The opening is long-winded. Frederich Engels talks about how materialism “civilized” the English. Men most, manufacturers took advantage of people who didn’t speak English as a first language. And why not? How will they know? They are a beast of burden, or are they? Engels made it clear to discount workers with a foreign language. They are what make the wheels of “progress” turn. Engels pointed out that feudalism started within the Catholic church. Imagine my shock. Popes have a history of doing whatever needed to get and stay in power. Just another day at the office.
From England, materialism made it to France then all over Europe. At first, it was in the Royal Houses. Then like wine, it made to the common peasant. That’s when the trouble really begins. Everywhere which materialism surfaced, it had a nasty consequence to it. Royal heads rolled. King Louis XVI and his wife where the first of many more to come. Their greed was their own demise. Never enough and must find bigger and better jewels. This because of the mantra of the bourgeois. They eventually started to marry into the Royal houses and gained complete control over the economy of nations. Think Rothschild family. They started out as bankers and figured out that if you make loans to nations rather than individuals, the return is incredible. Eventually, Mayer Amschel made it clear he didn’t care who made policies or what policies were as long as he controlled the money. That was his controlled the money, he controlled the policymakers and therefore the policies. The end result of this was the Queen of England is Queen in title only. If she revolts against the Rothschild family, her fortune will be gone.
Mr. Engels goes into depth about the theory behind socialism. Ture Equality! No exceptions. Socialism evolved in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries what is going to happen in the 21th century? How long before realizing events that lead up to the rise of Socialism in the past are repeating right before our eyes? Arrogance is a curse of capitalism. Capitalists often forget that if they don’t have employees, they don’t have a business. We are seeing examples of this around us today. There are few bourgeois capitalists who know the road from employee to owner. Some get to the top and forget about what it means to live paycheck to paycheck. They usually stumble and fall back to where they were extreme poverty.
Mr. Engels went on to express his disgust about the way bourgeois treated the women in their lives. The women were reduced to prostitution in their own marriage. Then there was the emergence of “New Age Christianity”. Which is what we are seeing today. The Evangelical nuts praying for war with various countries. There are four stages of development of society: savagery, barbarism, the patriarchate, and civilization. At the end of part one, Engels made reference to Robert Owen who set up a settlement here which he purchased which houses already built. His followers moved there and lived there for about four years when things fell apart. Mr. Owen, of course, lived in the “Lord’s Manor” while everyone else lived rent-free as long as they worked for him, on the property. Robert Owen is responsible for the Pre-K programs which have been developed around the world. The system he developed in New Harmony Indiana was exactly what they had left behind for the same reason they left it behind. He was Lord & Ruler and they were the peasants. The new boss is the same as the old boss.
Engels made clear in this book that every system has flaws. They are only as good as the people managing them. Engels and Marx were economists, not politicians. Nor did they want to be politicians. They criticized capitalism as a system, not as the people running it. They understand the managers or Petty Bourgeois did what they were told and nothing else. The owners and politicians were the problems. Now we go into part two of this book. When asked how socialism was connected to capitalism? Mr. Engels made it clear that capitalism is a cycle that continues to spin without direction. Also, as long as capitalists exploit people, conflicts will continue to occur. For a caged bird, the desire to fly free will always be a lure to open its cage. Mr. Engels spoke of Anarchy used as a means to turn the tables on the bourgeoisie. Will that work here in America? I doubt it really. I don’t think we have the stomach to do what is needed to kick out the rulers, monarchs, and capitalists. Society today is just too soft and spoiled.
Engels made a point about how spoiled and entitled people get when they have everything handed to them thought their lives. No argument here. They must have seen the millennial generation coming. I came across a series on the Great Depression which the narrator told that for Henry Ford’s son’s 21st birthday, he gave his son a brick of gold valued at $1 million dollars. This was a time when so many people were going hungry, homeless, and jobless. What a waste of money! Let’s make this comparison with more modern folks. We are on the verge of financial collapse. Not just here in America, but global, so imagine how insulting it would be if Trump gave his son Barron a brick of gold for the same birthday. People would be up in arms. This is the kind of thing Engels looked at and realized the more spoiled someone is as a child, the more spoiled they will be as adults. The Peter Pan syndrome of never growing up. Engels made a point that the bourgeois will financially cannibalize each other with push comes to shove. Once they do, only the most vicious will be left standing with everything. I say let the mayhem begin. Let them start with Jamie Diamond and Mike Pompeo. Once they have cannibalized each other financially, and anarchy is over, a new and better society will emerge.
Reference:
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Frederick Engels
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