And my god, it's one of the most idiotic pieces of literature I've ever read in my entire life. Seriously, how in the world have so many millions of people fallen for such an obviously flawed and misguided philosophy? Here's a brief sample of some of the more idiotic parts of the manifesto:

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"The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. [...]

The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere. [...]

All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. [...]

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.

The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. [...]

The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalization of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground — what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labor? [...]

Into [the place of feudal society] stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class."

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Can you believe that bullcrap? Marx and Engels actually thought that the things described above were all BAD things! It's absolutely mind-boggling. When I read all that garbage, I just thought to myself, "No, Marx. No, Engels. You're both idiots." Honestly, it's as if neither one of them had the faintest idea how society actually works. They don't seem to understand that technological progress is a GOOD thing! New inventions get created, and in the process, old modes of production and manufacture become obsolete and depreciated. Society is continually innovating, continually marching forward. This is all good! Had human civilization never moved forward, we'd still be stuck in the stone age, when all civilization was nothing more than hunter/gatherer tribes, living in caves or tents, eating only what game they could kill and scavenging for whatever fruits, nuts, and berries happened to naturally grow in the vicinity where they lived. That certainly doesn't seem like an improvement over modern society to me.

I just don't understand why people buy into the whole Communist/Socialist philosophy. Can't they see it's clearly designed to unmake modern society and set us back hundreds of years? I dunno. I just don't get it. It makes no sense. Oh well, I guess they won't learn their lesson unless they actually create a society based on Marxist philosophy and see how terrible it really is.

So let them have their public demonstrations, their protests, and their occupy movements. While they're all busy shouting for government to fix their problems (and getting arrested in the process), I'll be working on building my own business and solving my problems myself.