Marx & Engels, ‘The Communist Manifesto: Bourgeois
and Proletarians’ [MtP, 12 pp]
The history of all hitherto existing society2 is the history of class struggles
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master3 and journeyman, in a word,
oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted,
now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of
society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes
Bourgeoisie = the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and
employers of wage labour
Proletariat = the class of modern wage-labourers who, having no means of production of their own,
are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live
In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society
into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank
The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away
with class antagonisms
Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature
it has simplified class antagonisms
From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns
The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising
bourgeoisie
The feudal system of industry, in which industrial production was monopolised by closed guilds, now
no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets
Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising
Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the
way
We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of
development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange
Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political
advance of that class
The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part
The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic
relations
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with
reverent awe
The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family
relation to a mere money relation
12
and Proletarians’ [MtP, 12 pp]
The history of all hitherto existing society2 is the history of class struggles
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master3 and journeyman, in a word,
oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted,
now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of
society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes
Bourgeoisie = the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and
employers of wage labour
Proletariat = the class of modern wage-labourers who, having no means of production of their own,
are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live
In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society
into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank
The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away
with class antagonisms
Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature
it has simplified class antagonisms
From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns
The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising
bourgeoisie
The feudal system of industry, in which industrial production was monopolised by closed guilds, now
no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets
Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising
Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the
way
We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of
development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange
Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political
advance of that class
The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part
The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic
relations
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with
reverent awe
The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family
relation to a mere money relation
12
