The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels, has become one of the most influential and significant pieces of political propaganda ever written in the world. It contains the views and ideology of the worldview that Marx and Engels had come to know through their political engagement in previous years. Published in 1848, in a period of European revolution, the Manifesto is an incisive synthesis of the Marxist vision and outlines the foundations of the Marxist movement. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay According to Marx, there are four stages of human development. At the beginning of social development there is slavery where political and social freedoms are non-existent. The second stage of development, known as feudalism, is a system in which freedom becomes slightly more obtainable, despite having a lord or vassal who oversees all the rules. The third phase, the most controversial, is known as capitalism. In this case, private or corporate ownership of capital assets is determined by private decisions rather than by the state. The price, production and distribution of goods are determined primarily by competition in a free market. Finally, the fourth stage of human development is called communism. This is a final stage of society in Marxist theory where state and private ownership are demolished and economic goods are owned and distributed equally. In the phases of society before communism, society is based on the antagonisms between “oppressed and oppressors”, from free men and slaves, working class and government, to proletariat and bourgeois. Each stage of the social order goes through a transition from one stage to another. The transition from one platform to another can best be described as a corresponding political progress, in which an oppressed class gains the upper hand over the feudal nobility. In the case of capitalist society, the bourgeoisie seeks greater profits at the expense of the working class. Thus, the working class, or rather the proletarians, grow in number and political awareness and, according to the Manifesto, generate inevitable revolutions. Although Marx does not specifically describe the stages of transformation from one stage to another, he gives a strong allusion and assumption to a political and social revolution. Marx, through political involvement, witnessed the third social stage of development known as capitalism. In this Marx came to see the world system as a whole and recognized the many evils of capitalism. Marx saw capitalism as the worst stage of human and social development, since its foundation lay in the oppression of the working class. These social evils were numerous; the most important were class antagonisms towards the masses or the proletariat. Therefore the bourgeoisie remained the only financially and physically wealthy class. Capitalist society reduced the family to a “mere monetary relationship,” and thus increased the urban population causing a temporary stalemate due to the overabundance of subsistence, industry and commerce. Capitalist society has also substituted brutal exploitation for morality and money. This caused capitalist society to become too big for its own good, forcing the bourgeois to destroy what they had created and start again, or to leave and form a new settlement for the markets; Both of these events left the proletariat and working class citizens in a state of chaos and disorder. Capitalist society was all for private property, and through the ideology of Marx and his followers, change was needed. Marx came to believe that a communist society would eventually take the place of the sad state.