Author's Note

This is a small in between chapter that gives some context to some of the discussion that will be happening in chapter 2, expect political debates to be coming 👀

Side Chapter: Words from Caramel Marks

Marble slowly sneaked out of her shared bedroom in the middle of the night, while Limestone snored loudly in the background.

She carried a gas lantern and the red book the union boss had given her. Marble had kept the book hidden out of fear of how her family might react if they saw it. She made her way to the house's living room and turned on the light.

Opening the book to the first page, she found a black-and-white picture of a unicorn wearing a hat.

Comrade Marks

She started going through the book. While it was a relatively short read, Marble could not understand many of the concepts and points being made due to the phrasing and old words it used. She would definitely need to give it a second, maybe even a third, read.

There was one part that did speak to her, though.

Excerpt from cutie marks and the bourgeoisie

“…the capitalist class has thus alienated the commonpony from the means to achieve their destiny. The craftspony, bearing a linen shirt cutie mark on their flank, now depends on the bourgeoisie and their machines of production to continue their trade, lest they be displaced by market forces that have destroyed their old way of life. This alienation extends even to the very symbol of their purpose—the cutie mark—once a proud marker of their trade, now rendered meaningless by the forces of capitalism.

Historically, cutie marks represented the stages of development in the lives of individual ponies or groups of ponies. They were a means of classifying labor at a time when workers still owned the means of their own production. However, the rise of the division of labor, driven by market demands and the bourgeoisie’s eagerness to maintain control, has stripped ponies of the ability to fulfill the paths set by their cutie marks. What was once a complete expression of a pony’s craft has been reduced to a fraction of a task—the craftspony’s cutie mark now representing merely one one-hundredth of a linen shirt.

Given this, I do not call for a return to the old ways but instead advocate for a complete rejection of cutie marks as a means of labor classification. The industrial revolution has demonstrated that workers unable to adapt to new technologies are inevitably crushed by the relentless march of progress. Cutie marks, with their static nature, are fundamentally incompatible with this new age. For instance, the transportpony, whose cutie mark once signified mastery of carriage driving, finds themselves entirely displaced by the locomotive engine—if, of course, we insist they continue driving carriages simply because of their cutie mark.

Cutie marks must therefore be seen as nothing more than a physical characteristic of a pony, no more informative of their abilities than the color of their mane. In a socialist society, where nopony is confined to a single sphere of labor, each will be free to excel in any branch they desire, unburdened by the constraints of a symbol imposed upon them at a young age.”

Marble thought about her own cutie mark, 3 marbles in the shape of a triangle...

She turned off her gas lamp and returned to her bedroom, hoping nopony noticed her.