Nothing to Lose But Their Chains is essentially a call for action directed at the working class in society.

It expresses the most fundamental ideals of communism and attempts to slander capitalism in such a way as to cause the lower class workers to rebel and over throw the bourgeois. Communism wants to create an even distribution of wealth, by making all property social property. Communists do not want to take away property from the lower class workers who make just enough to barely sustain their own lives, they only want to take property away from the bourgeois who have much more than the lower class. This will be possible because if all the wealth is distributed, the people with the most will lose their property. Marx and Engels both strongly believe that there is no excuse for there to be such an uneven distribution in classes, in that the lower class can barely survive and the upper class has way more than it could ever need. Nothing to Lose but Their Chains has a very similar message to Engels other work, How English Industrial Workers Lived. Engels describes the horrible conditions in which the lower class factory workers were forced to live. With no way to eradicate ones own feces and garbage and no way of obtaining water without paying significantly, the lower class people were unable to reach greater years. Like How English Industrial Workers Lived Engels calls for people to revolt against the government and force them to help them live in better conditions. His solution would be communism. Communism could help with this lack of sanitation in lower class cities and neighborhoods. If wealth was spread around people could afford things like pipes for water, so that they could live a much better and longer life.

David Murawski History 120 Section 1

Communism however is not all about the distribution of wealth and property. They wanted to completely demolish the bourgeois class. This meant that along with distributing wealth they wanted to abolish all right of inheritance. This meant that no longer would someone be able to obtain wealth because it was his or her birthright. This goes along well with the rest of communist thought. Communists want to spread wealth around, not give it to someone, so naturally if someone obtained an amount of property, it would be social not private property. Not only do communists want to take away all property away from the bourgeois, but they want to also take away their means of acquiring wealth. They wanted to make all factories state run as well. This would take away a lot of the income for the factory owners, because now they do not set their own wages. This would take a lot of the larger wages and put them back into societies control so that it could be spread around, knocking out probably the wealthiest people in the society. Communists not only wanted to take away power from the businesses, they also wanted to regulate it in a manner that would protect the soil and make it better for future generations, in accordance with a common plan. Communists also wanted to control the entire banking system. This means they would control all of the money in circulation, by created an exclusive monopoly. Through this the government would have its hands in everything. This would tighten their control over the money flow further. Knowing all this it is understandable to know why at this time in history that communism, or something similar, would have been developed, especially since both Marx and Engels came from lower class homes. People that lived within the lower

David Murawski History 120 Section 1

classes would naturally begin to resent the upper class due to the fact that they had so much more than them. This would cause them to plot ways to spread the upper classes wealth for their own benefit, without losing their own. This idea still holds true today, everyone is still jealous of people having tons more money than them. However, the difference between now and then is, the government helps us to make sure that we live decent lives, and do not let us live as bad of lives as the industrial workers in England did. That idea, in a nutshell, is what communism is all about and why I believe that communism was developed in this time. Although communism may sound like a beneficial idea from a moral perspective, from an economic perspective it really makes no sense. This would rid the world of all reward and it would not cause people to work as hard so that they move up in society. Therefore, without the reward system what motivation would individuals have for working harder? This would clear us of all hard workers and a lot of the innovations that we have today. Marx and Engels were common men that wanted to make a difference so that the common man could live better lives. When considering the time period and state in which most of the lower class lived, it makes sense why communism was developed. However, its ideals are impractical to say the least. Marx and Engels were trying to do the moral thing and create a society that would benefit all equally, however, communism just is not practical.

David Murawski History 120 Section 1

Bibliography Engels, Friedrich. How English Industrial Workers Lived. In Penguin Custom Editions The Western World Philosophy: Europe since 1848 Documents on Communism. Edited by Mark Kishlansky. New York: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2010

Marx, Karl and Engels Fredrich. Nothing to Lose but Their Chains. In Penguin Custom Editions The Western World Philosophy: Europe since 1848 Documents on Communism. Edited by Mark Kishlansky. New York: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2010

David Murawski History 120 Section 1