Amir’s Reviews > What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats > Status Update

“Earlier socialists thought that to substantiate their views it was enough to show the oppression of the masses under the existing regime,… to show that this ideal system harmonized with “human nature”…. [Marx] did not confine himself to describing the existing system; to judging it, and condemning it; he gave a scientific explanation of it…. He showed the necessity of exploitation under that system.”

“It has never been the case, nor is it now, that the members of society conceive the sum-total of the social relations in which they live as something definite, integral, pervaded by some principle; on the contrary, the mass of people adapt themselves to these relations unconsciously…”.