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Reading Description:
Marx, K. (2010). Theories of society : human history as class conflict. In A. Giddens & P. W.
Sutton. (Eds.), Sociology : introductory readings (3rd Ed.) (pp. 21-24). Cambridge, UK
: Polity.

Reading Description Disclaimer:

(This reference information is provided as a guide only, and may not conform to the required
referencing standards for your subject)
4. Human History as
Class Conflict

J(arl Marx

1. Bourgeois and proletarians1

The discovery of America, the rounding of the

The history of all hitherto existing society2 is the Cape, opened up fresh ground f(>r the rising bour

history of class struggles. geoisie. The East Indian .md Chinese markets, the

freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord colonization of America, trade with the colonies,

and serf� guild-masters' and journeyman, in a the increase in the means of exchange and in com

word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant modities generally, gave to commerce, to naviga·

opposition to one another; carried on an uninter tion, to industry, an impulse never bd(>re known,

ntptcd, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that and thereby, to the revolutionary clement in the

each time ended, either in a revolutionary recon tottering feudal society, a rapid development.

stitution of society at large, or in the common The feudal system of industry, under which

ntin of the contending classes. industrial production was monopolized by closed

In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost guilds, now no longer sufficed f(>r the growing

everywhere a complicated arrangement of society wants of the new markets. The manufacturing

into various orders, a manifold gradation of social system took its place. The guild-masters were

rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, pushed on one side by the manufKturing middle

knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, class; division of labour between the different cor

feudal lord•;, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, porate guilds vanished in the tacc of division of

apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, labour in each single workshop.

again, subor dinate gradations. Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the

The modern bourgeois society that has demand ever rising. Even manufacture no longer

sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery revo

done away with class antagonisms. It has but lutionized industrial production. The place of

established new classes, new conditions of manutacture was taken by the giant, modern

oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the industry, the place of the industrial middle class,

old ones. by industrial millionaires, the leaders of whole

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, pos industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.

sesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has Modern industry has established the world

sim plified the class antagonisms. Society as a market, f(x which the discovery of America paved
whole is more and more splitting up into two the way. This market has given an immense

great hostile camps, into two great classes directly devel opment to commerce, to navigation, to

facing each other: bourgeoisie and proletariat. commu nication by land. This development has,

from the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the in its turn, reacted on the extension of industry;

chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From and in proportion as industry, commerce,

these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoi navigation, railways extended, in the same

sie were developed. proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased

its capital, and
22 KARL MARX
pushed into the background every class handed
down from the Middle Ages.
We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoi sie
is itself the product of a long course of devel
opment, of a series of revolutions in the modes of
production and of exchange.
r. . l-
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. It has pitilessly torn asunder the
motley teudal tics that bound man to his 'natural
superiors', and has left remaining no other nexus
between man and man than naked self-interest,
than callous 'cash payment'. It has drowned the
most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of
chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimental
ism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It
has resolved personal worth into exchange value,
and in place of the numberless indefeasible char
tered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscio
nable freedom - tree trade, in one word, for
exploitation, veiled by religious and political illu
sions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct,
brutal exploitation.
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every
occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to
with reverent awe. It has converted the physician,
the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of
science, into its paid wage labourers.
The bourgeoisie has torn away from
family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the
family relation to a mere money relation.
The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to
pass that the brutal display of vigour in the
Middle Ages, which reactionists so much admire,
found its fitting complement in the most slothftll
indo lence. It has been the first to show what
man's activity can bring about. It
accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian
pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic
cathedrals; it has con ducted expeditions that put
in the shade all former exoduses of nations and
crusades.
HUMAN HISTORY AS CLASS CONFLICT 23
The bourgeoisie cannot exist without con creations of individual nations become common chemistry to industry and ,lgriculture, steam navi
stantly revolutionizing the instruments of property. National onc-sidedncss and Iurro\\· g.ltion, railw,ws, electric telegr,lphs, clc,lring of
produc tion, and thereby the relations of mindedness become more and more impossible, whole continents f(>r cultivation, Llluliz,ltion of
production, and with them the whole relations of and from the numerous national and local litera ri\-ers, whole popuLnions conjured out of the
society. Conser vation of the old modes of tures, there arises a world literature. ground- wh,lt c,1rlin centurv had even ,l presenti
production in unaltered form, was, on the The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of ment that such productive t(>rces slumbcred in the
contrary, the first condition of existence for all all instruments of production, by the immcnseh· bp or soci.1l L1bour1
earlier industrial classes. Constant facilitated means of communication, draws ,1ll, VVc see then: the me,ms or production and of
revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted eYen the most barbarian, nations into civiliz,ltion. exclunge, on whose t(nmdation the bourgeoisie
disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting The cheap prices of its commodities arc the hean built itself up, were generated in kud,ll societv.
uncertainty and agitation distinguish the artillery with which it batters down all Chinese At ,\ certain stage in the development of these
bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All w,1lls, with which it fixces the barbarians intcn�ely
' means of production and of exchange, the condi
fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ob�tinate hatred of f(xeigncrs to capitulate. It tions under which kudal society produced ,md
ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to exch,mged, the kud,ll org,miz,ltion of agriculture
are swept away, all new-formed ones become adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it ,md m,lnubcturing industrv, in one word, the
anti quated before they can ossifY. All that is compels them to introduce what it calls civiliza fCudal relations or property bec1me no longer
solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, tion into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois comp.ltiblc \\ ith the already developed productive
and man is at last compelled to face with sober themselves. In one word, it creates a world after f(>rccs; they bcc,lme so nuny ktters. They had to
senses, his real conditions of lite, and his relations its own image. be burst asunder; they were burst asunder.
with his kind. The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to Into their place stepped ti-ec competition,
The need of a constantly expanding market the rule of the towns. It has created enormous ,lccomp,micd by ,l soci,ll ,md politic1l constitution
for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the cities, has greatly increased the urban popubtion ,lLLlptcd to it, and by the economic1l ,md political
whole surface of the globe. It must nestle every as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued sw,w of the bourgeois cl,1ss.
where, settle everywhere, establish connections a consider,1blc part of the population fi·om the A similar movement i� going on bd(>rc our m\
everywhere. idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the country ·n eyes. Modern bourgeois societ\' with it'> rela
The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation dependent on the towns, so it has made b,1rluri,1n tions of production, of exchange and of property,
of and semi-b,1rbarian countries dependent on the society th,lt has conjured up such gig,mtic
,\
the world market given a cosmopolitan character ciYilizcd ones, nations of peasants on 1utions of means of production ,md of cxch,mge, is like the
to production and consumption in every country. bourgeois, the East on the West. sor cerer, who is no longer able to control the
To the great chagrin of reactionists, it has drawn The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing powers of the nether world whom he has called up
from under the feet of industry the national aw,w with the scattered state of the population, by his spells. [ ... J
ground on which it stood. All old-established of the means of production, and of property. It
national industries have been destroyed or are ha� .1gglomeratcd population, centralized mcms The wcapom with which the bourgeoisie felled
the
daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by of production, and has concentrated propcrt\' in kudalism to the ground are now turned against
new industries, whose introduction becomes a a kw hands. The necessary consequence of this the bourgeoisie itself
life and death question for all civilized nations, was political centralization. Independent, or but But not only has the bourgeoisie t<>rgcd the
by indus· tries that no longer work up loosely connected provinces, with separate weapons tlut bring death to itsclt; it has also
indigenous raw mate rial, but raw material inter ests, laws, governments and systems of called into existence the men who arc to wield
drawn from the remotest zones; industries taxation, beumc lumped together into one those weapons - the modern working class -
whose products are consumed, not only at home, nation, \\·ith the proletarians.
but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the one government, one code of laws, one national In proportion a� the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital,
old wants, satisfied by the productions of the class interest, one frontier and one customs tariff is developed, in the same proportion is the prole
has
country, we find new wants, The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one tariat, the modern working class, developed - a
requiring for their satisfaction the products of hundred years, has created more massive and class of labourers, who live only so long as they
distant lands and climes. In place of the old local more colossal productive t(Jrccs than have all find work, and who find work only so long as
and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we preceding generations together. Subjection of their labour increases capital These labourers,
.
have intercourse in every direction; univer sal nature's t(Jrces to man, machiner , application of
y
who
interdependence of nations. And as in material,
so also in intellectual production. The intellectual
24 KARL MARX

must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity,

foundation from which all Teutonic races
like every other article of commerce, and are con
started in history, and by and by village com
sequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of com
munities were found to be, or to have been
petition, to all the fluctuations of the market.
the primitive form of society everywhere from
India to Ireland. The inner organization of
NOTES this primitive communistic society was laid
bare, in its typical form, by Morgan's crown
l. By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern
ing discovery of the true nature of the
capitalists, owners of the means of social
gens and its relation to the tribe. With the
pro duction and employers of wage labour.
dissolution of these primeval communities
By proletariat, the class of modern wage
society begins to be differentiated into
labour ers who, having no means of
separate and finally antagonistic classes. I
production of their own, are reduced to
have attempted to retrace this process of dis
selling their labour power in order to live
solution in: Der Ursprung der Familie, des
[Engels].
Privateigentums und des Staats (The Origin of
2. That is, all written history. In 1847, the pre
the Family, Private Property and the State)
history of society, the social organization
[Engels].
existing previous to recorded history, was
3. Guild-master, that is, a full member of J
all but unknown. Since then, Haxthausen
guild, a master within, not a head of a guild
discovered common ownership of land in
[Engels].
Russia, Maurer proved it to be the social