchange of capital.
Communism: A form of socialism proposed by Karl Marx which intends to effect
socialist reforms by advocating a revolution of the proletariat.
Proletariat: "[B]y proletariat [is meant] the class of modern-wage laborers who,
having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor

power in order to live" (79). The proletariat developed as a result of bourgeois

capitalism, but their economic condition deteriorates as the bourgeois economic
condition improves. This reciprocal relationship will eventually cause the
proletariat to rise up and destroy the bourgeoisie.
Socialism: A social system which favors collective ownership of the means of
economic production and distribution

"A specter is haunting Europe: the specter of Communism" (78)

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles" (79)
"Society as a whole is more and more splitting into two great hostile camps, into
two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat" (80).
"The executive of the modern state is but a committee for the managing of the
common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie" (82).
"[The bourgeoisie] is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence
to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a
state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer
live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible
with society" (93).
"What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its
fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable" (94).
"The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all the other
proletariat parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, the overthrow of the
bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat" (95).
"...the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence:
Abolition of private property" (96).
"Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of
society; all that is does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of
others by means of such appropriation" (99).
"In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we
shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition
for the free development of all" (105).
"Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have
nothing to lose but their chains. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!"
(120).
About Communist Manifesto
In 1846 Karl Marx was exiled from Paris on account of his radical politics. He
moved to Belgium where he attempted to assemble a ragtag group of exiled
German artisans into an unified political organization, the German Working Men's
Association. Marx, aware of the presence of similar organizations in England,
called these groups together for a meeting in the winter of 1847. Under Marx's
influence this assemblage of working-class parties took the name "The

Communist League," discussing their grievances with capitalism and potential

methods of response. While most of the delegates to this conference advocated
universal brotherhood as a solution to their economic problems, Marx preached
the fiery rhetoric of class warfare, explaining to the mesmerized workers that
revolution was not only the sole answer to their difficulties but was indeed
inevitable. The League, completely taken with Marx, commissioned him to write a
statement of their collective principles, a statement which became The
Communist Manifesto.
After the conference, Marx returned to Brussels, carrying with him a declaration of
socialism penned by two delegates, the lone copy of The Communist Journal, the
publication of the London branch of the Communist League, and a statement of
principles written by Engels. Although Marx followed Engel's principles very
closely, the Manifesto is entirely of his own hand. Marx wrote furiously, but just
barely made the deadline the League had set for him. The Manifesto was
published in February 1848 and quickly published so as to fan the flames of
revolution which smoldered on the Continent. When revolution broke out in
Germany in March 1848, Marx traveled to the Rhineland to put his theory into
practice. When this revolution was suppressed, Marx fled to London and the
Communist League disbanded, the Manifesto its only legacy to the world.
The Manifesto has lived a long and illustrious life. While it was hardly noticed
amongst the crowded field of pamphlets and treatises published in 1848, it has
had a more profound effect on the intellectual and political history of the world
than any single work in the past 150 years. It has inspired the communist political
systems which ruled nearly half the world's population at its height and defined
the chief ideological conflict of the second half of the twentieth century, altering
even those countries which stood firmly against communism, e.g. Western
European and American Welfare States. Intellectually, Marx's work has profoundly
influenced nearly every field of study from the humanities to the social sciences
to the natural sciences. It is hard to imagine an area of serious human inquiry
which Marxism has not touched.
But even in the enormous body of work related to Marxism, The Manifesto is
undoubtedly unique. Even at its short length (only 23 pages at its first printing), it
the only full exposition of his program that Marx wrote. And while Marx developed
his views throughout his career, he never departed far from the original principles
outlined therein. The Manifesto is, without a doubt, Marx's most enduring literary
legacy, setting in motion a movement which has, although not in exactly the way
Marx predicted, radically changed the world. As Marx famously asserted in his
Theses on Feuerbach, "The philosophers have interpreted the world in many
ways. What matters is changing it." No one has epitomized this as much as he