The original Manifesto of 1848 listed some progressive reforms, but ceased advocating them by 1872. The measures – ranging from nationalisation to a heavy progressive or graduated income tax – may have had merit in 1848 but not today. Indeed, Marx and Engels in their joint preface to the 1872 edition stated: ‘No special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be differently worded today.’ Yet The Patriot Post considers the ten reforms '..still part of Marxist philosophy and pretty scary..' (26 April).
'Let the ruling classes tremble..' as there is still much that socialists today would incorporate into a Manifesto for this century including:
‘The working men have no country. We cannot take away from them what they have not got.’
‘…every class struggle is a political struggle.’
The struggle for socialism ‘is the independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority.’
‘The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.’
‘Workers of the world, unite!’
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