poly of the means of
production--and these are few--and those who have been robbed
(expropriated) of them--and these are the great majority.

_Warriors_ and _shepherds_ in the primitive societies, as soon as first,
family and then individual ownership of land has superseded the
primitive collectivism; _patricians_ and _plebeians_--_feudatories_ and
_vassals_--_nobles_ and _common people_--_bourgeoisie_ and
_proletariat_; these are so many manifestations of one and the same
fact--the monopoly of wealth on one side, and productive labor on the
other.

Now, the great importance of the Marxian law--the struggle between
classes--consists principally in the fact that it indicates with great
exactness _just what_ is in truth the vital point of the social question
and _by what method_ its solution may be reached.

As long as no one had shown on positive evidence the economic basis of
the political, juridical and moral life, the aspirations of the great
majority for the amelioration of social conditions aimed vaguely at the
demand and the partial conquest of some _accessory_ instrumentality,
such as freedom of worship, political suffrage, public education, etc.
And certainly, I have no desire to deny the great utility of these
conquests.

But the _sancta sanctorum_ always remained impenetrable to the eyes of
the masses, and as economic power continued to be the privilege of a
few, all the conquests and all the concessions had no real basis,
separated, as they were, from the solid and fecund foundation which
alone can give life and abiding power.

Now, that Socialism has shown--even before Marx, but never before with
so much scientific precision--that individual ownership, private
property in land and the means of production is the vital point of the
question--the problem is formulated in exact terms in the consciousness
of contemporaneous humanity.

What method will it be necessary to employ in order to abolish this
monopoly of economic power, and the mass of suffering and ills, of hate
and injustice which flow from it?

The method of the _Class Struggle_, based on the scientifically proven
fact that every class tends to preserve and increase its acquired
advantages and privileges, teaches the class deprived of economic power
that in order to succeed in conquering it, the struggle (we will
consider, further on, the forms of this struggle) must be a struggle of
class against class, and not of individual against individua