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.
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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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