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John Sanchez

Tomas Matza

Section 8

Prompt #1

Socialist Manifesto

Citizens of the United States and people of the World, I call on us to act on the brutality

of the system that our society lies on. It is now, more then ever, that we must take initiative

against the implemented system of capitalism which has tainted our youth, our nation and our

entire world! We have gradually become unaware of the oblivion that our minds have sunk into

since birth. Television and advertisements have created a false material heaven for us in which

we toil to procure material possessions that they tell us we'll be happy if to have. It is here that

we as a people have lost our vision! We have been underhandedly manipulated by those

corporations that feed off of our hard labour in the service industry, the textile industry, the tech

industry, etc. They accumulate wealth and capital while we accumulate the tired acquisitions of

material they tell us to like. I call on you all to act on this system of debauchery that lies within

our own capitalistic and dystopian society and create a fulsome society where people work

together for a brighter future.

The bourgeoisie within America have been a long standing force that have established

their ground since the beginning of this nation. Their philosophy of capitalism is based on purely

production and consumption; a vicious cycle that abuses the worlds resources, people and

environment. It is this cycle of consumption and spending that incites the bourgeoisie within

America to continue the abuse of people and land. According to Marx and Engels, “It has
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pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his 'natural superiors', and has

left remaining no other nexus between an and man then naked self-interest...(Page 7). Man has

been turned against man and the black magic of greed has in turn manipulated the people's

interest against one and another. This sin of greed in America has caused systems to collapse,

corporations to rise and for people to be crushed by the cart of “profits”. In this perpetual system

we can expect it to continue till the proletariat become unified against this evil and begin to take

hold of their lives.

America as a country has also loss its way of a nation for the people, but instead become

a nation for the business, for the insane profit off of others. America has become the imperialistic

rulers of the world and have brutally used every single recourse on it, including people,

environments and water. This idea can be best exemplified by Marx and Engel's definition of

“Free Trade” as it is, “in one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it

has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation” (Page 5). We have in the name of

money and “humanity for others”, shamelessly fledged wars in other countries to “protect our

interest and assets” in the name of “national security”. We have allowed our government to

become the pawns of corporations as they play the international game of chess with other nations

over trade, resources and capital gain.

We have forced other countries to play this game, or die in the race of the modernization.

Like Marx and Engels say, the bourgeoisie “compel all nations, on pain extinction, to adopt the

bourgeois mode of production”(Page 7). We have through the power of money forced other

countries to adopt our way of production through either out producing their country and crashing

their markets, or using our CIA to cause coups to rise and governments we don't approve of to
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fall. We are the cause of several dictatorships to rise in other countries, e.g. Cuba, Columbia and

Libya. Yet, our nation sickly lets these dictators mutilate their country as long as we receive the

products we need to accumulate our wealth and our capitol. We only intervene when our

recourses that we so hoped that these dictators would care for become threatened. America then

supports another coup d'état in the hopes that our capital will be safe again. This is such the case

in Libya, Egypt and many other countries in the Middle East as we exercise as much power as

possible so that our oil supply remains safe.

Other countries aren't the only thing that is savagely used by the corporate monsters in

America. The laborer within America is one of the most sickly used piece of capital in existence.

Marx extols this statement with his explanation that “these labourers [sic], who must sell

themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are

consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market”

(Page 9). Laborers within the American system of capitalism have had to suffer from the

“business cycle” and in so have had to be laid off, lose benefits and have their wages cut. This is

the morally corrupt system that capitalism has confined the American worker to. Such is the

example from the recession of 2007 that started with greed in the housing market. Millions of

people lost their jobs while the villains profit off of this. Many starved in the streets, lost their

homes and even students loss their financial aid for their colleges. Sickly, this is considered

perfectly normal within our system of capitalism. We have become immune to the horror that

surrounds us.

Even if the laborer notices this system and hates the confined cage that surrounds them,

they can't just drop out of the system. They still have the rent, food and other expenses to pay for.
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Marx and Engels expound on this draining effect on the worker by saying that the “labourer

receives his wages in cash [and] is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord,

the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc” (page 9). This sick system occurs so strongly within

America. American workers are forced to stay within limbo that Marx so eloquently describes.

Americans work for meaningless cash that is back by “the trust of the bank” and are compelled

to spend it on the things that they believe will make them happy in this bleak world.

Branding and advertisements in our nation are a topic that was never touched by Marx

and Engels. These ads have a brainwashing effect of people as they create the idea to Americans

that they will be happy if they buy these material things. This effect is what the bourgeoisie want.

They want to have people work and earn money for which they buy more material objects with,

and in effect their work increases the wealth of the bourgeoisie, while the worker becomes used

and utilized. This use can be put into the words of Marx and Engels and that “the miserable

character of this appropriation, under which the laborer lives merely to increase capital, and is

allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the ruling class requires it.” In effect, the work they

do produces more capitol and wealth for the bourgeoisie while the workers themselves are forced

to remain in a system where they believe that the work they do earns them material gains that

corporations want them to think makes them happy. It is in this effect workers work to buy things

that other workers produce. The bourgeoisie get wealthier while the workers get material

possessions they believe will make them happy.

What I call on is for a change of this system through pure action. I am not calling for the

social welfare system that the “socialistic bourgeoisie” have created within America. This idea of

social welfare, in Marx and Engel's words, have the motive of changing “the existing state of
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society ... for a bourgeoisie without a proletariat.” They believe that throwing money at the

problem, throwing money at the poor, the beaten and repressed will allow them to achieve

“bourgeoisie success” within America. They think that feeding us like dogs will make us human.

We are human I say! We don't need the petty scraps of the bourgeoisie so that we can continue to

work for them. This subsistence that they give us is for the pure continuance of our condition, so

that they may still increase their capitol through our properties as human capitol. They don't want

us to go away.

What I call on is what Marx calls on. I want us to destroy the idea of private property, or

at least limit how much one can hold in our society. Property, according to Marx and Engels is

“based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour” (Page 19). Property is continually

increased in the hands of the bourgeoisie while it is dwindling in the hands of the bourgeoisie. In

America, the top quarter of human houses owned 87% of the wealth of the US (Survey of

Consumer Finances). It is private property that drives capitol higher for the bourgeoisie and for

wage labour to increase. It is private propety that keeps this system of greed going. Some people

may argue that if private property is done away with, then laziness will take us over. Marx replies

justly to this by saying that “according to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to

the dogs through sheer idleness; for those who acquire anything, do not work (Page 21). The

proletarians of America do not acquire wealth or material needs other then what is allowed. The

proletariat and working class of America have not much private property and each time they

come in contact with it, it is snatched out of their hands by the bourgeoisie through debased

rents, prices and the infamous interest rate.

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It is time for the workers of America! It is time for us to rebuild this nation of debauchery

into a nation of people working together into the collective for a better whole. It is time to throw

away the idea of the American “dog eat dog world” and instead work together to produce a

brighter and stronger future. In this socialistic base we can begin to further our hearts and minds

and grow the commune that is the United States of America. We need to rise against the

corporate machines that control our life and every breathe we take! We must unionize into

strengths unknown and show these imperialistic bourgeoisie that we are human beings and not

capitol and numbers to them. We must rise against our government and demand change! End the

idea of private property! End the idea of greed! Change the material base that we lie on! We are a

collective and as such deserve the equality of being a human being! It is time to end the lies our

society is based on and us as a people and nation reclaim the richness that life used to be to us!

WORKING PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, UNITE!

Word Count = 1800

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Works Cited

"Survey of Consumer Finances." Federal Reserve. Federal Reserve. Web.

Marx, Karl, Friedrich Engels, Samuel Moore, and David McLellan. The Communist Manifesto. Oxford:

Oxford UP, 2008. Print.