Isaac Chan’s Reviews > The Communist Manifesto > Status Update
Isaac Chan
is on page 22 of 68
Note 2/2:
I get what you're saying: that rationalism in the Enlightenment, i.e. the birth of modern philosophy, destroyed medieval dogma by grounding all human knowledge on reason. But Christian ideas are deeply compatible with rationalism! Take Descartes. To understand the world with the reason imbued in us by God is a very Christian notion.
— Apr 10, 2026 06:27AM
I get what you're saying: that rationalism in the Enlightenment, i.e. the birth of modern philosophy, destroyed medieval dogma by grounding all human knowledge on reason. But Christian ideas are deeply compatible with rationalism! Take Descartes. To understand the world with the reason imbued in us by God is a very Christian notion.
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Isaac’s Previous Updates
Isaac Chan
is on page 22 of 68
Note 1/2:
What was M&E's conception of the state?
It is clear from the Manifesto that they view the state as a corrupted apparatus of the bourgeoisie. I can imagine where this is coming from (although they don't articulate it): the pre-industrial world was agrarian. If you were not a landowner, you were a peasant, and you could only rent land from the landlords at absurdly high rates, because modern labour ...
— Apr 10, 2026 06:28AM
What was M&E's conception of the state?
It is clear from the Manifesto that they view the state as a corrupted apparatus of the bourgeoisie. I can imagine where this is coming from (although they don't articulate it): the pre-industrial world was agrarian. If you were not a landowner, you were a peasant, and you could only rent land from the landlords at absurdly high rates, because modern labour ...
Isaac Chan
is on page 22 of 68
Note 1/2:
M&E passingly remark that Christian ideas succumbed to rationalist ideas in the 18th century.
What?
— Apr 10, 2026 06:27AM
M&E passingly remark that Christian ideas succumbed to rationalist ideas in the 18th century.
What?
Isaac Chan
is on page 12 of 68
Note 1/2:
M&E's dichotomy of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie makes me think: was there not even a concept of the middle class in M&E's time?
2 things to think about:
i) M&E explicitly discuss the small business owner. This class owns capital, they hire labour, they are definitely capitalists in their own right. But M&E claim that over time, even this class will get subsumed into the proletariat, because they ...
— Apr 04, 2026 11:08PM
M&E's dichotomy of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie makes me think: was there not even a concept of the middle class in M&E's time?
2 things to think about:
i) M&E explicitly discuss the small business owner. This class owns capital, they hire labour, they are definitely capitalists in their own right. But M&E claim that over time, even this class will get subsumed into the proletariat, because they ...
Isaac Chan
is on page 6 of 68
Note 3/3:
Furthermore, M&E's sweeping, oversimplified narrative of how the totality of history's classes have now subsumed into the bourgeoisie and the proletariat seem as un-nuanced as Hayek's 'Road to Serfdom'.
— Apr 01, 2026 06:22AM
Furthermore, M&E's sweeping, oversimplified narrative of how the totality of history's classes have now subsumed into the bourgeoisie and the proletariat seem as un-nuanced as Hayek's 'Road to Serfdom'.
Isaac Chan
is on page 6 of 68
Note 2/3:
ideas of liberty and equality. Without ideas, materialist forces (such as Piketty's r > g) can only form economic PHENOMENA (such as capitalists becoming increasingly richer than labourers) but cannot trigger class struggle. I also do not understand why Marx posited materialism when key Marxist concepts like class consciousness seem fundamentally idealist.
— Apr 01, 2026 06:22AM
ideas of liberty and equality. Without ideas, materialist forces (such as Piketty's r > g) can only form economic PHENOMENA (such as capitalists becoming increasingly richer than labourers) but cannot trigger class struggle. I also do not understand why Marx posited materialism when key Marxist concepts like class consciousness seem fundamentally idealist.
Isaac Chan
is on page 6 of 68
Note 1/3:
Marx and Engels (henceforth 'M&E') say that the history of mankind is the history of class struggle. If so, is it not clear that the history of class struggle is rooted in the idealist Dialectic? Do M&E think that class struggles are purely rooted in materialism? How is it possible for classes to struggle without priority in ideas? In my view, a slave will only revolt against his master if he first had ...
— Apr 01, 2026 06:21AM
Marx and Engels (henceforth 'M&E') say that the history of mankind is the history of class struggle. If so, is it not clear that the history of class struggle is rooted in the idealist Dialectic? Do M&E think that class struggles are purely rooted in materialism? How is it possible for classes to struggle without priority in ideas? In my view, a slave will only revolt against his master if he first had ...
