Well, if you don't have much to say about the paternalism in this excerpt from the Communist Manifesto- then I do. Marx is incredibly paternalistic with all of his talk about common wives and free love. Yes, yes there was free love in the 1960's but in a much different sense. Marriage is a sacred act and I don't see how it is possible for a wife to be a "common" or universal wife. Just pass her around from one man to another. Marx states that this idea of free love isn't a new concept, but rather a system that has existed "almost from time immemorial." In the bourgeois marriage, many men cheat and seduce each other's wives. Marx over simplifies and generalizes everything and it is quite frustrating since not all men cheat and women are definitely not COMMUNAL PROSTITUTES. Marx wants to change up the way family is oriented, and create a legalized system of free love. According to Karl Marx, the bourgeois see his wife as a "mere instrument of production," but if we create a legalized system of free love- then how are women being treated any differently? They are still tools or instruments; however, now they are being passed around freely instead of in secret.
On a separate note, I definitely agree with your comment on how it doesn't seem that Marx has any idea what human nature is really like. Will the working people really organize themselves after abolishing the supremacy of the more powerful class? How is it even possible to have an "association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all?" Well, I can't answer my own question, so I guess we will just have to wait and watch history unfold before our very eyes.
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