by Frederick Engels (Author), Karl Marx (Author), George Novack (Author)
Where did humanity come from? How did we arrive where we are today? Why is that even important? Because without understanding how human society, since our remotest ancestors, has been created through social labor, working people remain prisoners of the capitalist epoch in which we live. Without knowing how our labor transforms nature, how it's the motor force along humanity's ongoing road, we can't see beyond the class exploitation that warps every aspect of our social relations, ideas, and values. The dictatorship of capital hasn't always existed. It's a few hundred years old. Like slavery and serfdom before it, capitalist rule had a beginning. . . and will have an end. Only the revolutionary conquest of state power by the working class, conscious of our class position and conditions of emancipation, can open the door to a future. One based not on dog-eat-dog capitalist exploitation, degradation of nature, subjugation of women, racism, and war. A world built on human solidarity. A socialist world. That's what a long view of history helps us understand.