Bourgeoisie
replied with grapeshot in 1848.

It was not until between twenty to thirty years later, at a time when
the popular masses were invited to express their mind in the
International Working Men's Association, that Socialism spoke in the
name of the people, and formulating itself little by little in the
Congresses of the great Association and later on among its successors,
arrived at some such conclusion as the following:

All accumulated wealth is the product of the labour of all--of the
present and of all preceding generations. This hall in which we are now
assembled derives its value from the fact that it is situated in
Paris--this magnificent city built by the labours of twenty successive
generations. If this same hall were conveyed amid the snows of Siberia
its value would be next to nothing. The machinery which you have
invented and patented bears within itself the intelligence of five or
six generations and is only possessed of value because it forms part of
that immense whole that we call the progress of the nineteenth century.
If you send your lace-making machine among the natives of New Guinea it
will become valueless. We defy any man of genius of our times to tell us
what share his intellect has had in the magnificent deductions of the
book, the work of talent which he has produced! Generations have toiled
to accumulate facts for him, his ideas have perhaps been suggested to
him by a locomotive crossing the plains, as for elegance of design he
has grasped it while admiring the Venus of Milo or the work of Murillo,
and finally, if his book exercises any influence over us, it does so,
thanks to all the circumstances of our civilisation.

Everything belongs to all! We defy anyone soever to tell us what share
of the general wealth is due to each individual. See the enormous mass
of appliances which the nineteenth century has created; behold those
millions of iron slaves which we call machines, and which plane and saw,
weave and spin for us, separate and combine the raw materials, and work
the miracles of our times. No one has the right to monopolise any one of
these machines and to say to others--"This is mine, if you wish to make
use of it you must pay me a tax on each article you produce," any more
than the feudal lord of the middle ages had the right to say to the
cultivator--"This hill and this meadow are mine and you must pay me
tribute for every sheaf of barley you bind, and on each haycock you hea