The Communist Manifesto

"Marx and Engels combine philosophical materialism with the Hegelian dialectical method in order to analyze the development of European society through its modes of production, including primitive communism, antiquity, feudalism, and capitalism, noting the emergence of a new, dominant class at each stage. The text outlines the relationship between the means of production, relations of production, forces of production, and the mode of production, and posits that changes in society's economic "base" affect changes in its "superstructure". Marx and Engels assert that capitalism is marked by the exploitation of the proletariat (working class of wage labourers) by the ruling bourgeoisie, which is "constantly revolutionizing the instruments [and] relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society". They argue that capital's need for a flexible labor force dissolves the old relations, and that its global expansion in search of new markets creates "a world after its own image". "