Back to the Future? Sustainability and Futurism in the Communist Manifesto Anonymous College

"We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organization of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder.

"Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted to it, and by the economical and political sway of the bourgeois class."

—Karl Marx, Manifesto of the Communist Party, pg. 477-478 (transl. Robert C. Tucker)

Written in 1848 as a way to aid the Communist Party in outlining and defining a specific social vision, the Communist Manifesto explores the ways that the bourgeois institutionalization of free trade has become detrimental to human civilization. Before delineating how free trade has become a burden to societies everywhere, Marx and Engels explore the reasons why, and delve into the origins of this socioeconomic...