The text is the first and most systematic attempt by Marx and Engels to codify for wide consumption the historical materialist idea that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles ", in which social classes are defined by the relationship of people to the means of production. Published amid the Revolutions of in Europe, the manifesto remains one of the world's most influential political documents.
Marx and Engels combine philosophical materialism with the Hegelian dialectical method in order to analyze the development of European society through its modes of production , including primitive communism , antiquity , feudalism , and capitalism , noting the emergence of a new, dominant class at each stage. The text outlines the relationship between the means of production, relations of production , forces of production , and the mode of production, and posits that changes in society's economic "base" affect changes in its "superstructure".
Marx and Engels assert that capitalism is marked by the exploitation of the proletariat working class of wage labourers by the ruling bourgeoisie , which is "constantly revolutionising the instruments [and] relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society".
They argue that capital's need for a flexible labour force dissolves the old relations, and that its global expansion in search of new markets creates "a world after its own image".
The Manifesto concludes that capitalism does not offer humanity the possibility of self-realization , instead ensuring that humans are perpetually stunted and alienated.
