From the Grundrisse?

[S.Artesian]

I remember reading, back in the day before I needed bi-focals, I passage where Marx states something along the lines of "All history is the history of relations between city and countryside."

And could have sworn I read it in the Grundrisse. Damned if I can find it now, bi-focals and all.

Heartfelt thanks to anybody who can track it down.

Thanks

[S.Artesian]

Friend found it. Vol 1 of Capital:


"The foundation of every division of labour that is well developed, and brought about by the exchange of commodities, is the separation between town and country. It may be said, that the whole economic history of society is summed up in the movement of this antithesis."

Capital Vol. I, Ch. 14, Section 4.

[Zanthorus]

Isn't there also a similar passage in the German Ideology?

[S.Artesian]

Isn't there also a similar passage in the German Ideology?

Probably. Actually, you're asking the guy who couldn't remember where he read it to begin with, so I definitely shouldn't hazard a guess.

I found this in the Grundrisse, which is pretty good itself [actually the entire section -pgs 450-500 in the Marxist Internet Archive version-- is incredible]. And BTW, the MIA has a .pdf version of vol1 of Capital, and the Grundrisse, which you can download.

Anyway:

The history of classical antiquity is thehistory of cities, but of cities founded on landed property and on agriculture; Asiatic history is a kind of
indifferent unity of town and countryside (the really large cities must be regarded here merely as royal camps, as works of artifice [Superfötation] erected over the economic construction proper); the Middle Ages (Germanic period) begins with the land as the seat of history, whose further development then moves forward in the contradiction between town and countryside; the modern [age] is the urbanization of the countryside, not ruralization of the city as in antiquity.