Capitalist production...was necessary to develop the productive forces of society to a level which will make possible an equal development worthy of human beings for all members of society. All earlier forms of society were too poor for this.
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Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels (English /ˈɛŋɡəlz/ or /ˈɛŋəlz/; German: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈɛŋəls]; 28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895) was a German philosopher, social scientist, journalist, and businessman. He founded Marxist theory together with Karl Marx. In 1845, he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research in Manchester. In 1848, he co-authored The Communist Manifesto with Marx, though he also authored and co-authored (primarily with Marx) many other works, and later he supported Marx financially to do research and write Das Kapital. After Marx's death, Engels edited the second and third volumes. Additionally, Engels organised Marx's notes on the Theories of Surplus Value, which he later published as the "fourth volume" of Capital. He also made contributions to family economics. 2Biography 3Early years Friedrich Engels was born on 28 November 1820 in Barmen, Province of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, Prussia (now Wuppertal, Germany). Barmen was an expanding industrial metropolis, and Friedrich was the eldest son of a wealthy German cotton textile manufacturer. His father, Friedrich, Sr., was a Pietistic Protestant, and Engels was raised accordingl
Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another.
Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.
Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.
The free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
That the mutual affection of the people concerned should be the one paramount reason for marriage, outweighing everything else, was and always had been absolutely unheard of in the practice of the ruling classes; that sort of thing only happened in romance – or among the oppressed classes, which did…
Naked greed has been the moving spirit of civilization from the first day of its existence to the present time; wealth, more wealth, and wealth again; wealth not of society, but of this shabby individual was its sole and determining aim.
With the pairing family, therefore, the abduction and barter of women began—widespread symptoms, and nothing but that, of a new and much more profound change.
What is good for the ruling class, is alleged to be good for the whole of society with which the ruling class identifies itself.
The emancipation of woman will only be possible when woman can take part in production on a large, social scale, and domestic work no longer claims anything but an insignificant amount of her time.
Everywhere the proletariat develops in step with the bourgeoisie. In proportion, as the bourgeoisie grows in wealth, the proletariat grows in numbers.
The capitalists soon had everything in their hands and nothing remained to the workers.
There have always been poor and working classes; and the working class have mostly been poor. But there have not always been workers and poor people living under conditions as they are today.