Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.Yea, verily, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. It's from the first section of what is popularly known in English as the Communist Manifesto. A pamphlet, it was first published in German on 21 February 1848. An English edition quickly followed, most other European languages soon after.
The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.
Twenty-first February!
One hundred and fifty-plus years later, The Manifesto of the Communist Party is online at numerous sites, including: Marxists.org
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