The Development of Modern Society is a greatly expanded version of the
first sections of Socialism from the Root Up. It was first delivered as a lecture for the
Liverpool Socialist Society on 13 April 1890, and then serialized in five sections
in Commonweal during the summer of 1890. Morris seems to have abandoned
it as a lecture, and it was not published again until Nicholas Salmon's edition
of ‘William Morris on History’ in 1996. It is nevertheless one of the
best and most readable examples of Morris's fusion of the ideas of Ruskin, Morgan
and Marx with his own detailed knowledge of medieval history.
This version is taken from the original Commonweal, scanned and proofread by
... (From: Marxists.org.)
“Development of Modern Society”,
Part 1 Author:
William Morris Source:
Commonweal,
Volume 6, Number 236, pp.225-6
19 July 1890
(the first of five parts.) Transcribed by:
Ted Crawford Proofing and HTML:Graham Seaman
ALL the progressive races of man have gone through a stage of development
during which society has been very different to what it is now. At present
there is a very definite line of distinction drawn between the personal life
of a man and his life as a member of society. As a rule, the only direction in
which this social life is felt is in that of his nearest kindred—his wife,
children, parents, brothers and sisters. This is so much the case th... (From: Marxists.org.)
Source:
“Development of Modern Society” Commonweal, Volume 6, Number 237, 26 July, p. 237; the second of five parts. Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.
Proofing and HTML: Graham Seaman
BUT further, you must not fail to remember that the aspirations and
nobility of sacrifice of the ancient city life were for [a] limited class
only. In the old tribal life the slaves were not an important class, and also
had easements, and even a kind of position which we do not associate with
slave life, scarcely even with serfdom; as one may see in Homer, who, writing
at a time when the tribal society was rapidly merging into city-life, gives
us, for example, such a picture of a slave as Eumœus[A], who had at any rate
plenty of pi... (From: Marxists.org.)
Source:
“Development of Modern Society” Commonweal, Volume 6, Number 238, 2 August, p. 244; the third of five parts. Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.
Proofing and HTML: Graham Seaman
IN these country districts, both in England and elsewhere, they held for a long time to many of their old tribal customs; the jury of neighbors; frank-pledge, or the responsibility of the district for the conduct of its dwellers; the oath of compurgation; the courts in the open-air; the folk-motes of all the freemen meeting directly (not by delegates) and armed in token of their freedom. Over all this, which still existed in the beginning of feudalism, and never quite disappeared until its wane, the regular feudal system was super-imposed. Serf... (From: Marxists.org.)
Source:
“Development of Modern Society” Commonweal, Volume 6, Number 239, 9 August, p. 253; the fourth of five parts. Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.
Proofing and HTML: Graham Seaman
To these about the eleventh century were superadded another set of guilds, whose main object was the protection of trade, and which soon became powerful, and establishing themselves in the towns, drew together with the corporations, the freemen of the towns, and were fuzed with them. They shared in the degeneration of the municipal aristocracies, which reached its height in the beginning of the thirteenth century, and with them were attacked by the third and last set of guilds, whose office was the organization and protection of the handicraft... (From: Marxists.org.)
Source:
“Development of Modern Society” Commonweal, Volume 6, Number 240, 16 August, pp. 260-261; the last of five parts. Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.
Proofing and HTML: Graham Seaman
THUS fell the Society of the Middle Ages, by Capitalism establishing itself on the ruins of Feudality, and the rise of a middle-class who were either parasites of the nobility, themselves become commercial, trading on the grossest monopolies, and exacting rack-rent, and practically doing the state no service—partly parasites of the nobility, or partly employers living on the profit wrung out of workmen employed at a very low rate of wages. I have been giving the story of the change as it happened in England. On the Continent the divo... (From: Marxists.org.)
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