Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Revolution and its discontents...

The following passage by Marx and Engels deals with the negative consequences of the French and Industrial Revolutions:
It [bourgeois society] has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors", and has left no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash-payment". It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, 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 freedoms, has set up that single, unconsciable freedom - Free Trade.
(All links - and the definitions/connotations/implications/arguments thus suggested - were introduced by the author of this entry)

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