e proposition of The Communist Manifesto is that the oppressed class, the proletariat, cannot truly free itself from the ruling class, the bourgeoisie, without at the same time freeing society at large from all "exploitation, oppression, class distinctions and class struggles." The only solution from all class struggles in history is to have one class the proletariat. Marx makes it clear that capitalism has brought some benefits to society: "The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarcely one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together." (Marx, The Communist Manifesto, p. 66) Yet the effects that capitalism has on the relations between people is not worth the benefits it brought economically. Marx claims that capitalism has reduced professions of honor and reverence, such as the physician, the priest, and the scientist, to paid wage laborers. He condemns it for transforming every interaction amongst members of society into purely money relations. He goes so far as to say that the family relation has been reduced to a money relation. Children have become instruments of labor and articles of commerce. Workers have become a commodity. They must sell themselves, their labor power, in order to exist. They "live only so long as their labor increases capital." Furthermore, Marx favors the abolition of bourgeois private property. Although he recognizes that the ability to own property is a major element of personal freedom, he claims bourgeois private property is a symbol of the system of producing and appropriating products based on exploitation of the many by the few. This private property, which is wage-labor by workers, creates capital the kind of property that exploits the worker. The resulting communist society will set all people around the world as equals in a unified working class. The distinctions and advantages of physical strength and talents ...
