Karl Marx believed that the future history of the world was deterministic. During his lifetime there were pockets of revolutionary activity that arose in Germany, Austria and Russia. Marx saw it and saw a pattern – a pattern that could only be created by capitalism. The beginning of the end of capitalism for Marx was the end of perfect competition, when monopolies would rise and drive down wages. Demand would fall along with wages, and thus these monopolies would also profit. After that, Marx thought, revolution would be inevitable. Marx believed that after the revolution class systems would end. Without class systems there would be no more exploitation of workers, since everyone would find themselves in equilibrium. Without a class system, there would be no government, as the purpose of government is to protect the exploited masses. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayThe first step in Marx's revolutionary spiral is the end of perfect competition and the rise of monopoly capitalism. Perfect competition exists when there are many sellers, too many to individually and mechanically control market prices. Monopoly capitalism occurs when there is only one seller, this seller does not face competition from other sellers and therefore has full control over market prices and can guide them wherever he wants. Rae observes: “Serious monopolies are always present in things that people need and for which they cannot easily find substitutes.” Monopolies thrive when the advancement of technology thrives. Technology advances through what Joseph Schumpeter called “creative destruction”: through the creation of new technologies comes the destruction of old technologies. As technology advances, there is a greater possibility of increasing production rates. To explain it to myself, I imagined an assembly line. In the past, workers who manually assembled the parts of a product ran assembly lines. However, as technology has advanced, the assembly line has become mechanized and manufacturing is now largely done by machines. For this reason, only a fraction of the workforce needed before is needed now. This new technology increases the production rate; more output per hour is created than before and profit increases dramatically. Manual labor is not considered as significant as it once was, and because less labor is needed, there is a larger labor pool to choose from. This shifts power in favor of the capitalist, who can drive down wages with little to no consequences. Schumpeter saw creative destruction as the only thing that could sustain economic growth. Creative destruction has the ability to destroy existing monopolies however, as described above, it also leads to increased profit rates. Marx, on the other hand, saw creative destruction as the springboard from which capitalism could thrive and was critical of the effects creative destruction had on workers. Please note: this is just an example. Get a customized document from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay During his time, Marx saw creative destruction happening more frequently and the effect it had on monopolies. He also saw revolutions arising around him and saw the two as directly related. He saw a pattern and believed he could predict the end of capitalism.