The Manifesto of the Communist Party was written in 1847 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels for the Communist League of London. It is this Manifesto that Marx first applies his concept of historical materialism, which he constructed in 1846 in The German Ideology. This alternative theory of history synthesized materialism and idealism to ultimately describe society as a social totality; with the mode of production being a historical phenomenon giving rise to civil society. Following the Manifesto, Marx and Engels continue to apply historical materialism to society, as seen in Capital. Capital was written in

1867 by Marx and Engels, and it focused on analyzing the capitalist mode of production. In particular this work uses dialectical thinking to explain Marx''s theory of exploitation; a theory w

The capitalist class also altered the legal relations of society, such as dismantling the

hich explains the origins of profits as the exchange of the fixed variable of labour for the potential variable of the product of labour.

After describing the working class in detail, Marx next focuses on their development through various levels of class consciousness. He stresses that this class conflict has always existed and originally began on an individual level. He writes ""the proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first the contest is carried on by individual laborers, then by the workpeople of a factory ... against the individual bourgeoisie who directly exploits them."" (p.480) As the working class

become more greatly concentrated in the factories, Marx notes that this aids their ability to organize in numbers and in strength. ""But with the development of industry the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows ..."" (p. 480)

payment''."" (p. 475) Marx continues his discussion of class conflict shaping history by discussing the class which opposes the capitalists - the working class. The working class or proletariat also develops out the capitalist mode of production, and are described by Marx as ""a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market."" (p. 479) Marx notes that the working class, since made legally free and stripped of the means to work for themselves, must sell their labour power to the capitalists. This labour Marx argues, is alienated from the work

arxist thought. Marx''s outline of the development of capitalism was discussed, as well as his outline of the development of the capitalist and working classes.

Marx argues that it is the mode of production that gives rise to and defines the social classes in any society. He begins his discussion of the capitalist class or bourgeoisie by making reference to this phenomenon: ""We see therefore, how the mode

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Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)