Bourgeoisie The class of modern capitalists,
owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labour. Commune
The name given to urban communities in France and Italy, when purchasing or wresting
local self government and political rights from their feudal lords and masters
as the third estate.
Estates French society of the old regime was divided
into three classes called Estates. The First Estate was the clergy; the Second
Estate was comprised of the nobility. The Third Estate included the peasants,
city workers, and the Bourgeoisie. The peasants were the largest group. This
cartoon illustates some of the burdens of the Third Estate. The cleryman and nobleman
represent the First and Second Estates. They are riding on the back of an aged
peasant, representing the Third Estate. |
| Lumpen 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. Proletariat
The class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their
own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live.
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