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society private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence for these nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for the existence of which is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society. In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so: that is just what we do intend. … Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society: all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labours of others by means of such appropriation."
As for the philosophical arguments against the communists, the Manifesto says:—"What else does the history of ideas prove than that intellectual production changes its character in proportion as material production is changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class. When people speak of idea that revolutionise society, they only express the fact that within the old society the elements of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence."
But then it has been, and is still repeatedly urged, that there are certain eternal truths such as freedom, justice, etc., that survived all changes. This is quite true—but why? The history of all past society has consisted in the development of class antagonisms, these antagonisms assuming different forms at different epochs, but the exploitation of one part of society by the other has been common to all past ages. Small wonder then that, however the social consciousness and ideas have varied, a common basic thread runs through them all, which can only disappear with the final disappearance of all class. antagonisms. "The communist (socialist) revolution being the most radical rupture with traditional property relations, its development necessarily involves the most radical rupture with traditional ideas."
Section III. is a masterly exposition of the various schools of mere reformist, reactionary and utopian socialists.
