Blog 5- Manifestoon!

Jesse Drew’s “Manifestoon” transcript of Karl Marx’s “Communist Manifesto” parallels Noam Chomsky’s propaganda model. Marx describes the social divide between the bourgeoisie and the proletariats. Where the bourgeoisie is “the executive of the modern state” and essentially has total control over the nation, similar to Chomsky’s media. Marx discusses the oppression that the proletariats endure under the bourgeoisie thumb, and how they are manipulated to the executives’ liking.
What struck me when I was reading the transcript was that the manifesto said that the bourgeoisie concentrates “property in a few hands.” This concentration of power is similar to Chomsky’s argument that the nation is controlled by the media which is in turn controlled by a select number of corporations. The ideas that the proletariats are exposed to are the ideas of a few men and are in the bourgeoisie’s best interest not in the people’s best interest. The media and the bourgeoisie do this in a callous way that does not put care about people’s relationships to one another or their nation, rather considering them as business pawns or “cash payment.” Chomsky and Marx both parallel the ruthlessness of media and the bourgeoisie respectively. They both describe how the elite like to embed themselves in every aspect of every life in order to manipulate and dictate how society should run, in their eyes.
The power of the non-elite is little to none, although the elite make them feel as if they have the power of free speech. However, the means to spread the message is not available, so although the non-elite may have an opinion and may have something to share, they do not have a means to share it, essentially being marginalized by the media or bourgeoisie.