The consistent anarchist ... should be a socialist, but a socialist of a particular sort. He will not only oppose alienated and sp...ecialized labor and look forward to the appropriation of capital by the whole body of workers, but he will also insist that this appropriation be direct, not exercised by some elite force acting in the name of the proletariat.... Some sort of council communism is the natural form of revolutionary socialism in an industrial society. It reflects the intuitive understanding that democracy is largely a sham when the industrial system is controlled by any form of autocratic elite, whether of owners, managers, and technocrats, a "vanguard" party, or a State bureaucracy.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Modern labor-saving devices eliminated drudgery, not labor. Before industrialization, women fed, clothed, and nursed their familie...s by preparing (with the help of their husbands and children) food, clothing, and medication. In the post-industrial age, women feed, clothe, and nurse their families (without much direct assistance from anyone else) by cooking, cleaning, driving, shopping, and waiting.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is a society of laborers which is about to be liberated from the ferrets of labor, and this society does no longer know of thos...e other higher and more meaningful activities for the sake of which this freedom would deserve to be won.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Between labor and play stands work. A man is a worker if he is personally interested in the job which society pays him to do; what... from the point of view of society is necessary labor is from his point of view voluntary play. Whether a job is to be classified as labor or work depends, not on the job itself, but on the tastes of the individual who undertakes it. The difference does not, for example, coincide with the difference between a manual and a mental job; a gardener or a cobbler may be a worker, a bank clerk a laborer.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The rank and file have let their servants become their masters and dictators.... Provision should be made in all union constitutio...ns for the recall of leaders. Big salaries should not be paid. Career hunters should be driven out, as well as leaders who use labor for political ends. These types are menaces to the advancement of labor.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
...I learned in the early part of my career that labor must bear the cross for others' sins, must be the vicarious sufferer for th...e wrongs that others do.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is no permanent class of hired laborers amongst us. Twenty five years ago, I was a hired laborer. The hired laborer of yeste...rday, labors on his own account today; and will hire others to labor for him tomorrow. Advancement--improvement in condition--is the order of things in a society of equals.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As Labor is the common burthen of our race, so the effort of some to shift their share of the burthen on to the shoulders of other...s, is the great, durable, curse of the race.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The product of mental labor--science--always stands far below its value, because the labor-time necessary to reproduce it has no r...elation at all to the labor-time required for its original production.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »