no longer break the machines to pieces as they did on the Rhine in
1848.

But while the discovery of these impelling forces of history was
entirely impossible in all other periods, on account of the complicated
and hidden interrelations with their effects, our present period has so
far simplified these relations that the problem can be solved. Since the
establishment of the great industry, at least since the peace of Europe
in 1815, it has been no longer a secret to anyone in England that the
whole political fight has been for supremacy between two classes, the
landed aristocracy and the middle-class. In France, with the return of
the Bourbons, the same fact was perceived; the writers of history, from
Thierry to Guizot, Mignet, and Thiers in particular, pronounce it as a
key to an understanding of French history, especially since the Middle
Ages. And since 1830 the working class, the proletariat, has been
recognized as the third competitor for mastery in both countries.
Circumstances had become so simplified that one would have had to close
his eyes not to see in the fight of these three classes and in the
conflict of their interests, the moving forces of modern history, at
least in the two most advanced countries.

But how came these classes into existence? If the great feudal ancient
property in land can have its origin ascribed to political causes
through forcible seizure of territories, this could not be done as
regards the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. There are in this case
clearly exposed the origin and progress of two great economic classes
from plain and evident economic causes. And it was just as clear that in
the fight between the landholding class and the bourgeoisie, no less
than in that between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, economic
interests were the most important, and that political force served only
as a mere means of furthering these.

The bourgeoisie and the proletariat both arose as results of a change in
economic conditions, or, strictly speaking, in methods of production.
The transition, first from hand labor, controlled by the gilds, to
manufacture and thence from manufacture to the greater industry, with
steam and machine force, has developed these two classes. At a certain
stage new forces of production were set in motion by the bourgeoisie,
following upon the division of labor and the union of many different
kinds of labor in one united manufacture, and the methods of exchange
and