Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels:
The Communist Manifesto: Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class. An oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility, it became an armed and self-governing association in the medieval commune; here independent urban republic (as in Italy and Germany), there taxable "third estate" of the monarchy (as in France); afterwards, in the period of manufacture proper, serving either the semi-feudal or the absolute monarchy as a counterpoise against the nobility, and, in fact, cornerstone of the great monarchies in general--the bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of modern industry and of the world market conquered for itself, in the modern representative state, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie…
Marx and Engels were wrong.
The executive of the modern state is not a committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie.
Would a competent committee allow the reduction of the value of the bourgeoisie's equity investments by 30% for no fundamental reason at all save for a desire to appeal superior to feckless, spendthrift, corrupt, bunga-bunga Italians and Greeks?
No, it would not.
Would that the executive of the modern state was a committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie!
