being completely dominated by a class-conscious minority.
Though class-division is determined by economic conditions the relative political power of the classes is only in the first line determined by the economic condition of the various classes, in the second line by numerous intellectual, moral and physical means of exercising power, which in their turn pass into the hands of the ruling economic class by reason of its economic position. All these methods of exercising power can not influence the continued existence of classes, as that existence is safeguarded by a situation which is independent of them and which by necessity forces and maintains certain classes (even if these form a majority) in economic dependence on other classes, which may be a small minority, without the class-struggle or any means of political power being able to change it.[1] The class-struggle can thus only be a struggle to develop class-conscious-
- ↑ "In the social production of their life men enter certain necessary economic relations which are independent of their will, conditions of productions corresponding to a certain stage of the development of their material forces of production."—Marx.
