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In countries where modern civilisation has become fully

developed, 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.