All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase capital, and allowed to live only so far as the interest to the ruling class requires it.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Marx wants to eliminate the miserable condition where workers exist only to increase capital, living only as far as the ruling class allows.
- In plain terms
- He opposes a system that makes labor serve only capital's growth.
- What can you take from it?
- Advocate for work conditions that respect human dignity.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What defines a dignified work life?
- How can societies balance profit and human needs?
Another view
Economic constraints may limit immediate reforms.
More from Karl Marx
Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.
Permalink to quote #39 When people speak of ideas that revolutionize society, they do but express the fact that within the old society, the elements of a new one have been created.
Permalink to quote #41 But every class struggle is a political struggle.
Permalink to quote #38
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