Political history of Karl Marx vs. natural history of Charles Darwin

Manifesto of the communist party was published on February 1848 and is considered as one of the most influential political manuscripts. The Communist Manifesto was commissioned by Communist League and written by Karl Max and Friedrich Engels. The main purpose of the manifesto was to lay out the Leagues purpose and program.

The manifestation provides an analytical approach to both historical and present class struggle. In addition, the problem of capitalism rather than prediction of potential future forms of communism were addressed. The introductory part of communist manifesto starts with comparison of communism to spectre. The spectre which means haunting Europe is an aspect of the manifesto.

Communism in Europe at this time was serious political claim feared but not every person understood the concept. All the powers of old Europe were entered into holy alliance. This made the spree to be exercisable by any party that was not in opposition. Communism was considered as a power itself and at this time, communists were supposed to be open to the whole world, publish their aims, views, tendencies and meet the objective of the Spectre with a manifesto of the party itself.

Various communists from different nationalities assembled in London and decided to publish the manifesto in English, French, Danish, Flemish, Italian and German languages. Various subject matters were handled by the communist manifesto such as bourgeois and proletarians, proletarians and communists, and socialist and communist literature. The first chapter is a relationship of freeman and slaves referred to as bourgeois and proletarians respectively. The freemen had a lot of power and exploited the poor through forced labor and slave trade.

The origin of species by Charles Darwin is a scientific literature considered as the foundation of evolutionary biology. It was a description on the theory through which populations evolve through a process of natural selection. The diversity of life arose through branching pattern of evolution which provided a body of evidence. The life of an individual undergoes certain development lifecycle that makes an individual to be what he or she wants to be in the society. Various evolution ideas had been proposed to support findings in biology concept.

The public and dissident anatomists contributed ideas that related to development of scientific findings. The church was incorporated in certain provisions that considered science as part natural theology. Political and theological implications were debated but transmutation of species theory found itself on the wrong side of scientific mainstream.  The book by Charles Darwin about origin of species aimed at reaching non-specialist readers. However, like any other political matter it attracted widespread spectrum upon its publication. The readers took serious the findings of Darwin who was considered as an eminent scientist. Some individuals however, criticized some of his findings and this resulted to a debate in scientific, religious and philosophical matters.

The Marxian process of class struggle in aspect of bourgeois and proletarians can be related to the Darwin theory origin of species. This is because the issue of class and struggle can be associated to the limited resources provided by nature. The history of existing society is related to class struggles in which certain people are oppressed by others. It is an issue of struggle for the fittest inn which the rich have the power to control the poor. In the case of Darwin in a society with few resources every individual is supposed to struggle hard so as to have a share of the limited resources.

According to Karl Marx, a society is organized into complicated class structures for instance in medievial times a society was organized into feudal lords, vassals, journeymen, guild masters, apprentices and serfs. The ruins of feudal society led to development of bourgeois society. This modern society is a product of several revolutions in the aspect of production and exchange. The bourgeoisie became very powerful and a series of political development resulted from such powerful society. The state solely serves the interest of bourgeoisie as a result of development in modern industries and markets.

Development of political society that serves the interest of bourgeoisie, production and consumption of commodities in modern countries is cosmopolitan in character. Sustenance of materials used for production and national sovereignty has been made hard. The feudal relations were never compatible with productive forces and free competition replaced old system of governance giving the bourgeoisie power. Marx says that modern bourgeois society is turning on itself whereby modern productive forces are turning against the modern conditions provided for production.

One major threat that affected bourgeois society was the issue of overproduction. The modern bourgeois society is considered as a source of extensive crises that made it hard for the powerful class to prevent future crisis. In this case the weapons or means used by bourgeoisie to overcome feudalism was turned on themselves. In Karl Marx theory the history is shaped by economic relations.

According to this theory religion, ideology, culture and human beings play little role. This is because history moves as per impersonal forces and the general direction of history is inevitable. The exploitive relationship between the rich and poor were hidden in elements like ideology but inn the modern economy every thing is observed in terms of self interest. In order for bourgeoisie to exist, they should revolutionize production instruments since this will leave social relations in an unstable state.

It seems that there is a great interplay of ideas between Karl Marx ideas of the society and Darwins conceptualization of the evolutionary process of human development. Karl Marx emphasized that progress in the society is historical which can only be realized over a long period of time. However, the history of the hitherto existing society is said to be the history of class struggle. Human beings are guided by that humanistic materialist nature and every man must eat, drink, and shelter himself. In the process of securing this basic needs the means and strategies employed create a power structure which dominates and controls all the people in the production system favoring some and disadvantaging others. Antagonism, pull and push emerges an individuals struggle for resources and material wealth

In relatively the same way, Charles Darwin argued about the struggle for existence which is based on natural selection mechanism. He tried to explain the internal organization of organisms and their classes. Darwin gave out an intelligible account of life in three common dynamic aspects such as internal development of individual organisms, distribution of species over space in a given time span and interaction of organisms within ecological systems. He considers that death and destruction are two inseparable parts that constitute organic process.

The Darwin theory of evolution is based on facts and inferences. The first fact is that every species living within a given ecosystem is fertile such that its offspring should reproduce to maintain consistency in growth of a given population. A second fact about the evolution theory is that despite numerous fluctuations, the size of the population remains the same. A third fact is that food as a resource in any given economy is usually limited and stable for a given period of time. Karl Marx emphasized on the notion of class struggle, where human beings struggle to survive with limited resources. The most enabled those who control the means of production being better placed than the rest who only provide the labour. However, Darwin in the struggle for survival in that the strongest survive while the weaklings are always disadvantaged.

Additionally, like Marx, Darwin justified the fact that individuals in a given population vary from one another and the variation is usually inheritable. Environment with different adaptations brings about various among the human species while Marx explained that the means of production engaged by human beings encourage the creation of asymmetrical societies. Societies which are not balanced and this brings about various within the human populations.  A six and final fact about the theory of evolution states that individuals that are less suited to a given environment have slim chances of survival and their productivity is minimal. On the other hand individuals who are suited to a given environment reproduce as is expected and leave their inheritance to their off springs. On this fact Karl Marx argued that dominate structures in the society are more suited in the system of production since they own the means of production. However, the rich continue to enhance the riches by further exploitation of the poor.

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