'La divisione del lavoro produce diverse occupazioni all'interno della stessa classe'

“After presenting such profound explanations concerning the ‘connexions of politics with social conditions’ and of ‘class relations’ with the State power, Herr Heinzen (1) exclaims triumphantly: “I have not been guilty in my revolutionary propaganda of the “communist narrow-mindedness” which speaks of men only in terms of class, and which incites one handicraft against another. I have left open the possibility that “humanity” is not always determined by “class” or by the “size of one’s purse”. ‘Vulgar’ common sense turns class differences into differences in the size of one’s purse, and class conflict into a quarrel between handicrafts. The size of one’s purse is a purely quantitative difference, by which any two individuals of the ‘same’ class may be ‘brought into conflict’. It is well known that the medieval ‘guilds’ opposed each other ‘on the basis of ‘handicraft’ differences’. But it is equally well known that modern class differences are not in any way based upon handicraft differences, and that, on the contrary; the division of labour produces very ‘diverse’ occupations within the ‘same’ class” [MK (1847) MEGA I/6, pp. 316-18] [‘Die moralisierende Kritik und die kritisierende Moral. Beitrag zur Deutschen Kulturgeschichte. Gegen Carl Heinzen’, in ‘Deutscher-Brüsseler Zeitung’, 28 October-25 November 1847] [(in) Karl Marx, a cura di T.B. Bottomore e Maximilien Rubel, Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy, England, 1973] [(1) Karl Heinzen (1809-80), a radical journalist and author of ‘Die preussische Bürokratie’, Dramstadt, 1845]