Marx believed that society was based on class struggles. He believed that the Bourgeoisie dominated and ruled over many classes especially the Proletariat. Bourgeoisie owned the means of production and made jobs available to the Proletariat. Marx theorized that the Proletariat eventually would want to conquer the Bourgeoisie society and make the capital equal to all classes. This lead to Marx's idea of Communism in which he believed that capital and property would be distributed equally amongst all classes. The Bourgeoisie and Proletariat will become equals and therefore there will be no class struggles.
Marx designed six stages of history that would eventually lead to his form of Communism. Primitive Communism was the first stage in this outline of history. In Primitive Communism there were no social classes and it was mostly and agricultural society, eventually this society evolved into the slavery system. In this system slaves were seen as the commodity and classes were eventually formed. From slavery came feudalism, which ultimately turned to Capitalism where the Bourgeoisie and Proletariat are present. According to Turner, Beeghley, and Powers, Marx "believed that capitalism would grow like a giant octopus, spreading its tentacles over the entire globe, until nearly all human activity became debased because it was a commodity subject to purchase." (TBP, 140) Marx theorized that as capitalism grew it would crumble and would be replaced by socialism. Socialism, according to the TBP book is considered a transitory period into communism. Marx designates these periods as periods of progression into communism, but how is this progressive if it began with communism and ended up in communism? This is actually a cycle more than a line of progression. The only progression may be that our society is an industrialized one. If communism was to be the ultimate form of government then why did we switch to others instead of continuing with the one that was supposed to be the best?.
