The Communist Manifesto

The members of the ruling class in the capitalist system, distinguished from the proletariat by their ownership of property and their ability to amass capital. “Bourgeois” can be used as a noun or an adjective, while “bourgeoisie” can be used only as a noun to refer to the entire class. 

The surplus value generated by the wage laborer for the capitalist. This profit is reinvested by the capitalist to buy more materials, labor, etc. to produce more profit, with a snowballing effect that benefits the capitalist, but not the worker. 

A socio-economic system which is based on private ownership of the means of production and bourgeois exploitation of the working class, the proletariat. 

See Socialism.

In Marxist theory, exploitation refers specifically to the exploitation of labor which takes place when the amount of labor a worker performs is greater than what the worker receives in return. 

The stage in Marx’s stages of economic development before capitalism. In a feudal society, the aristocracy demanded payment or labor from the peasants in exchange for military protection, and the rest of the peasantry’s labor and time was their own to use as they wished. This system’s middle class had trade guilds in the cities; they often became the equivalent of the petty-bourgeois in the capitalist system. 

A philosophical stance that the material reality of the world is shaped by the human mind’s perceptions and ideas of reality.

A philosophical stance that reality is based on and shaped by the material reality of things.

The physical necessities (tools, facilities, materials) used to create commodities and profit.

The lower-level bourgeois class, consisting of small business owners and merchants. While the members of this class do not own the means of production, they are able to buy the labor of others. 

The working class. Proletariats have no means of accumulating capital or wealth on their own; they must sell their labor to survive. “Proletariat” comes from the Latin word proles, meaning “offspring,” which suggests that the primary function of this class is to produce children. 

Marx does not make a clear distinction between socialism and communism in the Manifesto. Generally, Marxists agree that societies based on socialism offer a temporary stop on the way to full-fledged communism. In a socialist system, people can still own private property, though the means of generating wealth are shared. In its more extreme, communist form, no one owns private property and there is no more material conflict amongst members of society.

The first stage in Marx’s theory of the development of society, in which a greater sense of shared labor and ownership was based around family and kinship ties. Because no social classes existed in tribal society, it is sometimes thought of as proto-communist.