Longest usless bullshit thread ever...

Was that from a "Mad-Libs"?

 

That has GOT to be... "What are you drinking tonight" in the Beverages forum.

 

I -- BOURGEOIS AND PROLETARIANS [1]
The history of all hitherto existing society [2] is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master [3] and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.

The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other -- bourgeoisie and proletariat.

From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed.

The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development.

The feudal system of industry, in which industrial production was monopolized by closed guilds, now no longer suffices for the growing wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The guild-masters were pushed aside by the manufacturing middle class; division of labor between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labor in each single workshop.

Meantime, the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even manufacturers no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery revolutionized industrial production. The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, MODERN INDUSTRY; the place of the industrial middle class by industrial millionaires, the leaders of the whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.

Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages.

We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange.

Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance in that class. An oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility, an armed and self-governing association of medieval commune [4]: here independent urban republic (as in Italy and Germany); there taxable "third estate" of the monarchy (as in France); afterward, in the period of manufacturing proper, serving either the semi-feudal or the absolute monarchy as a counterpoise against the nobility, and, in fact, cornerstone of the great monarchies in general -- the bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of Modern Industry and of the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative state, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.

The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part.

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors", and has left no other nexus between people than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment". It has drowned out the most heavenly ecstacies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom -- Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers.

The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation into a mere money relation.

The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigor in the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It has been the first to show what man's activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former exoduses of nations and crusades.

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing 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 condition of life and his relations with his kind.

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 connections everywhere.

The bourgeoisie has, through its exploitation of the world market, given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of reactionaries, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.

The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilized ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.

The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralized the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralization. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class interest, one frontier, and one customs tariff.

The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of nature's forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalization or rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground -- what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labor?

We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organization of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder.

Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class.

A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For many a decade past, the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois and of its rule. It is enough to mention the commercial crises that, by their periodical return, put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly. In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity -- the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed. And why? Because there is too much civilization, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand, by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented.

The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself.

But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons -- the modern working class -- the proletarians.

In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed -- a class of laborers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labor increases capital. These laborers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.

Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labor, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for maintenance, and for the propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labor, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. What is more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labor increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by the increase of the work exacted in a given time, or by increased speed of machinery, etc.

Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of laborers, crowded into the factory, are organized like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army, they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois state; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, in the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is.

The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labor, in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labor of men superseded by that of women. Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labor, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex.

No sooner is the exploitation of the laborer by the manufacturer, so far at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portion of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc.

The lower strata of the middle class -- the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants -- all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production. Thus, the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population.

The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first, the contest is carried on by individual laborers, then by the work of people of a factory, then by the operative of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois condition of production, but against the instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labor, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status of the workman of the Middle Ages.

At this stage, the laborers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition. If anywhere they unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet the consequence of their own active union, but of the union of the bourgeoisie, which class, in order to attain its own political ends, is compelled to set the whole proletariat in motion, and is moreover yet, for a time, able to do so. At this stage, therefore, the proletarians do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial bourgeois, the petty bourgeois. Thus, the whole historical movement is concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory so obtained is a victory for the bourgeoisie.

But with the development of industry, the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that strength more. The various interests and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalized, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labor, and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level. The growing competition among the bourgeois, and the resulting commercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more fluctuating. The increasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious; the collisions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes. Thereupon, the workers begin to form combinations (trade unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots.

 

Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lie not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by Modern Industry, and that place the workers of different localities in contact with one another. It was just this contact that was needed to centralize the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle between classes. But every class struggle is a political struggle. And that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the modern proletarian, thanks to railways, achieve in a few years.

This organization of the proletarians into a class, and, consequently, into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier. It compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself. Thus, the Ten-Hours Bill in England was carried.

Altogether, collisions between the classes of the old society further in many ways the course of development of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle. At first with the aristocracy; later on, with those portions of the bourgeoisie itself, whose interests have become antagonistic to the progress of industry; at all time with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries. In all these battles, it sees itself compelled to appeal to the proletariat, to ask for help, and thus to drag it into the political arena. The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie.

Further, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling class are, by the advance of industry, precipitated into the proletariat, or are at least threatened in their conditions of existence. These also supply the proletariat with fresh elements of enlightenment and progress.

Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the progress of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole.

Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a genuinely revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product.

The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay, more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If, by chance, they are revolutionary, they are only so in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests; they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.

The "dangerous class", the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.

In the condition of the proletariat, those of old society at large are already virtually swamped. The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations; modern industry labor, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.

All the preceding classes that got the upper hand sought to fortify their already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their conditions of appropriation. The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. They have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property.

All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air.

Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.

In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.

Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But in order to oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at least, continue its slavish existence. The serf, in the period of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of the feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a bourgeois. The modern laborer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the process of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. And here it becomes evident that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an overriding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.

The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage labor. Wage labor rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the laborers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

 

[1] By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labor.

By proletariat, the class of modern wage laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live. [Note by Engels - 1888 English edition]

[2] That is, all _written_ history. In 1847, the pre-history of society, the social organization existing previous to recorded history, all but unknown. Since then, August von Haxthausen (1792-1866) discovered common ownership of land in Russia, Georg Ludwig von Maurer proved it to be the social foundation from which all Teutonic races started in history, and, by and by, village communities were found to be, or to have been, the primitive form of society everywhere from India to Ireland. The inner organization of this primitive communistic society was laid bare, in its typical form, by Lewis Henry Morgan's (1818-1861) crowning discovery of the true nature of the gens and its relation to the tribe. With the dissolution of the primeaval communities, society begins to be differentiated into separate and finally antagonistic classes. I have attempted to retrace this dissolution in _Der Ursprung der

Familie, des Privateigenthumus und des Staats_, second edition, Stuttgart, 1886. [Engels, 1888 English edition]

[3] Guild-master, that is, a full member of a guild, a master within, not a head of a guild. [Engels: 1888 English edition]

[4] This was the name given their urban communities by the townsmen of Italy and France, after they had purchased or conquered their initial rights of self-government from their feudal lords. [Engels: 1890 German edition]

"Commune" was the name taken in France by the nascent towns even before they had conquered from their feudal lords and masters local self-government and political rights as the "Third Estate". Generally speaking, for the economical development of the bourgeoisie, England is here taken as the typical country, for its political development, France. [Engels: 1888 English edition]



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II -- PROLETARIANS AND COMMUNISTS

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In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole? The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties.

They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.

They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mold the proletarian movement.

The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only:

(1) In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.

(2) In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.

The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.

The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.

The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer.

They merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very eyes. The abolition of existing property relations is not at all a distinctive feature of communism.

All property relations in the past have continually been subject to historical change consequent upon the change in historical conditions.

The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in favor of bourgeois property.

The distinguishing feature of communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.

In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man's own labor, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.

Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

Or do you mean the modern bourgeois private property?

But does wage labor create any property for the laborer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage labor, and which cannot increase except upon conditions of begetting a new supply of wage labor for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labor. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism.

To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social STATUS in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion.

Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power.

When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character.

Let us now take wage labor.

The average price of wage labor is the minimum wage, i.e., that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely requisite to keep the laborer in bare existence as a laborer. What, therefore, the wage laborer appropriates by means of his labor merely suffices to prolong and reproduce a bare existence. We by no means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labor, an appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labor of others. All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the laborer lives merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the ruling class requires it.

In bourgeois society, living labor is but a means to increase accumulated labor. In communist society, accumulated labor is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the laborer.

In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society, capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.

And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at.

By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying.

But if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying disappears also. This talk about free selling and buying, and all the other "brave words" of our bourgeois about freedom in general, have a meaning, if any, only in contrast with restricted selling and buying, with the fettered traders of the Middle Ages, but have no meaning when opposed to the communist abolition of buying and selling, or the bourgeois conditions of production, and of the bourgeoisie itself.

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.

In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.

From the moment when labor can no longer be converted into capital, money, or rent, into a social power capable of being monopolized, i.e., from the moment when individual property can no longer be transformed into bourgeois property, into capital, from that moment, you say, individuality vanishes.

You must, therefore, confess that by "individual" you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.

Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriations.

It has been objected that upon the abolition of private property, all work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us.

 

enough??????????????????

 

I think we need a little bit of "Etiquette" by Emily Post posted in here. Ever read any of it? Now that's some bullshit!

Flutterling gazoomba nut cake.

 

ok, ok, rebelfight wins.

 

what the hell where is my pocket?

 

Blackheartbitch... out on a limb here, but am I presently divorcing you?

 

I feel like nachos…

 

Go to Mt. Rushmore and climb in Washingtons left nostril, there will be a big white button....Press it. Then "stand" on your head and say take me to the intergalactic network backwards (krowten citcalagretni eht ot em ekat) and you will enter another dimension. Don't worry if you want to get back just visit the other dimensions "Mt. Rushmore" and say emoh ekil ecalp on si ereht. Happy Trails

 

Emily Post [size=-1](1873–1960).[/size] Etiquette. [size=-1]1922.[/size]
[size=+1]Chapter XVIII.[/size]






[size=+2]The Débutante[/size]

[size=-1]HOW A YOUNG GIRL IS PRESENTED TO SOCIETY[/size] ​

A[size=-1]NY[/size] one of various entertainments may be given to present a young girl to society. The favorite and most elaborate of these, but possible only to parents of considerable wealth and wide social acquaintance, is a ball. Much less elaborate, but equal in size, and second in favor to-day, is an afternoon tea with dancing. Third, and gaining in popularity, is a small dance, which presents the débutante to the younger set and a few of her mother’s intimate friends. Fourth, is a small tea without music. Fifth, the mere sending out of the mother’s visiting card with the daughter’s name engraved below her own, announces to the world that the daughter is eligible for invitations.[size=-2] 1[/size]

[size=-1]A BALL FOR A DÉBUTANTE[/size] ​

A ball for a débutante differs in nothing from all other balls excepting that the débutante “receives” standing beside the hostess, and furthest from the entrance, whether that happens to be on the latter’s right or left. The guests as they mount the stairs or enter the ballroom and are “announced,” approach the hostess first, who, as she shakes hands with each, turns to the débutante and says “Mrs. Worldly, my daughter.” Or “Cynthia, I want to present you to Mrs. Worldly.” (“Want to” is used on this occasion because “may I” is too formal for a mother to say to her child.) A friend would probably know the daughter; in any event the mother’s introduction would be, “You remember Cynthia, don’t you?”[size=-2] 2[/size] Each arriving guest always shakes hands with the débutante as well as with the hostess, and if there is a queue of people coming at the same time, there is no need of saying anything beyond “How do you do?” and passing on as quickly as possible. If there are no others entering at the moment, each guest makes a few pleasant remarks. A stranger, for instance, would perhaps comment on how lovely, and many, the débutante’s bouquets are, or express a hope that she will enjoy her winter, or talk for a moment or two about the “gaiety of the season” or “the lack of balls,” or anything that shows polite interest in the young girl’s first glimpse of society. A friend of her mother might perhaps say “You look too lovely, Cynthia dear, and your dress is enchanting!”[size=-2] 3[/size] Personal compliments, however, are proper only from a close friend. No acquaintance, unless she is quite old, should ever make personal remarks. An old lady or gentleman might very forgivably say “You don’t mind, my dear, if I tell you how sweet I think you look,” or “What a pretty frock you have on.” But it is bad taste for a young woman to say to another “What a handsome dress you have on!” and worst of all to add “Where did you get it?” The young girl’s particular friends are, of course, apt to tell her that her dress is wonderful, or more likely, “simply divine.”[size=-2] 4[/size] It is customary in most cities to send a débutante a bouquet at her “coming out” party. They may be “bouquets” really, or baskets, or other decorative flowers, and are sent by relatives, friends of the family, her father’s business associates, as well as by young men admirers. These “bouquets” are always banked near and if possible, around the place the débutante stands to receive. If she has great quantities, they are placed about the room wherever they look most effective. The débutante usually holds one of the bouquets while receiving, but she should remember that her choice of this particular one among the many sent her is somewhat pointed to the giver, so that unless she is willing to acknowledge one particular beau as “best” it is wiser to carry one sent by her father, or brother, especially if either send her one of the tiny 1830 bouquets that have been for a year or two in fashion, and are no weight to hold.[size=-2] 5[/size] These bouquets are about as big around as an ordinary saucer, and just as flat on top as a saucer placed upside down. The flowers chosen are rosebuds or other compact flowers, massed tightly together, and arranged in a precise pattern; for instance, three or four pink rosebuds are put in the center, around them a row of white violets, around these a single row of the pink roses, surrounded again by violets, and so on for four or five rows. The bouquet is then set in stiff white lace paper, manufactured for the purpose, the stems wrapped in white satin ribbon, with streamers of white and pink ribbons about a quarter of an inch wide and tied to hang twenty inches or so long. The colors and patterns in which these little bouquets may be made are unlimited.[size=-2] 6[/size]

[size=-1]THE DÉBUTANTE RECEIVES[/size] ​

At a ball, where the guests begin coming about half past ten, the débutante must stand beside the hostess and “receive” until at least twelve o’clock—later if guests still continue to arrive.[size=-2] 7[/size] At all coming-out parties, the débutante invites a few of her best girl friends to receive with her. Whether the party is in the afternoon or evening, these young girls wear evening dresses and come early and stay late. Their being asked to “receive” is a form of expression merely, as they never stand in line, and other than wearing pretty clothes and thus adding to the picture, they have no “duties” whatsoever.[size=-2] 8[/size]

[size=-1]AT SUPPER[/size]​

The débutante goes to supper with a partner who has surely spoken for the privilege weeks or even months beforehand. But the rest of her own table is always made up by herself; that is, it includes the young girls who are her most intimate friends, and their supper partners. Her table is usually in the center of the dining-room, but there is no especial decoration to distinguish it, except that it is often somewhat larger than the other tables surrounding it, and a footman or waiter is detailed to tell any who may attempt to take it, that it is “reserved.”[size=-2] 9[/size] After supper the débutante has no duties and is free to enjoy herself.[size=-2] 10[/size] The afternoon tea with dancing is described in the chapter on Teas and needs no further comment, since its etiquette is precisely the same as that for a ball. The débutante’s bouquets are arranged as effectively as possible, and she receives with her mother, or whoever the hostess may be, until the queue of arriving guests thins out, after which she need be occupied with nothing but her own good time, and that of her friends.[size=-2] 11[/size] Those of smaller means, or those who object to hotel rooms, ask only younger people, and give the tea in their own house. Where there are two rooms on a floor—drawing-room in front, dining-room back, and a library on the floor above, the guests are received in the drawing-room, but whether they dance in the dining-room or up in the library, depends upon which room is the larger. In either case the furniture is moved out. If possible the smallest room should be used to receive in, the largest to dance in, and the tea-table should be set in the medium one.[size=-2] 12[/size] ​

[size=-1]HOW MANY GUESTS MAY ONE ASK?[/size]​

A hostess should never try to pack her house beyond the limits of its capacity. This question of how many invitations may safely be sent out is one which each hostess must answer for herself, since beyond a few obvious generalities no one can very well advise her.[size=-2] 13[/size] Taking a hostess of “average” social position, who is bringing out a daughter of “average” attractiveness and popularity, it would be safe to say that every débutante and younger man asked to a party of any kind where there is dancing, will accept, but that not more than from half to one-third of the older people asked will put in an appearance.[size=-2] 14[/size] ​

[size=-1]LAVISH PARTIES GIVING WAY TO SIMPLE ONES[/size] ​

A ball, by the way, is always a general entertainment, meaning that invitations are sent to the entire dinner list—not only actual but potential—of the host and hostess, as well as to the younger people who are either themselves friends of the débutante, or daughters and sons of the friends and acquaintances of the hostess.[size=-2] 15[/size] A dance differs from a ball in that it is smaller, less elaborate and its invitations are limited to the contemporaries of the débutante, or at most the youngest married set.[size=-2] 16[/size] Invitations to a tea are even more general and should include a hostess’ entire visiting list, irrespective of age or even personal acquaintance. The old-fashioned visiting list of the young hostess included the entire list of her mother, plus that of her mother-in-law, to which was added all the names acquired in her own social life. It can easily be seen that this list became a formidable volume by the time her daughter was old enough to “come out,” and yet this entire list was supposed to be included in all “general” invitations![size=-2] 17[/size] In the present day, however, at least in New York, there is a growing tendency to eliminate these general or “impersonal” invitations. In smartest society, it is not even considered necessary that a “general” entertainment be given to introduce a daughter. In New York last winter there were scarcely a dozen private balls all told. Many of the most fashionable (and richest) hostesses gave dances limited to young girls of their daughters’ ages and young dancing men. Even at many of the teas-with-dancing none but young people were asked.[size=-2] 18[/size] Anyone who likes to sit on the bank and watch the tides of fashion rise and fall, cannot fail to notice that big and lavish entertainments are dwindling, and small and informal ones increasing. It is equally apparent, contrary to popular opinion, that extravagance of expenditure is growing less and less. It is years since any one has given such a ball, for instance, as the Venetian fête the Gildings gave to bring out their eldest daughter, when the entire first floor of the Fitz-Cherry was turned into a replica of Venice—canals, gondolas, and all. Or the Persian ball of the Vanstyles where the whole house was hung, as a background for Oriental costumes, with copper-gold draperies, against which stood at intervals Maxfield Parrish cypress trees. Or the moonlight dance of the Worldlys which was not a fancy dress one, but for which the ballroom was turned into a garden scene, lighted by simulated moonlight that would have added to the renown of Belasco.[size=-2] 19[/size] Such entertainments as these seem almost “out of key” with the attitude of to-day. For although fancy-dress and elaborate parties are occasionally given, they are not usually given for débutantes, nor on the scale of those mentioned above.[size=-2] 20[/size]

[size=-1]THE DÉBUTANTE’S DRESS[/size] ​

At a ball, the débutante wears her very prettiest ball dress. Old-fashioned sentiment prefers that it be white, and of some diaphanous material, such as net or gauze or lace. It ought not to look overelaborate, even though it is spangled with silver or crystal or is made of sheer lace. It should suggest something light and airy and gay and, above all, young. For a young girl to whom white is unbecoming, a color is perfectly suitable as long as it is a pale shade. She should not wear strong colors such as red, or Yale blue, and on no account black! Her mother, of course, wears as handsome a ball dress as possible, and “all her jewels.”[size=-2] 21[/size] At an afternoon tea the débutante wears an evening dress—a very simple evening dress, but an evening dress all the same. Usually a very pale color, and quite untrimmed, such as she might wear at home for dinner. Her mother wears an afternoon dress, not an evening one. Both mother and daughter wear long gloves, and neither they, nor the young girls receiving, wear hats.[size=-2] 22[/size] To describe the details of clothes is futile. Almost before this page comes from the printer, the trend may quite likely change. But the tendency of the moment is toward greater simplicity—in effect at all events.[size=-2] 23[/size]

[size=-1]IN CONFIDENCE TO A DÉBUTANTE[/size] ​

Let us pretend a worldly old godmother is speaking, and let us suppose that you are a young girl on the evening of your coming-out ball. You are excited, of course you are! It is your evening, and you are a sort of little princess! There is music, and there are lights, and there are flowers everywhere—a great ballroom massed with them, tables heaped with bouquets—all for you! You have on an especially beautiful dress—one that was selected from among many others, just because it seemed to you the prettiest. Even your mother and married sister who, “en grande tenue,” have always seemed to you dazzling figures, have for the moment become, for all their brocades and jewels, merely background; and you alone are the center of the picture. Up the wide staircase come throngs of fashionables—who mean “the world.” They are coming on purpose to bow to you! You can’t help feeling that the glittering dresses, the tiaras, the ropes of pearls and chains of diamonds of the “dowagers,” the stiff white shirt-fronts and boutonnières and perfectly fitting coats of the older gentlemen, as well as the best clothes of all the younger people, were all put on for you.[size=-2] 24[/size] You shake hands and smile sweetly to a number of older ladies and shake hands with an equal number of gentlemen, all very politely and properly. Then suddenly, half way up the stairs you see Betty and Anne and Fred and Ollie. Of course your attention is drawn to them. You are vaguely conscious that the butler is shouting some stupid name you never heard of—that you don’t care in the least about. Your mother’s voice is saying “Mrs. zzzzzz——,”[size=-2] 25[/size] Impatiently you give your hand to someone—you haven’t the slightest idea who it is. So far as your interest is concerned, you might as well be brushing away annoying flies. Your smiles are directed to Betty and Anne. As they reach the top of the stairs you dart forward and enter into an excited conversation, deliberately overlooking a lady and gentleman who, without trying further to attract your attention, pass on. Later in the winter you will perhaps wonder why you alone among your friends are never asked to Great Estates. The lady and gentleman of whom you are so rudely unaware, happen to be Mr. and Mrs. Worldly, and you have entirely forgotten that you are a hostess, and furthermore that you have the whole evening, beginning at supper, when you can talk to these friends of yours! You can dance with Fred and Ollie and Jimmy all the rest of the evening; you can spend most of your time with them for the rest of your life if you and they choose. But when you are out in public, above all at a party which is for you, your duty in commonest civility is to overcome your impulses, and behave as a grown-up person—and a well-bred grown-up person at that![size=-2] 26[/size] It takes scarcely more than ten seconds to listen to the name that is said to you, to look directly and attentively at the one to whom the name belongs, to put out your hand firmly as you would take hold of something you like, (not something that you feel an aversion to), and with a smile say “How do you do.” At your ball your mother says “Mrs. Worldly, my daughter.” You look directly at Mrs. Worldly, put out your hand, say “How do you do, Mrs. Worldly.” And she passes on. It takes no longer to be cordial and attentive than to be distrait and casual and rude, yet the impression made in a few seconds of actual time may easily gain or lose a friend for life. When no other guests are arriving, you can chatter to your own friends as much as you like, but as you turn to greet another stranger, you must show pleasure, not annoyance, in giving him your attention.[size=-2] 27[/size] A happy attitude to cultivate is to think in your own mind that new people are all packages in a grab-bag, and that you can never tell what any of them may prove to be until you know what is inside the outer wrappings of casual appearances. To be sure, the old woman of the fairy tale, who turns out to be a fairy in disguise, is not often met with in real life, but neither is her approximate counterpart an impossibility.[size=-2] 28[/size] As those who have sent you flowers approach, you must thank them; you must also write later an additional note of thanks to older people. But to your family or your own intimate friends, the verbal thanks—if not too casually made—are sufficient.[size=-2] 29[/size]

[size=-1]A FEW DON’TS FOR DÉBUTANTES[/size] ​

Don’t think that because you have a pretty face, you need neither brains nor manners. Don’t think that you can be rude to anyone and escape being disliked for it.[size=-2] 30[/size] Whispering is always rude. Whispering and giggling at the same time have no place in good society. Everything that shows lack of courtesy toward others is rude.[size=-2] 31[/size] If you would be thought a person of refinement, don’t nudge or pat or finger people. Don’t hold hands or walk arm-about-waist in public. Never put your hand on a man, except in dancing and in taking his arm if he is usher at a wedding or your partner for dinner or supper. Don’t allow anyone to paw you. Don’t hang on anyone for support, and don’t stand or walk with your chest held in, and your hips forward, in imitation of a reversed letter S.[size=-2] 32[/size] Don’t walk across a ballroom floor swinging your arms. Don’t talk or laugh loud enough to attract attention, and on no account force yourself to laugh. Nothing is flatter than laughter that is lacking in mirth. If you only laugh because something is irresistibly funny, the chances are your laugh will be irresistible too. In the same way a smile should be spontaneous, because you feel happy and pleasant; nothing has less allure than a mechanical grimace, as though you were trying to imitate a tooth-paste advertisement.[size=-2] 33[/size]

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All men are born equal

 

Eggnog is a libation traditionally served during the holiday season between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. Eggnog is made from cream or milk, egg yolks and sugar. Those who imbibe may choose to add brandy or rum to their eggnog. Those who drink eggnog are customarily supposed to drink to each other's health, though after a few glasses of spiked eggnog, most will drink to anything.

Eggnog, which translates to "egg inside a cup", actually has a bit of history behind it. It was derived from an English drink called posset. The posset contained eggs, cream and wine or other spirits. It was only a matter of time before it took on a life of its own.

Eggnog became popular in the early 19th century and was mostly enjoyed by the upper classes. During that time in London, only those who were well-to-do could afford to drink a glass of milk, let alone serve it at parties. Revelers enjoyed mixing it with a little alcohol to give it an extra "kick."

In the United States, eggnog was mostly enjoyed by those who owned milk cows. At the time, there were quite a few American dairy farmers, so eggnog was enjoyed by people of all backgrounds. Since rum was relatively inexpensive and very easy to come by, it was often mixed into the eggnog.

No one is quite sure how eggnog became the beverage of choice for holiday revelers, but it has been noted that even two hundred years ago, hosts of holiday parties would make up large batches of the concoction for their guests to enjoy throughout the evening. It is said that George Washington himself enjoyed eggnog on many occasions. His preference was to drink it with rum, rye whiskey and sherry. When he was drinking eggnog there were very few people who could keep up with him - or who would even try.

 

Unlike many sports, golf is played, for the most part, without the supervision of a referee or umpire. The game relies on the integrity of the individual to show consideration for other players and to abide by the Rules. All players should conduct themselves in a disciplined manner, demonstrating courtesy and sportsmanship at all times, irrespective of how competitive they may be. This is the spirit of the game of golf.

 

What the hell is up with pictures of other people's beds in the apartment ads? I'm not interested in renting that person's bed so hows about a bit of the ROOM in the frame, eh?

I have never uploaded a photo before, so here is a kitteh in a hat:



I wish there were a coffee shoppe in my living room.

I leave a plate of cheese in the closet for safety reasons.

 

So one day there were 2 little cookies walking in the woods. One cookie looks to the other cookie and says "Damn, where did you get them big ole' titties?" The other cookie replied, "From the gettin place, silly! Where did you think I got them from?" "I don't know, anorexia is delicious; especially with a little bit of hollandaise sauce and some desperation." "Oh, I know! Hey, can you do me a favor and change my diaper??? I had some huitaloche and my ass just exploded." "Sur..............Oh my bob my eyes have just turned to testicles and I'm looking at the inside of my underoos!"

***TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF SEXUAL CHOCOLATE CRANK BITCH ASS SMOKIN DON'T PEE IN MY POOL AND I WON'T SWIM IN YOUR TOILET HAPPY FUN TIME SHOW!!!!***

 

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