Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classess.  But in order to oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at least, continue its slavish existence.  The serf, in the period of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a bourgeois.  The modern laborer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class.  He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth.  And here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law.  It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him.