Marx & Engels, Communist Manifesto, 1848

History, according to Karl Marx, is economics in action—the contest, among individuals, groups, classes, and states, for food, fuel, materials, and economic power. Political forms, religious institutions, cultural creations, are all rooted in economic realities. So the Industrial Revolution brought with it democracy, feminism, birth control, social

Later came new progress. He no longer worked for the master, but for himself. On condition of an annual rent, which at first was perhaps variable, but which afterwards became fixed, he had the benefit of the harvest. He thus found some recompense for his labor, and his life was at the same time freer and more independent. “The chiefs of families,”

transforming the means of production … which at present serve above all to enslave and exploit labour, into mere instruments of labour freely and co-operatively performed”.