THE METAPHYSICS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 189
formed the mass of the people of a country into wage- workers. The dominaiton of capital has created for this mass of people a common situation with common interests. Thus this mass is already a class, as opposed to capital, but not yet for itself. In the struggle, of which we have only noted some phases, this mass unites, it is constituted as a class for itself. The interests which it defends are the interests of its class. But the struggle between class and class is a political struggle.
In the bourgeoisie we have two phases to distinguish, that during which it is constituted as a class under the régime of feudalism and absolute monarchy, and that wherein, already constituted as a class, it overthrew feudalism and monarchy in order to make of society a bourgeois society. The first of these phases was the longest and necessitated the greatest efforts. That also commenced with partial combinations against the feudal lords.
Many researches have been made to trace the different historical phases through which the bourgeoisie has passed from the early commune to its constitution as a class.
But when it becomes a question of rendering an ac- count of the strikes, combinations, and other forms in which before our eyes the proletarians effect their organ- isation as a class, some are seized with fear while others express a transcendental disdain.
An oppressed class is the vital condition of every society based upon the antagonism of classes. The emancipation of the oppressed class therefore necessarily implies the creation of a new society. In order for the oppressed class to be emancipated it is necessary that the productive powers already acquired and the existing social relations should no longer be able to exist side by
