The Free Development Of Each Is

From Section II of The Communist Manifesto (1848), co-authored with Karl Marx, this sentence closes the programmatic description of a communist society. It is one of the Manifesto's most philosophically precise formulations: Marx and Engels are not advocating collectivism at the expense of individuality but arguing that genuine individual development is only possible when the social conditions for it are available to everyone, not just to those with capital. The idea prefigures later debates within socialist thought between those who prioritized collective solidarity and those who emphasized individual emancipation.