The Task Is Not Just To Understand

He Who Before Was The Money Owner, Now Strides In Front As Capitalist; The Possessor Of Labor-power Follows As His Laborer. The One With An Air Of Importance, Smirking, Intent On Business; The Other Hesitant, Like One Who Is Bringing His Own Hide To Market And Has Nothing To Expect But A Hiding.

By The Aristocracy Of Finance Must Here Be Understood Not Merely The Great Loan Promoters And Speculators In Public Funds, In Regard To Whom It Is Immediately Obvious That Their Interests Coincide With The Interests Of The State Power. All Modern Finance, The Whole Of The Banking Business, Is Interwoven In The Closest Fashion With Public Credit.

When People Speak Of Ideas That Revolutionize Society, They Do But Express The Fact That Within The Old Society, The Elements Of A New One Have Been Created, And That The Dissolution Of The Old Ideas Keeps Even Pace With The Dissolution Of The Old Conditions Of Existence.

The Ruling Ideas Of Each Age Have Ever Been The Ideas Of Its Ruling Class.

...it Happens That Society Is Saved As Often As The Circle Of Its Ruling Class Is Narrowed, As Often As A More Exclusive Interest Asserts Itself Over The General. Every Demand For The Most Simple Bourgeois Financial Reform, For The Most Ordinary Liberalism, For The Most Commonplace Republicanism, For The Flattest Democracy Is Forthwith Punished As An Assault Upon Society And Is Branded As Socialism.