Das Kapital By Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) Essay, Research Paper

Throughout the last few centuries, according

to Marx, it has been the common worker’s fate to suffer the “maximum of

working time and the minimum of wages” in order to supply Capitalists with

profits. “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same

time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality,

moral degradation, at the opposite pole.” This must and shall be ended.

Granted, says Marx, the Capitalist is in

tight control. But the pendulum of power has swung many times in the past,

and he promises that it will again shift. The Proletariat, under the banner

of Communism, will ultimately be victorious. Revolution is the destined

scenario – and the ultimate historical “synthesis” will be a perfectly

just and egalitarian society, where everyone works , “according to his

ability” and receives “according to his needs”; where the state itself

finally “withers away.”