everyday workers in the 21st century experience is akin to that experience Marx observed: an experience that reduces all to the level of paid wage laborers, highly specialized but under-compensated, utterly unable to get ahead. And indeed, as society modernizes fewer and fewer opportunities seem to exist that will allow individuals to feel involved in a genuinely creative process. If Marx is correct, this will feed a slide into self-alienation, and will aggravate the class struggle. Indeed, it is precisely for the fact that in the 21st century, citizens of the most industrialized, advanced nations on earth are not immune from feelings of dehumanization, malaise, anomie, and alienation that Marx's philosophy continues to make sense to modern students. As an action-guiding work, it is true that The Communist Manifesto may not be the handbook of choice. As a highly relevant commentary on the proclivities of the human race and the antecedents of revolution, it remains among the most astute of volumes. Admittedly, the prescriptions offered by Marx in The Communist Manifesto have not been proven efficacious. The Soviet Union has shown the world what the abolition of private property and the "collectivization" of the masses can yield. However, this is not to say that |
