Rich vs Poor

Recently in class, we have been discussing Karl Marx and his views on capitalism. This has been very interesting because, to be honest, I have heard of capitalism, but never put two and two together until last class. Basically what we have been discussing is the classes. There are only two classes under capitalism: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. These two classes are at two different extremes of the wealth scale. The bourgeoisie are the owners of the means of the production and the wealthy while the proletariat are the workers and the least wealthy. Marx goes on to say that there is a fundamental difference in the classes with the bourgeoisie producing the least and getting the most while the proletariat produce the most and receive the least. 

We also talked about the way jobs are set up. The proletariat basically see each other as competition and in order to get the job, they either have to outperform the other person, or under wage them. This means that if two people are fighting over the same job and have the same qualifications then the person who offers to work for the least amount of money will most likely get the job. This is because the less the bourgeoisie have to pay the proletariat to work, the more money they can make in profits. In addition to this we also talked about how, although the proletariat may work making cars or fancy phones, they will probably never be able to afford to purchase the items that they produce. This is what Marx calls alienated or exploited labor. Marx believes that labor is free and conscious decision and that the work that the proletariat do is far from it. They feel more like themselves when they are at home indulging in basic animal instincts (sleeping, eating, etc.) than when they are doing the one important human function of working