1. Marx and Engels, ”Manifesto of the Communist Party”
Philosophy 219
Marx and Engels, ”Manifesto of the Communist Party”

2. The Manifesto of the Communist Party
Written in 1845, the Manifesto was commissioned by The Communist League as an expression of their principles.
Refusing what they consider to be the fiction of the "state of nature" Marx and Engels start with what they take to be the truly historical foundation of society: class struggle.

3. The Engine of the Struggle
While class struggle has been a constant in human history, M and E believe that something new has happened.
The bourgeoisie (the urban middle class, the factory owners) have driven the transformation of society from a traditional, monarchical, and sectarian organization to the modern, democratic and secular one we know today.
The secret of the bourgeoisie is its ability to force other social forms to adopt its mode of production, with the result of the increasing accumulation of capital in its hands.

4. The Secret The secret of the bourgeoisie is also its undoing.
The accumulation of capital requires the formation of a new class: the proletariat.
The proletarian is a worker commodified. Their significance lies in their capacity to sell themselves, in the form of their labor.
Their essence is thus alienation: they have value only as objectified labor. It is their alienation which defines their political significance: they are the revolutionary class.

5. The Dissociation of Labor
A capitalist economy is characterized by the dissociation of labor (the act of producing) from the natural milieu of production (property). The worker doesn't own the property, the capitalist does.
This dissociation in turn brings about the dissociation of labor and property from the accumulation of capital.
The conflict arises in that the worker and the capitalist have different relationships to this dissociation. The worker, because of their lack of resources, suffers from it; the capitalist, because of their possession of resources, can actually benefit from it.

6. A Necessary Antagonism
This difference leads directly to an explanation of why this struggle is necessarily antagonistic:
The dissociation is fatal to the worker: because the worker cannot take advantage of the opportunities offered by the dissociation they are reliant only on the wages of the labor. In classical economic terms, the only necessary wage rate (and also the one that most closely matches the interests of the capitalist) is subsistence wage —“cattle-like existence;”
This reliance means that the worker is unavoidably subject to the law of supply and demand. As such they are just one more resource or commodity;
Vagaries of the economy affect the worker much more significantly than the capitalist. Both because the capitalist is more able to weather the storm, and also because as a commodity, the worker is much more sensitive to market fluctuations than profit, which the market is designed to protect.

7. What Should be Done?
M &E's answer (as we already know): Abolition of Private Property (721c1).
The goal is not to deprive people of their ability to lay claim to the public good, but rather to deny people the ability to claim this good for their own (722c2).
In order to achieve this end, specific (and likely unpopular, at least among the bourgeoisie) means of redistribution are likely necessary (cf. 725c1- 2).