The serf, in the period of serfdom, raised
himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty
bourgeois, under the yoke of feudal absolutism, managed to
develop into a bourgeois. The modern laborer, on the contrary,
instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and
deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He
becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than
population and wealth. And here it becomes evident, that the
bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in
society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society
as an over-riding law. It is unfit to rule because it is
incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his
slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a
state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him.
Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other
words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.
The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of
the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of
capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour
rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. The
advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the
bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to
competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to
association.
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