The March of the Classes Toward the Dawn: Capitalism, 19th Century

The March of the Classes Toward the Dawn: Capitalism, 19th Century

The historical inevitability Marx described is the movement through the contradictions and struggles of capitalism to finally transition to socialism and communism. Through the accumulation and concentration of capital, the absorption of surplus value, and the recurrence of crises, capitalism deepens the polarization of the rich and poor and sharpens class conflict. Under these conditions, the working class (proletariat) seeks its own emancipation and the logic of history is to overthrow the ruling class. Marx saw this process not as mere political change but as the law of historical materialism, the change of material productive forces and relations of production.

The social conditions of the nineteenth century provided countless collateral evidence in support of this theory. Industrialization and technological innovation dramatically increased the productive forces and encouraged huge factories and capital concentration. Meanwhile, workers' wages were suppressed and disparities in living conditions widened. As for political movements, the 1848 Revolution, the International Workingmen's Association, and the rise of the socialist and communist movements were prominent.

At the end of this chain of class struggle and institutional change, Marx envisioned an intermediate stage of proletarian dictatorship, from which the state would disappear, class discrimination would disappear, and a vision of a "community of free people" would result. Marx himself, however, was cautious about designing a concrete system for the future society, focusing instead on the laws of historical movement that would lead to change.