* This applies chiefly to Germany where the landed aristocracy and squirearchy 
have large portions of their estates cultivated for their own account by stewards, and 
are, moreover, extensive beetroot-sugar manufacturers and distillers of potato spirits. 
The wealthier British aristocracy are, as yet, rather above that; but they, too, know how 
to make up for declining rents by lending their names to floaters of more or less shady 
joint-stock companies. [Note by Engels to the English edition of 1888.] 

b. Petty-Bourgeois Socialism 

The feudal aristocracy was not the only class that was ruined by the 
bourgeoisie, not the only class whose conditions of existence pined 
and perished in the atmosphere of modern bourgeois society. The 
medieval burgesses and the small peasant proprietors were the 
precursors of the modern bourgeoisie. In those countries which are 
but little developed, industrially and commercially, these two classes 
still vegetate side by side with the rising bourgeoisie. 

In countries where modern civilisation has become fully devel- 
oped, a new class of petty bourgeois has been formed, fluctuating 
between proletariat and bourgeoisie and ever renewing itself as a 
supplementary part of bourgeois society. The individual members of 
this class, however, are being constantly hurled down into the 
proletariat by the action of competition, and, as modern industry 
develops, they even see the moment approaching when they will 
completely disappear as an independent section of modern society, 
to be replaced, in manufactures, agriculture and commerce, by 
overlookers, bailiffs and shopmen. 

In countries like France, where the peasants constitute far more 
than half of the population, it was natural that writers who sided with 
the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, should use, in their criticism 
of the bourgeois régime, the standard of the peasant and petty 
bourgeois, and from the standpoint of these intermediate classes” 
should take up the cudgels for the working class. Thus arose 
petty-bourgeois Socialism. Sismondi was the head of this school, not 
only in France but also in England.