A Little History of Philosophy (Little Histories)

by Nigel Warburton

in the Communist Manifesto of 1848, which he wrote with Engels, he called upon workers of the world to unite and overthrow capitalism. Echoing the opening lines of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Social Contract (see Chapter 18), they declared that the workers had nothing to lose but their chains. Marx's ideas about history were influenced by Hegel (the subject of Chapter 22). Hegel, as we have seen, declared that there is an underlying structure to everything, and that we are gradually progressing to a world that will somehow be conscious of itself. Marx took from Hegel the sense that progress is inevitable, and that history has a pattern and is not just one thing after another. But in Marx's version, progress occurs because of the underlying economic forces. In place of the class struggle Marx and Engels promised a world in which no one would own land, where there was no inheritance, where education was free, and where public factories provided for everyone. There would be no need for religion or morality either. Religion, he famously declared, was ‘the opium of the people’: it was like a drug keeping them in a sleepy state so they didn't realize their true oppressed condition. In the new world after the revolution human beings would achieve their humanity. Their work would be meaningful and they would co-operate in ways that benefited everyone. Revolution was the way to achieve all this – and this meant violence, since the rich were unlikely to give up their wealth without a st...