The Communist Manifesto outlines Marx and Engels' theory of class struggle and the development of classes in bourgeois society. They argue that modern capitalist society has led to the division of society into two main hostile classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. While the bourgeoisie revolutionized industry and production, they have ultimately created the conditions for their own demise by establishing a proletariat class that will overthrow the bourgeoisie as industry brings workers together in association against their employers.

1. Marx & Engels -
Communist Manifesto
Introduction to Sociology
2/15/12

2. History
History is the story
of class struggle

3. Bourgeois Society
"The modern bourgeois society that has
sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not
done away with class antagonisms. It has but
established new classes, new conditions of
oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the
old ones.
Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie,
possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has
simplified the class antagonisms: Society as a
whole is more and more splitting up into two great
hostile camps, into two great classes directly
facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat"
(page 474).

4. The Bourgeoisie and History
What makes the bourgeoisie "revolutionary"?
(page 475 and 476)

5. How is the Bourgeoisie a Sorcerer?
What do they mean with their sorcery
metaphor?
(page 478)

6. The Proletariat
What happens to the worker in this process of
bourgeois
revolution?
(page 479)

7. Proletariat as Grave-diggers?
"The advance of industry, whose involuntary
promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the
isolation of the laborers, due to competition, by
their revolutionary combination, due to
association. The development of Modern
Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the
very foundation on which the bourgeoisie
produces and appropriates products. What the
bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is
its own grave-diggers" (483).