Product Description
A new edition of a pioneering materialist treatise

Exploring the way that production affects the social issues of class division and family, Engels develops his arguments on private property and its relationship to the subjugation of women. Engels then analyzes in detail the rise of the territorial state, ultimately extending his theory further to consider how class and exploitation arose out of the division of labor. One of Engels's most vital works, this book was groundbreaking when it appeared in 1884 in that it emphasized development in terms of power and control over resources, rather than psychological evolution. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

A political classic
I have always found Engels easier to decipher than Marx. Also, since much of this book is based on the new (in 1884) science of anthropology - a close cousin to psychology and psychiatry - I generally find it pretty easy to get my head around the concepts that he presents.

It stands out really clearly in this book that he and Marx trace the origins of class society to the agricultural revolution (when human beings started raising crops and animals instead of being hunter gatherers) - which immediately resulted in a "surplus" of food - which became the responsibility of an elite (chieftains and priests) to safeguard for the winter and hard times.

He also traces the necessity for men to trace their offspring once there is a surplus and they begin to accumulate wealth (the keepers of the surplus get to keep a little more of it than everyone else). Because by this time human beings have figured out how babies are made and want to bequeath their wealth to their descendents. This can only happen if they can trace their paternity, which means limiting women (but not men) to a single sexual partner. Thus the need to replace matriarchal society with patriarchy and to introduce the marriage contract to bind women to a single man.

Engels then traces how this primitive "tribal" structure, eventually led to the concept of private property - and of the feudalistic state. To have a state you have to have a king or supreme leader. He maintains power via a standing army and rewards "knights" in his army with gifts of private property. And because property is no longer owned communally, people are forced off the land they used to farm and have no choice but to go and work as serfs for the knights and lords who now own the property by the king's decree.

The book contains a fascinating section about the way the Iroquois Nation governed themselves - including their use of consensus in decision making, inheritance through the female line and their collective ownership of property. He also outlines how various Iroquois tribes were united in a Confederacy governed by a Federal Council (which formed the basis for state-federal structure the colonists adopted in the US Constitution).

The section about democracy in ancient Athens and the coalescence of Latin tribes into a single Roman government is also extremely interesting. The final section concerns the amalgamation of the various Germanic tribes into the states of Germany and France.

By Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall, author of THE MOST REVOLUTIONARY ACT: MEMOIR OF AN AMERICAN REFUGEE.

regard for all members of the tribe as having an equal voice (with men and women playing an equal role in leadership), , insistence on consensus decision making, their

Engels would be displeased
I like this book, of course.However, Amazon's "Print on Demand" leaves the buyer with a text that is almost incomplete.I guess I was warned, but I did not expect paragraphs of material lost due to the accuracy of the photograph.I could have rated this item five stars simply for the content of the book, however, the mistakes and unreadable content in the book would not allow me to rate it so high.

Here is an example of the mistakes in the text, in case someone is curious:

"1. The consanguine family.The co nganguine familv is th e first step toward the famtl.Heie the niarriage groups.are-arranged by generations:all the grand-fathers and grand-mothers T nt"BTir a certain famijylare.mutual husbands and 5 3 51?? J-the."

As you can see, these mistakes render the text less than intelligible.The frequency of occurrence seemed to be about once a page, with some excerpts worse (harder to understand) than others.There are a few pages that are full of this gibberish, and I was not able to read them.Nevertheless, this book is not common, and it is good to have my own copy (for cheap), albeit slightly incomplete.

they were wrong but you have to know why
Marx and Engels made a fundamentally wrong guess about the nature of human beings. But it is very important to understand their line of reasoning, because they developed quite a few critical insights along the way. Due to political charge associated with their teachings it is practically impossible to find suitable third party narrative of their works. So, the only way to enlighten yourself is to dig right down into originals.

Why doesn't the war of the sexes ever end?
Why is society so cruel? It seems to be self-defeating. Why doesn't the war of the sexes ever end? In no other species do the two sexes battle against each other.

In this book we learn that things weren't always this way. In fact, oppression and exploitation are recent inventions, if we count that human history dates back EIGHTY thousand years since the rise of homo sapiens sapiens. At one point most cultures suddenly became sedentary and agriculturalist - and private property in the land emerged. Private property of land resulted in an overthrow of the matriarchal family by its male members and in the establishment of a separate group of men who violently protect unequal relationships (the state as we know it today). All happened together in a revolution that occurred in the course of just a few generations some SIX thousand years ago.

Nonetheless, the moral of this story is one of hope. If we were capable of remaking ourselves once, and based on that have advanced dramatically in a limited sense of creating material culture, then humankind can remake itself again and found a culture that enriches all aspects of everyone's lives. But this time the redesign will have to be conscious and conscientious, the beginning of a humane human history in which all participate on an equal basis. Such is the future that socialism and communism promise for us.

As a companion to this volume, be sure to read Women's Evolution, by Reed. Written a century later, it shows that anthropology's evidence overwhelmingly coincides with the theory Engels put forward in this book.

Relevant Today
Was human society always overseen by a military and police force?
Was wealth and the means of producing more wealth always the private possession of individuals or a small section of society?
Were women always at the bottom of society, treated primarily as sex objects and machines for child-bearing and child-raising?

And is this humanity's destiny?
In this book published in 1884, Fredrich Engels answers the above questions in the negative. His book is based on anthropological data available in his day from societies around the globe. New discoveries since have confirmed his conclusions and the book is remarkably relevant today. ... Read more

Product Description
The complete The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in the 1888 English version edited by Engels himself. One of the most influential political treatises of all time, The Communist Manifesto is essential reading for every student of politics and history.Amazon.com Review
"A spectre is haunting Europe," Karl Marx andFrederic Engels wrote in 1848, "the spectre of Communism."This new edition of The Communist Manifesto, commemorating the150th anniversary of its publication, includes an introduction byrenowned historian Eric Hobsbawm which reminds us of the document'scontinued relevance. Marx and Engels's critique of capitalism and itsdeleterious effect on all aspects of life, from the increasing riftbetween the classes to the destruction of the nuclear family, hasproven remarkably prescient. Their spectre, manifested in theManifesto's vivid prose, continues to haunt the capitalistworld, lingering as a ghostly apparition even after the collapse ofthose governments which claimed to be enacting its principles. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (304)

product of its socio-economic background
These words got their power from the harsh social conditions, that were created by the communisms antagonist: the capitalism. Sad thing is - we learned nothing from history. Look at our crowded prisons. Only the political reflex could be erased.

very pleased
This product arrived two days after it was purchased and in the exact condition promised. I am very happy with the seller and would definitely buy from them again!

Free Kindle Edition
This is a review for the free kindle edition.Given that it is a free edition, it has no table of contents or hyperlinks, but given that this is basically a pamphlet, it is not really that important.I was easy to use the `search this book' option to find the 4 different sections the start with the roman numerals I through IV.I also like the `popular highlights' feature on the kindle, of which 3 or 4 sentences were highlighted that people thought were interesting.They were quotes that we worth noting.

Marx' pamphlet was clearly written and did a good job of presenting his ideas.I summarize the main sections below.

The first section is a summary of the class struggles between the proletariats and the bourgeois, or the oppressed and the oppressors.He actually does a good job pointing out many actual problems.

The second section describes the relationship between proletarians and communists.He makes it clear that the aim of communists is to overthrow the bourgeois class to be replaced with the proletariat class.

The third section describes the socialist and communist literature and describes each type of socialism.He clearly dislikes socialists almost as much as he does capitalists.

The fourth section was a summary of the differences between communism and various other opposition parties, mostly socialists.He dislikes most of them because they do not go far enough in overthrowing the existing systems of government.

I was struck by his belief that swapping the two classes would result in a permanent fix to the problem.History has born out that empowering the oppressed class just turns them eventually into oppressors.Communists eventually become an elite class and there still becomes a less privileged class.The incentive to excel becomes stifled and overall prosperity suffers.

This was worth reading and is a good reminder to all of us to do everything we can to prevent a class of people from feeling oppressed.Many ideas of communism were very bad, but some of their solutions were good, including universal free education.I'm still convinced that the US system of government is the best there is, though it is not perfect.

Worthwhile even now
The reason I wanted to read The Communist Manifesto now is that I don't remember reading it in school and this current financial mess, called the Great Recession, seems at its core the result of greed gone wild, underpinned with our system of capitalism which seems to have in it the very incentives to bring on this excessive greed. So, I was hoping this book would give me some meaningful thoughts with which to further have clues to the way things might play out during this financial mess including the political ramifications. And, from what I do know about Marx, I suspect what happened here is something he had thought out, in a general way, many years before. The Manifesto and the book's foreword cover things like......

1. 1847, Marx and Engels joined the League of the Just (renamed the Communist Party) with its object to overthrow the bourgeoisie with rule by the proletariat and a new society without classes or private property.

2. 1871, Civil war in France - Marx defended it and it then gave him notoriety as a dangerous leader of international subversion and feared by governments.

3. Over the next 40 years the Manifesto conquered the world and carried forward a rise of new (socialist) labor parties. None were called Communist until the Russian Bolsheviks. Mostly in central Europe to Russia. Small in SW Europe.

4. When a major state (Russia) represented Marxist ideology, the Manifesto became atext in political science and still remains so.

5. It was written for a particular time in history

6. Marx and Engel's Communist Party was not an organization - more of a historical document.

7. Two things which gave the Manifesto its force - a) the vision that capitalism was not permanent/stable, b) The revolutionary potential of a capitalist economy.

8. We live in a world where this transformation has largely taken place.

9. Capitalism can't provide a livelihood for most of the working class.

10. There will always be the oppressors (capitalists - bourgeoisie) versus the workers

11 The Bourgeoisie has stripped all occupations down to paid workers.

12. The need for constantly expanding market for its products means ultimately global.- effecting even a world literature, cheap prices - will make all nations bourgeoisie.Eventually overproduction leading to barbarism because of too much civilization. The proletariat/workersbecome mere appendages and lose all character. Brings more collisions between societies and trade unions will flourish. The worker groups get bigger and more powerful through education provided by the bourgeoisie. Other classes except the proletariat will decay.

13. Wage labor rests on the competition between laborers. Communists flourish independently of national borders.

14.Communism abolishes bourgeoisie property, no big deal since 90% of private property belongs to the bourgeoisie. Small peasant property is destroyed daily by industry. Average wage of laborers is the minimum wage, just for subsistence. Education is rescued from the influence of the ruling class. Since family is a bourgeoisie thing affirmed by property, family is destroyed - children are transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labor. Working men will have no country. Communism's desire is to abolish countries and nationality. National differences and antagonisms will vanish. External truths like freedom and justice will be common to all states. But, communism will abolish eternal truths like religion and morality - a new basis. Communism will raise the working class to the ruling class.

15. Specifically, communism will:
a) Abolish property in land and application of all rents to public purposes.
b) Abolish inheritance.
c) Confiscate property of emigrants and rebels.
d) Have a national bank.
e) Centralization of communication and transportation by the state.
f) Factories and instruments of production to be owned by the state.
g) Combine agriculture and manufacturing so there will be no distinction between town and country.
h) Free education.

So, I would say the Communist Manifesto, though really just applied to a time in history and times have surely changed quite a bit since then, but I would also say what it was concerned about also shouldn't be ignored when trying to understand the current economic stress we are in. Our capitalism, though obviously very successful especially in many respects, does show strain in the following areas, as Marx could have likely anticipated like a) the gap between the well-off and the poor and even middle-class has dangerously widened such that our political divisions reflect that and has turned more heated and split, making compromise among our politicians very difficult - hard to govern the country efficiently. b) He warned that the bourgeoisie (today's well-off) has been unable to effect the tools to elevate everyone enough, judging by our failing infrastructure, healthcare costs the highest in the world, etc. c) He anticipated the global impact, ever searching for the least cost workers, such that our manufacturing workers are left without jobs. We can even see this global force in our illegal immigration problems - workers from Mexico, etc coming here, somehow even breaking down our borders - something Marxapparently could see. I did leave off some other things in how the Manifesto was relevant now, in this short paragraph, but from the points, above, it can be seen there are others.

In conclusion, I give the book 5 out of 5 stars. It is a short enough book and just its impact has been monumental in history, it is worthwhile to keep in mind as one tries to figure out what might come next from this Great Recession.

Just What I Expected
With the things going on in our coutry today everyone should read the Manifesto. No one can deny its influence on centuries of political and econonmic thought and everyone should be familiar with its precepts. With that said, as I read it the thought that kept coming to my mind was what happens after the revolution? It's very general and is meant to be so as even in the 1800's there were many Socialist sects with their own individual needs which communism was attempting to unite. However, a lot of the logic didn't follow for me. For example,

"When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character."

These ideas and many others along this same line make me question how viable communist ideas are in the real world. And the most telling of all was the introduction to this edition and the notes from Friedrich Engels. The preface to this edition was written in 1888 and Engels admits that some of his suppositions about history are wrong and that some applications of his principles have been unsucessful. However, the excuse as always is they (whatever socialist group) didn't do it right. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Scientific analysis
Anthro major? You might be surprised how much and how many tools come from Engels, as in Marx and Engels of Capital fame. The same analytical tools they applied to economics (That are used every day) here are applied to anthropological study of the basis of our present day social institutions.
Relevant today, as much as for info as for seeing where the ideas discussed lead to the arguments and theories of today. ... Read more

Product Description
This, the first book written by Engels during his stay in Manchester from 1842 to 1844, is the best known and in many ways the most astute study of the working class in Victorian England. The fluency of his writing, the personal nature of his insights, and his talent for mordant satire all combiine to make Engels's account of the lives of the victims of early industrial change an undeniable classic. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Only the Names are Changed
The condition of the working class in England is bad. Not the book,this book is compelling and sad. The actual material conditions the workers of England must live and toil in are enough to dehumanize the most hardy soul. Reading the work, I am reminded about the irrational hatred and even the opinions of the socially aware are against them. Anti-Irish sentiment runs from Edmund Spenser to Friedrich Engels. That is not the main issue but one that kept popping into my head.

The main issue is that the material conditions of the workers is bad. Engels paints vividly why the revolution will come to England as soon as 1846 or 1847. Man cannot live as slave, no matter what you call the master. Most striking is that as I was reading, I could easily call forth a sense of righteous indignation against the crimes of the bourgeoisie. These were not against the bourgeoisie of Engels's observed industrial England, but of the employing class of today's America. On many of the crimes he speaks of, it is still too easy to find analogues in contemporary society. I have suffered the same as the poor souls in a different time and place. I have lived the benefits of reform, but I still toil in the same system

Scathing Expose of Dickensian England
For most, Charles Dickens is the only source we've encountered regarding the awful human misery of the early industrial revolution.However, Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx reported on it, too.Indeed, most of their criticisms were far more applicable to the raw capitalism of contemporary England than their native Germany.

Engels stayed in Manchester, the premier industrial city of the time, during the early 1840's to research his book.And he produced a devastating indictment of the truly miserable and life-threatening living conditions he found.Unlike Marx, Engels had a pronounced flair for writing; he makes it a fascinating, eye-opening journey back through time.

The topics he includes cover: struggling labor movements, the denigrating effects of immigration on domestic workers (due to competing subsistence-cost labor), the ignorance and crippling of child workers, the sexual exploitation of women workers, the displacement of male heads of household by lower-cost and more pliant women/children, the unbelievable filth and subhuman housing conditions workers endured, the dangerous and unhealthy working conditions of miners/factory workers, rampant substance abuse, doping of children by babysitters, the total lack of legal redress for the poor, the displacement of labor by machinery, and the role of unbridled competition in perpetrating economic distress.

While we all know communism has failed, its rise was due to these very real and serious problems, some of which remain with many Western workers today.And most of these conditions do very much persist in emerging economies right now.So, even though the book is well over 150 years old it is still highly valid!

The main fault of course with Marx/Engels' communist philosophy is that ALL humans are greedy and lazy - it's just that the clever ones (whether they originate from 'bourgeous' or 'working' classes) will always exploit the others.And it doesn't matter whether the system is capitalist or communist - those at the top will always exploit those below for personal advantage.Probably the best response has been the progressive social reform in Western nations over the last 100 years.(Revolutions and dictatorships usually only lead to mass murder.)

The most powerful indictment of 19th century capitalism in existence
Friedrich Engels' classic "The Condition of the Working Class in England" was written when he was only twenty-four, and had but recently abandoned his Calvinist upbringing for a more critical, socialist, point of view. Yet this book reads as if it were written by an experienced political commentator or a radical sociologist, without actually at any point becoming melodramatic or dense.

Engels' main purpose is to confront the bourgeoisie with the reality of their mode of production and to contrast this with the rhetoric of "free choice" and "civil liberties", as well as the capitalist apologia of the political economists of his day, in particular Andrew Ure. With great insight into both the causes and effects of the capitalist system, Engels catalogues the endless want, filth, despair and misery experienced by millions of labourers every day in 19th century England. He pays attention to housing, to factory safety, to unionism, to the physical condition of the workers, to alcoholism, the state of the Irish underclass, to prostitution and disease; in short, all the ills attendant on industrialization.

What gives this book such power is that Engels on the one hand proceeds in an analytical manner, making use above all of sources from the bourgeoisie itself and from Parliamentary reports, in explaining the functioning of the capitalist system and the competition between capitalists and between labourers. On the other hand, he writes in a particularly readable manner and at no point bores the reader with the mere summing-up of statistics. On the contrary, every analytical truth is accompanied by a vivid description, taken from Engels' excursions into working-class neighbourhoods, of the terrible state of humanity that the economic laws of capitalism cause for a great number of people.

For those interested in political economy, it may come as a surprise to see how much of the functioning of capitalism Engels already understood at such an early point in the development of theory. This gives the lie to the many theorists who would later claim that it was Marx only who worked on economics and that Engels was a mere epigone; this book should be a vindication of Engels. His later sketches of the political economy and of the historical development of capitalism would lay the foundation for both the Communist Manifesto and Marx' economic works. But the core insights that would create the modern theory of socialism are for the first time fully expressed here, and in a most appealing and shockingly effective manner.

In other words, an absolute must read for every person of intelligence.

Engels' Expose' on 'How the Other-Half Lived' .
This chilling book is the real-life Oliver Twist exposed.I think Fredrick Engels wrote this book,in part to clear his conscious.And largely, to shed light on the fetid ,wretched underbelly of the 19th century industrial-age society.The nameless toilers working ten to twelve hour shifts,in a factory operation they had no vote or control over.Marx and Engels had many valid arguments for improving the workers lives.Did their end-results justify their means of social revolution? Engels would be amazed at the former textile towns,like Manchester,absorbing the large influx of Asians,Moslims and Africans today.It is still being debated,whether history has proven Engels & Marx right.This book is still a historical classic,thats presumptive findings give the modern reader,reason to pause. So,look all around you. -A Great Book !

Awesome
Fabuous book. Engels wrote this when he was only 24- and what a tour de force.

The work is detailed, beautifully observed and elegantly written.Despite the depressing nature of the subject matter, the tone is always possible about a better world beyond the evils of capitalism.

Unfortunately 150 years after this masterpiece was written things dont seen to have gotten better under capitalism.Rather, the old evils of poverty, infectious diseases, starvation have been replaced by the modern evils of capitalism: obesity, alienation, mass materialism, depression, plunging fertility and marriage rates and so on... ... Read more

Product Description
This Halcyon Classics ebook contains three works by Friedrich Engels, who along with Karl Marx originated the theory of Marxism.Includes an active table of contents.


Contents:

The Communist Manifesto
The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844
Feuerbach: The Roots of the Socialist Philosophy





... Read more

Product Description
This revised and enlarged edition of the leading anthology provides the essential writings of Marx and Engels--those works necessary for an introduction to Marxist thought and ideology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (25)

Misleading Link
I was specifically looking for "The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd Edition" which I need for a class at college, and under that book, this Kindle edition was listed. I assumed (which I realize I should not have) that amazon would not have posted a "Kindle Edition" of a book unless it was a Kindle edition of the book I was actually looking for. While this seems to a fine Marx-Engles reader, it has no value to me, because it is not the Marx-Engels reader that I need for class, so now I have to buy an additional book, which is frustrating.

Amazing Condition
Product seemed as if it was completely brand new, and arrived in a reasonable amount of time.

Review of Tucker's M-E Reader
I feel the sheer popularity of this volume on college campuses should suggest it superiority. However, I'll note in detail that the editor makes an excellent use of footnotes, and that the introduction is very helpful at placing Marx in historical context.

Difficult to comprehend
I bought this for class and I HATE MARX. Other than that, thank you for the fast shipping.

Not the Marx-Engels Reader
I recently purchased this product thinking it was an ebook version of the Marx-Engels Reader by Robert C. Tucker. It is not. It has some of the works in Tucker's version, but not all, and now serves me little purpose for my course designed around the reader. If you're looking for the Robert C. Tucker version this is not it. ... Read more

Product Description
Part of a definitive English-language edition, prepared in collaboration with the Institute of Marxism-Leninism in Moscow, which contains all the works of Marx and Engels, whether published in their lifetimes or since. The series includes their complete correspondence and newly discovered works. ... Read more

Product Description
Modern socialism is not a doctrine, Engels explains, but a working-class movement growing out of the establishment of large-scale capitalist industry and its social consequences. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

what the "Venus Project" and others fail to confront
This work is a very basic intro to dialectical materialism and historical materialism.It should be looked at again with fresh eyes, as the utter catastrophe for humanity that CAPITALISM is has become obvious for all. Too many people today are not using a scientific methodology to look at historical experience and today's reality.Venus Project?"Socially responsible corporations?" -- it was all tried before, and summed up brilliantly in this pamplet.Robert Owens came up against the fact that the STATE (the government, it's courts, police and all its armed forces) is not a neutral body standing above classes, but in fact is controlled and serves the dominate class of society, which today continues to be the capitalist class (and many have documented who the individuals are in these classes in the US and other countries today.)
The fact that today, the economy of the world is dominated by finance capital and monopolies that spread across the world (while still rooted in individual nations and protected by national armies, CIA's, etc)is a natural and inevitable product of the workings of the "free market" competition of capital.
I recommend also looking at Lenin's "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism" and Bob Avakian's "Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy" for some other basic explanations of why these Utopian schemes are doomed to failure, and why proletarian revolution can enable us to embark on the road out of this.Also see Raymond Lotta's work on both today's economic crisis and the historical experience of socialism.

Interesting
Interesting.I read somewhere that Engels was actually the better writer of the Marx/Engels team.Does that make Engels the Garfunkel, or Simon?I don't know.But this was fun to read and interesting.So much passion.

A great weapon for fighting for change
This pamphlet was selected by Marx and Engels from Engel's large book _Anti-Duhring_ Along with the Communist Manifesto, Socialist Scientific and Utopian constitutes the basic foundation, the easy to understand, exciting to read, and profound primer for the revolutionary working class point of view, scientific socialism that Marx and Engels founded.It links their political and philosophic views in a clear and concise and very readable booklet.

Engels provides not simply a discussion ofutopian socialism and its differences with scientific socialism, but does it in a way that outlines why the ruling capitalist class of modern society will not cede power to working people peacefully, why this society is so forcefully organized to preserve the exploitation and oppression working people, women, oppressed peoples, and the former colonial countries face at the hands of thebig business interests of the US, Europe, and Japan.

I might add that one of the unexpected joys of reading this and the rest of Anti-Duhring is that despite the philosophical and political rigor and seriousness, Engels is always able to put in a little humor and a little wit.

While this book is not always available on Amazon, it is always available from BooksfromPathfinder, an Amazon Z store that you can get to by clicking on New and Usedfurther up this page!

Quick, easy, lightweight intro to Socialism
If you are looking for a book to bolster your defense of, or attack upon, socialism, this is not the book for you.Instead, this short read provides an easy introduction into the development of Socialism, from its idealistic early proponents to those later in the 19th century attempting to define a more realistic socialism.

While Engels provides an overview of the "superiority" of socialism over capitalism, his arguments helped me to understand the motivation for socialism, rather than providing a rigorous defense.

As a libertarian, I don't agree with Engels that the capitalist exploits the wage laborer -- I think the stronger argument can be made that the capitalist enables the wage laborer -- but Engels does present his position clearly.

If you are looking for a good, short introduction to socialism, this is the book for you. ... Read more

Product Description
Your PO R2604240 discount on this book
by Frederich Engels is 20%. ALL books
by Engels are 20% discount. ... Read more

Product Description

The book, an English translation of which is here republished, was first issued in Germany in 1845. The author, at that time, was young, twenty- four years of age, and his production bears the stamp of his youth with its good and its faulty features, of neither of which he feels ashamed. It was translated into English, in 1885, by an American lady, Mrs. F. Kelley Wischnewetzky, and published in the following year in New York.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The war of each against all
In this rightly called classic text, Marx's philosophical companion gives an in depth analysis of the ideology, the organization of the State and the working conditions in the first decades of the Industrial Revolution in Great-Britain.

Engel`s (not Engels's) law
The Industrial Revolution (IR) provoked one of the main massive population shifts in human history: from the village (agriculture) to the city (industry). It created thereby a nearly never ending stream of poor people looking for work, which permitted the industrialists-capitalists to keep the wages extremely low, just above the starvation limit (Engel's law). In one word, the proletariat was born.
The owners were now in a far better situation than under feudalism (the slave system) because they could simply throw their employees on the street.

Ideology
The first decades of the IR were a period of pure capitalism, pure competition and laissez-faire, which meant a battle of all against all. Not only the owners of the means of production and subsistence (the haves) battled against the mass of the wage-workers (the have-nots), but also the owners and the wage-workers fought among themselves. The outcome was easy to foresee: fewer and fewer owners and more and more proletarians.
Malthus's demographic theory served as an excuse for the owners to let the have-nots starve to death.

Organization of the State
A perfect society for the owners would have been one of total anarchy, but they easily understood that this was not possible because it was necessary to control the proletariat. They used the State, the government for that. There was free choice, but of course only theoretically; there was no compulsory education, no social safety net, and certainly no democracy. As J. Swift stated in `Moll Flanders': the out-of-work had only one option `to steal to be hanged'.

The working conditions
The working conditions were abysmal. It was Hell upon Earth. A miner of 50 years of age was a great rarity. Children of 4 years of age were working in coal mines.

Reactions
The have-nots tried to improve their working conditions by organizing (at first secretly) trade unions and to impose collective bargaining.
The People's Charter (communist oriented) fought for universal suffrage and regular elections, for secret voting, for payment of the members of Parliament and for equilibrated electoral districts.
But the owners also began to understand that even they had a certain interest in the improvement of the living conditions of the poor, if they wished to save their families from deadly epidemics like cholera, typhus or smallpox.

This book shows F. Engels, extremely appalled by the inhumanity of the system of industrial exploitation, as a true moralist defending with exhortations and adequate advice the `Cause of Humanity'.
His book is a reminder for nearly every one of us of where we come from and how still today major parts of the Third World are exploited. It is a must read for all those interested in the history of mankind.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Brian Wells, Esquire, reviews "Collected Works," Vol. 3
This is the 3rd volume of the 50 volume set of theCollected Works of Marx and Engels.The entire 50 volume set is mamouth collection of everything ever written by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels.

Volume 3 covers the years 1843-1844 and contains the important article "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law" as well as the "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844." Also contained in this volume is Engel's "Letters from London" and "Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy" which laid the foundation from his significant series of articles called "The Condition of the England." which later became "The condition of the Working Class in England" published in Volume 4 of this edition. ... Read more

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The Communist Manifesto in German.

The Bible and the Communist Manifesto are perhaps the two books with the strongest influence over human history.

Mediacon presents a polished a carefully revised original version in German for those who cannot rely on translations or want to imporve their German language proficiency. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Pedestrian
Tristam Hunt is evidently a professional popular historian. He has read the standard bibliography and a bit more.He brings to bear his ability to write a coherant, balanced and easy-to-read narrative - a not inconsiderable skiill.

His idéal is almost certainly Francis Wheen's breezy but measured biiography of Marx. Wheen is name checked in the acknowledgements - along with British Labour politician Ed Milliband ! More significantly thanked is Simon Rigby, a careful academic scholar on Marxism whose positions clearly influence the author and pull him back from some of his more flipant inclinations.

Such flipancy motivates the only variants from safe and unchallening narrative taken mostly from the footnotes of Marx and Engels' collected works (`MECW'). To take an example, in September 1848 in the course of widespread political unrest in Germany, Engels was expelled from Cologne and sent by train to Paris. Penniless, he travelled from there on foot to Geneva, leaving Paris some time after the 5th October and arriving in Geneva around the 28th of October, and then on to Berne where he arrived sometime early in November. There he waited for the all-clear from Marx to return to Germany. On his way, he drafted a journalistic piece mixing political commentary on rural France with a travelogue-style description of the countryside : not an unusual style of writing for the period. Hunt leverages off the upbeat style of this unfinished and unpublished piece to build a picture of Engels having abandoned the revolution for a `walking holiday' (P.166), an `Arcadian walking tour' (P.171) or what he later sloppily calls the `1849 walking tour' (P.318) . The suggestion is clear that Engels was only a rich boy playing politics as a hobby..

Every aspect of Hunt's extended depiction of this minor event is slightly mis-presented in order to place Engels in the worst possible light. Fundamentally , what Hunt misses is that this was one of the few times in his life when Engels was without money - Marx, temporarlily enriched by his inheritance, was actually sending Engels money ! Walking to the safe haven of Switzerland was an entirely rational response to being penniless and dumped in a dangerously counter revolutionary Paris, no longer safe for radicals like Engels. Switzerland was the smart place to be. Walking was the safe and cheapest way to travel.Hunt also misses the simple fact that Engels actually covered around 550 km in about 23 days, quite a vigorours pace which belies the pastoral stylistic devices of his journalistic piece. Hunt takes the style for the fact, because it suits his purpose.. It is a tiny example. But there are quite a few.

For example, he observes of Marx `nothing infuriated him more than authentic, revolutionary credentials' (P. 185) . The comment is assinine. Hunt superficially condemns Engels for `hypocrisies for making his living off the textile trade which did so much damage to the Indian economy' (P.228).He feels no need to consider with any care whether there really are moral contradictions and not merely material contradictions in this situation.

To prove his claim - probably true - that Engels visited prostitutes, he takes the French term `grisette' as indicating prostitutes. Another biographer, John Green, has pointed out in The Guardian in 2009 that this is incorrect. But Hunt could have seen this himself from MECW 50 P.182 (particularly when compared to P. 190) where Engels uses the term grissette to mean simply young French working class women and to refer to delegates at a socialist conference. Nor is going to see prostitutes morally inconsistent with the view of prostitution set out for example, at P. 66-67 of MECW 50 where Engels' argument is that prostitutes should be freed from State persecution - as he explains elsewhere, until economic development makes prostitution redundant.

He charges Engels with supporting the British state against a possible invasion by Louis Napoleon because Engels designated the bonapartist regime as `reactionary' (P.222) and cites a source (MECW 11 P.204)where Engels did not make that argument.He suggests a conflict between The Communist Manifesto and the duo's programmatic document for the German Revolution of 1848, when there is no conflict. (P.157). He states that Engels `revered' Wellington (P.219). He quotes a passage whose ironic tone he misunderstands, gives the wrong référence (MECW 10 P.332) for its source and entirely misses Engels' actual assessment of Wellington as `overestimated' and ` a small and narrow mind' (MECW13 P.196).

When describing the Paris Commune, he acknowledges the existence of the `Communes conscious proletarin élément (P.253) but describes these as `Jacobins and Blanquists rather than Marxists (P.253). This ignores the internationalists like Eugene Varlin, final military commander and Elizabeth Dimitrieff, Marx's personal agent, who formed part of an increasingly influential minority tendency withiin the Commune.

Hunt describes Engels as `dismissive of the campaign for female suffrage' (P.317). But it is not female suffrage of which Engels was dismissive, rather it was the bourgeois-led suffrage movement. Engels voiced no concerns about the SPD campaign in 1893 and 1894 for female suffrage in Germany. Hunt fails to mention Marx and Engels consistent campaign in the First International for women to be allowed to organise separately - to mention that woud ruin the effect Hunt is aiming for.

Not all of his misjudgements are negative. Of Engels's rôle in the composition of Volume One of Kapital, he claims Engels `had provided many of the book's core insights into the actual workings of capital and labour (....) as well as its essential philosophy.' (P.237) Hunt is surely the first to think that Engels' influence extended quite that far !

To the modern eye the most fascinating part of Engels life is the period 1882-95 when the old revolutionary had an almost svengali-like status for the German SPD.. One would expect a modern biography to pour over this fascinating period in great détail, bringing together Engels' large correspondence,now available, with the many studies and much primary source material also available about many others from that period. But the treatment of this extraordinary period in Engels' life is paedestrian,.

Engels was certainly not a `great' man, whatever that means. But few have ever expended wealth and talent with such panache as this 19th century, challengingly masculine, Orson Wells of revolutionary politics.

Wheen's similar biography of Marx will probably just about survive as a substitute for Isaiah Berlin's better and similar effort. Hunts' will not.
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This edition makes easily accessible the most important parts of Marx's and Engels's major early philosophical work, "The German Ideology", a text of key importance for students. ... Read more

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Virtually everything Marx and Engels ever wrote on labor strikes and trade unions has been collected in this volume for the first time. It includes vivid, often eyewitness accounts of many of the greatest strikes and labor struggles of the last century.
This original and valuable collection challenges the prevailing assumption that Marx and Engels cared little for trade unions and their role in the transition to socialism or that they had little practical involvement with unions. Lapides illuminates the immense part personally played by Marx and Engels in helping to establish the modern labor movement. Covering the period 1844-1894, the book features graphic and moving portrayals of contemporary labor stuggles, candid personal views of various labor leaders, biting polemics against socialist rivals, and eloquent passages. Lapides provides an introduction that places the excerpts in historical and theoretical context. ... Read more