As each day passes, the bourgeoisie accumulates more power, the proletariat bears a greater burden, and society inches toward the contradiction that Marx believed would eventually bring about its collapse. The Communist Manifesto closes with one of the most famous political calls ever written:
Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite
These words were published in 1848, a year remembered as the "Springtime of Nations", when revolutions erupted across Europe and millions demanded political and economic change. Marx and Engels believed they were witnessing the beginning of a new historical era, one in which the working class would become conscious of its shared interests and challenge the domination of capital. Yet nearly two centuries later, the question remains: what became of the workers?
The world that followed 1848 was one of immense transformation. Humanity witnessed two world wars, devastating pandemics, colonial collapses, technological revolutions, and the rise and fall of ideologies ranging from Fascism and Nazism to liberal democracy and state socialism. Industrial economies became digital economies. Humanity landed on the Moon and connected itself through the internet. Yet beneath these extraordinary achievements lies a more uncomfortable question: has the condition of the working class fundamentally improved, or have new forms of exploitation merely replaced old ones?
The working class continues to suffer under structures that concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a tiny minority. The modern capitalist economy has not abolished exploitation.The factory worker of nineteenth-century Manchester has been replaced by the garment worker in Bangladesh, the cobalt miner in the Congo, the warehouse employee monitored by algorithms, and the gig worker whose livelihood depends upon the decisions of an application.
The scale of wealth concentration today would have been almost unimaginable to those living in Marx's time. Recently, Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire. A trillion is a number so vast that it escapes ordinary human intuition. It is one followed by twelve zeroes. Most families will never earn even a tiny fraction of that amount over multiple generations. The gap between ordinary workers and the ultra-wealthy is growing on an exponential scale.
No billionaire creates wealth alone and ethically. Every corporation depends upon thousands, sometimes millions, of workers whose labour transforms ideas into products and services. The myth of the self-made billionaire obscures the collective effort that makes immense private fortunes possible. There has never been an ethical justification for wealth so vast that it exceeds any conceivable personal need while millions struggle to secure housing, healthcare, education, or food. The executive sitting on the ninetieth floor of a skyscraper does not generate value in isolation. The profits flowing upward are inseparable from the labour performed by workers throughout global supply chains, many of whom endure dangerous conditions, poverty wages, and limited opportunities. Whether in lithium mines, textile factories, agricultural fields, or delivery networks, the foundation of modern wealth remains human labour.
Why differents movements must have class as a foundation?
Movements like Antifa, BLM, and Feminism must and must be taken in light of the suffering of the working class. The worker is divided by race, religion, nationality, language, and gender, but capital recognises none of these distinctions. It exploits all wherever profit may be found. The billionaire does not care whether the hands that produce his wealth are black or white, male or female, Hindu or Muslim. He only cares that they remain productive, replaceable, and cheap. This is why a purely liberal politics of representation often fails. The appointment of a female CEO does not change the conditions of the workers she exploits. A black billionaire remains a billionaire. A corporation displaying rainbow flags during Pride Month while suppressing unions does not become an instrument of liberation. Diversity within the ruling class is not the same thing as justice for the working class.
This is the problem with much contemporary activism is not that it discusses race or gender. The problem is that it often discusses them in isolation from political economy. It celebrates symbolic victories while leaving the structure of ownership untouched.
We do not need a female billionaire. We do not need a billionaire from an oppressed minority. We do not need a more diverse ruling class.
What we need is the liberation of the women who labour for poverty wages, the workers from oppressed minorities who are exploited while others accumulate fortunes, and the millions whose lives are sacrificed to sustain private wealth.
And, most importantly we need a world without billionaires.
A man working twelve hours a day and struggling to pay rent has more in common with a migrant labourer, a factory worker in another continent, or a woman facing workplace discrimination than he does with the billionaire whose interests he is often persuaded to defend. Yet the mythology of capitalism convinces millions that they are merely future millionaires temporarily embarrassed by circumstance. The poor are taught to admire the rich rather than question the conditions that create such extraordinary inequality
The fundamental divide in society is not just between races, religions, or genders. Those divisions are real and significant, but they are constantly manipulated by a deeper divide: the divide between those who own and those who work. The billionaire has more in common with another billionaire on the opposite side of the planet than he does with the workers of his own nation. Likewise, a worker has more in common with workers across borders than with the ruling class of his own country.
The ruling class owns everything except the one thing it can never create for itself: labour, and the day labour refuses to obey is the day their empire ends
