Chapter 1 Summary: Bourgeois and Proletarians The Communist Manifesto begins with Marx’s famous generalization that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” (79).
Marx describes these classes in terms of binary oppositions, with one party as oppressor, the other as oppressed. While human societies have traditionally been organized according to complex, multi-member class hierarchies, the demise of feudalism affected by the French Revolution has brought about a simplification of class antagonism. Rather than many classes fighting amongst themselves (e. g. ancient Rome with its patricians, knights, plebeians, and slaves), society is increasingly splitting into only two classes: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.
This state of affairs is the result of a long historical process. The discovery and colonization of the New World in the 16 th and 17 th centuries required new methods of production and exchange. Because of the demand for more efficient, larger scale production, the medieval guild system gave way to new methods of manufacturing, defined by the widespread use of division of labor and, with the advent of industrialization, by steam and machinery. It was the bourgeoisie.
