Did Marx & Engels disagree with ALL private enterprise?

Question

For instance, even people people using stalls or newspapers to sell their own goods? What about self employed shopkeepers who did not expand beyond their own premeses? Did they even condemn the trading of one off items between freinds and assosciates?

Answer 1

No. Stalls, "for sale" ads in newspapers, self-employed shopkeepers, and personal trading are not against the Marxian conception.

A socialist who actually adheres to Marx's and Engels' conceptions would not want to nationalize every cafe, news-stand or ice cream parlor -- just the "commanding heights" of the economy, that is big businesses like medicine, steel, telephone, power plants, etc. Personal sales like what you describe would certainly be permitted.

Small businesses are now under the thumb of the big companies that are their suppliers. In a socialist economy, state entities would be their suppliers, and in many cases they would actually receive price breaks because the small business would be classified as socially useful and a socialist would want to subsidize them. Small cafes and bars where people congregate, that provide social centers to their areas, would be an example.

The only example of the "nationalize everything" thing in real life, rather than in right-wingers' imaginations, took place in Cuba when Che Guevarra was Minister of the Economy. He ordered the nationalization of even ice cream wagons on the street. It was a miserable failure, and like the honorable man he was, he admitted it, and back-tracked to a more sensible policy.

***EDIT
"Justgood"'s quote is a great example of Marxian explanations of how the proletariat is formed under capitalism, and how small businessmen become proletarians when they are attacked by big business. However, it has nothing to do with the point we're discussing.

Marx and Engels made distinctions many times between PRIVATE property and PERSONAL property. Socialists do not want to take away your air conditioner, your coffeepot, or your little one-person hairdressing salon.

However, if you own a controlling interest in an oil company, yes, you betcha -- we DO want to take that away.

Answer 2

Yes is ths short answer. "The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property. "
Karl Marx

In the Communist manifesto we read:"The lower strata of the middle class -- the small tradespeople,
shopkeepers, retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and
peasants -- all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly
because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale
on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the
competition with the large capitalists, partly because their
specialized skill is rendered worthless by the new methods of
production. Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes
of the population."

Answer 3

Their biggest fear was the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoise and the 'inevitable' future of the proletariat becoming a commodity.

Answer 4

No. They disagreed with corporations being actual entities.

Answer 5

No, they did not.