Page:The Advancing Proletariat (1917).pdf/11

Rh land or the shops attached to the castle of the Feudal Lord was the chief method of wealth production—the serf producing a certain portion for his master that he might produce another portion for himself.

Two classes among the Romans were continued almost intact into Feudalism, and apparently were strong enough or necessary enough to preserve a great measure of their ancient rights and privileges. These were the classes of merchants and handicraftsmen known as the Guilds Merchant and Craft Guilds. They carried on a certain portion of production for use of their time, and conducted in a great measure the system of exchange then existing. As they grew stronger, they erected cities of their own for the purposes of defense, manufacture and trade; and 57 of these cities, or "bourgs," known as the Hanseatic League, maintained a government which was sufficiently powerful to engage in war and dictate terms of peace to the loosely organized Feudal States and Nations round about them.

The introduction of the factory system of production into these cities, with the attendant subdivision of labor in the shop, broke up the craft guilds and introduced a new element into production—the factory owners, or manufacturers—and out of these and the merchant class were developed the Capitalists. Vigorous, resourceful and militant, these led the attack upon Feudalism and called to their banners all the oppressed and dissatisfied in the other classes. Prating of "human rights" and screaming for "freedom," they seized the ancient institutions and either destroyed them, or warped them to purposes of their own. Everything became converted into terms of cash. Money payments settled every human obligation. Even the agonies of injured honor might be assuaged in terms of gold.

The breaking up of the Feudal relations changed