PAST
Not long before wage-slaves would be
Conducting execution
A ruling class with head in noose
Who’d once made revolution.
From medieval dungeons dark and deep
We’d made a huge industrial leap.
From our dark age, ignorant past
The Age of Steam had come at last.
Capitalism spread worldwide:
Germany, France, America joined the tide
And in the name of trade and profit
Countless millions slaved and died.
Yet the laws of all development
are uneven yet combined.
Both slavery and feudal ties
in some parts, still lingered on behind.
Aristotle, we salute you!
What you wrote and said was fine,
Considering conditions prevailing in your time.
(For what it’s worth,
he thought the sun went round the earth)
But social earthquakes herald change
And when new discoveries are made,
A shining beacon once extinguished,
Can become reaction’s shade.
So always look to the womb of new developments
For there now was born a man who said
“If you sit there and interpret
Then philosophy becomes an also-ran.”
