97 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
97 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "First Topic in Curriculum"
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has_syllabi: ["firstsyllabus.md ","secondsyllabus.md"]
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---
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# First Topic in Curriculum
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This should work more as an example than anything else. But one could edit and play with it...
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"some title"
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> some blockquote
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The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history
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of class struggles.
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Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf,
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guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed,
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stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an
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uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time
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ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at
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large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
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In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a
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complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a
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manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have
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patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages,
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feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices,
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serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate
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gradations.
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The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins
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of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It
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has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression,
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new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. Our epoch, the
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epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive
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feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a
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whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps,
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into two great classes, directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie
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and Proletariat.
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From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers
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of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements
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of the bourgeoisie were developed.
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The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up
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fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and
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Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with
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the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in
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commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to
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industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the
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revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid
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development.
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The feudal system of industry, under which industrial production
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was monopolised by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the
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growing wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took
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its place. The guild-masters were pushed on one side by the
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manufacturing middle class; division of labour between the
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different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of
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labour in each single workshop.
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Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising.
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Even manufacture no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and
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machinery revolutionised industrial production. The place of
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manufacture was taken by the giant, Modern Industry, the place of
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the industrial middle class, by industrial millionaires, the
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leaders of whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.
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Modern industry has established the world-market, for which the
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discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an
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immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication
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by land. This development has, in its time, reacted on the
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extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce,
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navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the
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bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the
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background every class handed down from the Middle Ages.
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We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the
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product of a long course of development, of a series of
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revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange.
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Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied
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by a corresponding political advance of that class. An
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oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility, an
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armed and self-governing association in the mediaeval commune;
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here independent urban republic (as in Italy and Germany),
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there taxable "third estate" of the monarchy (as in France),
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afterwards, in the period of manufacture proper, serving either
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the semi-feudal or the absolute monarchy as a counterpoise
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against the nobility, and, in fact, corner-stone of the great
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monarchies in general, the bourgeoisie has at last, since the
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establishment of Modern Industry and of the world-market,
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conquered for itself, in the modern representative State,
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exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern State is
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but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole
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bourgeoisie.
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