The family is the fundamental basis of our society. Without the family we simply would cease to exist. Even if men and women were to continue reproducing, our society would certainly fail without the strength of the family to raise the children and make new leaders out of them. Karl Marx and Adam Smith, with their opposing views on government and economics, leave plenty of ideas and subjects to be evaluated and discussed. Marx, in his famous document The Communist Manifesto, discusses the communist views on the family and its role in economics. Not only do I believe his views are nonapplicable in our society today, but I believe they were never applicable to any society. The concept of families has existed since the beginning of time, and continues to be a strengthening principle of economics in our society today. .
Marx does not think highly of the family, and does not believe that its role is at all vital in the world. In fact, he calls it "disgusting" and claims that the family "in its completely developed form exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds it complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution" (pg. 237). Marx is suggesting that the family should not even exist as things are much more "practical" without it. He also claims that the bourgeoisie "has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation" (238). Marx makes more harsh statements regarding the family. He believes that modern industry reduces the importance of the family even more. It makes it "all the more disgusting," and as a result "all family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labor" (pg. 238). In regards to the husband and wife relationship in a family Marx claims that "the bourgeois sees in his wife a mere instrument of production" (pg.