to antagonism of the gentiles" (Karl Marx); and
if the extension of slavery had not begun by branding work for a living
as slavish and more ignominious than plundering.

* * * * *

We have now reached the threshold of civilization. This stage is
inaugurated by a new progress in the division of labor. In the lower
stage of barbarism production was carried on for use only; any acts of
exchange were confined to single cases when a surplus was accidentally
realized. In the middle stage of barbarism we find that the possession
of cattle gave a regular surplus to the nomadic nations with
sufficiently large herds. At the same time there was a division of labor
between nomadic nations and backward nations without herds. The
existence of two different stages of production side by side furnished
the conditions necessary for a regular exchange. The upper stage of
barbarism introduced a new division of labor between agriculture and
handicrafts, resulting in the production of a continually increasing
amount of commodities for the special purpose of exchange, so that
exchange between individuals became a vital function of society.
Civilization strengthened and intensified all the established divisions
of labor, especially by rendering the contrast between city and country
more pronounced. Either the town may have the economic control over the
country, as during antiquity, or vice versa, as in the middle ages. A
third division of labor was added by civilization: it created a class
that did not take part in production, but occupied itself merely with
the exchange of products--the merchants. All former attempts at class
formation were exclusively concerned with production. They divided the
producers into directors and directed, or into producers on a more or
less extensive scale. But here a class appears for the first time that
captures the control of production in general and subjugates the
producers to its rule, without taking the least part in production. A
class that makes itself the indispensable mediator between two producers
and exploits them both under the pretext of saving them the trouble and
risk of exchange, of extending the markets for their products to distant
regions, and of thus becoming the most useful class in society; a class
of parasites, genuine social ichneumons, that skim the cream off
production at home and abroad as a reward for very insignificant
services; that rapidly amass enor