"The modern bourgeois society. . ."
I'm not clear what fundamental changes to human nature have occurred (to echo fustakrackich's comment). What I do know has changed is technology.
Technology has had a catalytic effect on the amount and rate of evil an individual can undertake, and Marx was merely reacting to the Industrial Revolution, not the Information Age.

". . .the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. . ."
I don't really understand what credit Marx is giving here, despite the following brief treatment of economic development. Perhaps I've over-thinking "simplified", or there is some weakness in the translation from the Klingon sources.

". . .the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product. . ."
But how is it a final product? Epiphany: Marx is sharing an apocalyptic vision. Like the apocalyptic visions of, say, Hal Lindsey (to name one goofball), or even Francis Fukuyama, there is a need to sensationalize the writing and make it seem like The Time Is Running Out.
The world will end when it ends. While, comfortable with calm preparedness for it, I have a built in talk-to-the-hand filter that kicks in for any writer trying to float such a vision. Marx, Lindsey, and Fukuyama are all looking a trifle pear-shaped.

"It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression. . ."
Nah, it's all so much porcine lipstick.

"The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part."
They played a part, but I feel like Marx is over-crediting his hobby horse for rhetorical fun and profit.


Already started on the next installment, which I'll look to get up tonight. After that, though, all bets are off until next weekend, as my workweek tends toward the run-on sentence. Likely the fault of the bugbear bourgeoisie.

I don't know about baking the DNA itself, but a proper, prayerful understanding of the Holy Spirit has had profound positive effect on my life. YMMV.

So, can we say that neither capitalism nor Socialism, as ideas, are good or bad; merely every historical instantiation of either winds up as a toilet bowl?
Fair enough. Now: do you have the intellectual integrity to compare the instances of capitalism and Socialism, and talk about which one provides happier outcomes?
There is a theological point that, as a Christian, you should be capable of joy anywhere.
I think I'll work on capitalism and strive to minimize its inevitable corruption, but YMMV.

If you read from the JE through the thread, I'm trying to suspend disbelief and step into Marx's context.
The 'oversimplification' charge, itself, is so obvious as to be a 'what difference does it make?' point. We can't expect Marx to be cramming a complete historical analysis into a manifesto. I have objected to the lack of at least a breadcrumb to point to more full analysis. Perhaps Das Kapital offers some more exposition.

You can't do, for example, an aircraft carrier, as a craftsman.
Even if you understood the spectrum of engineering disciplines well enough to design everything (you don't), that wouldn't translate directly into the skill needed to construct it.
And even if you knew how to design, and even physically build, all of the individual components, that still doesn't translate into the management knowledge of how to orchestrate going from raw materials to floating airfield.
And even if you were enough of a raging badass to pull all that off, you're still just the one dude. People don't scale, technology is variable, and waiting a few hundred years for you to get your Noah-meets-US-Navy on is just impractical.
And if that's too esoteric an example for you, go ahead and put in a cloverleaf at your intersection of choice.

Indeed. I don't buy off on this Oriental spiritual equivalent of "eat a bullet for enlightenment".

I should have connected the dots a little better.
Technology necessarily complicates society. But the individual brain has just so much bandwidth available. Hence the specialization.

So, who does the "[keeping] thoroughly in check"? The idea that Juan Valdez is getting hammered by Big Coffee down in South America: isn't that turned into "Fair Trade" advertising by competitors?
I'm not arguing some anarcho-libertarian burning of all regulation; rather, a minimal amount of regulation that balances social, environmental, and economic concerns.
More of the "keeping in check" function should be carried out in the court of public opinion, and not the court of law, IMHO.

I'm really distracted by the word "struggle". From Roman society, where Citizenship was a big deal (the Apostle Paul in Acts was an unremarkable example of the importance of such),
to India with its caste system,
to the New Testament with Philemon as a brief example,
the existence of classes was Completely. Usual.
Struggles were religious, ethnic, and tribal wayyyyy more than they were class-oriented. Or they involved guns, germs & steel, for a more recent, airy re-telling.
Can't fault Marx's panache, for the reasons cited in the JE.

How. Do. You. Model. That?
Sure, the Barons got together at Runnymede to bind King John. Your other examples of a class of people, as such, engaging in a struggle which you can't just as easily attribute to some religious, ethnic, or familial motive are. . .wait. . .oh, bollocks. I'm done.
It's Marx's little treatise, and I'm agreeing to take him at face value. But his notion of history holds as much validity for me beyond the text as Ayn Rand's view of sexuality does beyond hers.
Why? Because => People. Are. Atomic.
You're born and die alone. Writers use groupings, like "mason's guild" to lump people. Some societies/religions (particularly Oriental ones) go a long way toward minimizing individuality. Fair enough. But I do not buy off on Marx's thesis in the slightest, especially not in Occidental settings.
If you want to go for a secular psychological analysis, I think that in fun/freedom/power/belonging terms, Marx is out to amass political power, and he's doing it by playing upon the belonging need. And I think Marx achieves this by inviting others to covet.

So, I'm not sympathetic to this analysis, as a matter of history or methodology, but I'll labor to undertake this project with a modicum of seriousness. Now: you can either press on with further reading, and demonstrate that this is a sincere effort, or you can keep commenting in this JE, and I will move toward the impression that you're just jerking me around. I look forward to you picking up the thread with the next chunk of text when time supports. But this is NOT going to be just me, buddy: I'm not your dog, either.

As far as I can tell, you're trying to commoditize "nothing" and offer it as "something".
I'm not trying to be insulting when I say you offer "nothing"; merely that not only find it incomprehensible, I cannot grasp what my motive would be to try to comprehend your "nothing".
Also, I'm to understand that I'm the fool for having an end-to-end existential model that accounts for where we came from, why life is all jacked up, and where it's going. I'm supposed to "awake" from my "foolishness" and move in this "nothing" direction.
But I can't, because I am an "ideologue" or something, and your "nothing" stance cheerfully launders you free of any ideology.
Have I captured all that "accurately"?
tl;dr: I find the situation kind of symmetric, due to the nature of philosophy as an intellectual exercise: everyone has a pet tautology. Christianity works just fine, if demoted to a "philosophy of life". But the soul is a third dimension to life, after the body and mind. And you'll argue that I'm making it all up, and I'll pray that you accept the Good News and find "true understanding".
And then the sun will rise.

Economic specialization is how we try to go after scalability as a society.
Proper capitalism offers some negative feedback to purge the inevitable dead branches in the economic development tree.
Socialism and bureaucracy are all about interrupting that natural recycling function, so that the now undead branches can continue to leech economic vitality.

Oh, yeah? Somebody else debunked somebody else's purported debunking in another JE. Gosh, these handwavy rebuttals are a breeze!

OK, so you're in Solipsism mode. Got it. Hi!

Isn't that the (not)point of your entire approach? That "To be, or not to be", is as meaningful as asdfgoihvoneqrgqeorngqerinov?
How do you ever reach escape velocity from your Singularity Of Daftness?

What sense does that even make? To whom would such a prayer be directed? What would the content be? I'm having a hard time remembering that I am the idiot here.