Instead of these fraternal relations, we have had pride,
jealousy, and perjury; the employer, like the vampire of the
fable, exploiting the degraded wage-worker, and the wage-worker
conspiring against the employer; the idler devouring the
substance of the laborer, and the serf, squatting in filth,
having no strength left but for hatred.
Called on to furnish for the work of production, these tools,
those labor, capitalists and laborers are today in a struggle:
why? Because absolutism presides over all their relations;
because the capitalist speculates on the need which the laborer
feels of procuring tools, while the laborer, in turn, seeks to
derive advantage from the need which the capitalist feels of
fertilizing his capital.--L. Blanc: Organization of Labor.
And why this ABSOLUTISM in the relations of capitalist and
laborer? Why this hostility of interests? Why this reciprocal
enmity? Instead of eternally explaining the fact by the fact
itself, go to the bottom, and you will find everywhere, as
original motive, a passion for enjoyment which neither law nor
justice nor charity restrain; you will see egoism continually
discounting the future, and sacrificing to its monstrous caprices
labor, capital, life, and the security of all.
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