ANT207H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 0: Proletariat, Bourgeoisie
Document Summary
Manifesto turns to the proletariat: only live as long as they can find work. Commodity, and thus vulnerable to market fluctuations. Age and sex not important as they are all instruments of labour. Proletariat paid by his exploitive boss and then charged by his exploitive landlord: lower strata of middle class descend into the proletariat level. Technology has rendered them useless: past history of the proletariat. Hoped to go back to the medieval worker when they were un-unionized and in competition with one another. Putting them under a union makes them serve the objectives of the bourgeoisie. Began to form trade unions because all their wages were equally low. Made stronger by means of communication, allowing struggles of the workers to take on a national character: marx describes the proletariat as the only revolutionary class. Past preservation that the other classes are concerned with. Proletarians are the majority of the population and act as the majority.
