Post communist manifesting

The kindle version of the 38 page Communist Manifesto (1848) is free to download. It was written by Engels and Marx and comes across as a zealot’s rant from the left end of the political spectrum. But it is short, well written, and makes some interesting points.

The first sentence reads: "A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism." The last sentence reads: “Working men of all countries, unite!” The bath and the bathwater might now be banished but the baby still has some bonnie bits.

As we collectively give thought and feeling to the possible structure and function of an independent Scotland it seems appropriate to cast our ideological net both wide and deep so as to generate options. To help move the process along I have put together a short glossary to some key ideas from the communist classic.

Capital: the wealth, whether in money or property, owned or employed in business by an individual, firm, corporation, etc. used in the production of more wealth

Capitalism: an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

Capitalist: a rich person who has capital, especially extensive capital, invested in business enterprises.

Bourgeoisie: a member of the middle class whose political, economic, and social opinions are determined mainly by concern for property values and conventional respectability. Typically a shopkeeper or merchant, especially one regarded as being conservative and materialistic or (in Marxist thought) a capitalist exploiting the working class. Often a mediocre, unimaginative, or materialistic person.

Petty (petite) bourgeoisie: the part of the bourgeoisie having the least wealth and lowest social status ie the lower middle class, including minor businesspeople, tradespeople, and craftworkers.

Proletariat: the class of wage earners, especially those who earn their living by manual labor or who are dependent for support on daily or casual employment; the working class. In Marxist thought the class of workers, especially industrial wage earners, who do not possess capital or property and must sell their labor to survive.

The Lumpenproletariat is that layer of the working class that is unlikely ever to achieve class consciousness and is therefore lost to socially useful production, of no use to the revolutionary struggle, and perhaps even an impediment to the realization of a classless society. The term identifies the class of outcast, degenerated and submerged elements that make up a section of the population of industrial centers. It includes beggars, prostitutes, gangsters, racketeers, swindlers, petty criminals, tramps, chronic unemployed or unemployables, persons who have been cast out by industry, and all sorts of declassed, degraded or degenerated elements. In times of prolonged crisis (depression), innumerable young people also, who cannot find an opportunity to enter into the social organism as producers, are pushed into this limbo of the outcast.

Class: there are basically two classes: the middle class bourgeoisie who are the owners of the means of production and the working class Proletariat who are the producers who sell their labour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AF4rxTGYfM I look up to him. (The class struggle)