Equality -------------------------------------------------------------------- Sections (TOC) : ---------------------------------- * 1 31 Words; 225 Characters * 2 43 Words; 304 Characters * 3 124 Words; 654 Characters * 4 140 Words; 772 Characters * 5 44 Words; 272 Characters * 6 91 Words; 570 Characters * 7 104 Words; 730 Characters * 8 15 Words; 116 Characters * 9 75 Words; 449 Characters * 10 35 Words; 225 Characters * 11 23 Words; 184 Characters * 12 58 Words; 340 Characters * 13 25 Words; 150 Characters Sections (Content) : ---------------------------------- * 1 EUELPIDES: Slave! slave! PISTHETAERUS: What's that, friend! You say, "slave," to summon Epops! It would be much better to shout, "Epops, Epops!" EUELPIDES: Well then, Epops! Must I knock again? Epops! * 2 ...let us suppose that this economic relationship between the exploiter and the exploited is altogether legitimate, that it is the inevitable consequence, the product of an eternal, indestructible social law, yet still it will always be true that exploitation precludes brotherhood and equality. * 3 Suppose I am your worker and you are my employer. If I offer my labor at the lowest price, if I consent to have you live off my labor, it is certainly not because of devotion or brotherly love for you. And no bourgeois economist would dare to say that it was, however idyllic and naive their reasoning becomes when they begin to speak about reciprocal affections and mutual relations which should exist between employers and employes. No, I do it because my family and I would starve to death if I did not work for an employer. Thus I am forced to sell you my labor at the lowest possible price, and I am forced to do it by the threat of hunger. * 4 What is it that brings the capitalist to the market? It is the urge to get rich, to increase his capital, to gratify his ambitions and social vanities, to be able to indulge in all conceivable pleasures. And what brings the worker to the market? Hunger, the necessity of eating today and tomorrow. Thus, while being equal from the point of juridical fiction, the capitalist and the worker are anything but equal from the point of view of the economic situation, which is the real situation. The capitalist is not threatened with hunger when he comes to the market; he knows very well that if he does not find today the workers for whom he is looking, he will still have enough to eat for quite a long time, owing to the capital of which he is the happy possessor. * 5 The worker is in the position of a serf because this terrible threat of starvation which daily hangs over his head and over his family, will force him to accept any conditions imposed by the gainful calculations of the capitalist, the industrialist, the employer. * 6 Thus the worker's liberty, so much exalted by the economists, jurists, and bourgeois republicans, is only a theoretical freedom, lacking any means for its possible realization, and consequently it is only a fictitious liberty, an utter falsehood. The truth is that the whole life of the worker is simply a continuous and dismaying succession of terms of serfdom - voluntary from the juridical point of view but compulsory in the economic sense - broken up by momentarily brief interludes of freedom accompanied by starvation; in other words, it is real slavery. * 7 The conventional theory is comfortable with its formal demonstrations that the market rewards more liberally those who contribute more; that the market compensates individuals for the expenses they incurred in preparing for work; and that discrimination is largely an illusion, since the employers' interests assure that they will place profits ahead of prejudice. But the theory runs directly counter to everyday experience, which provides indisputable evidence of a market which endorses large differentials in earnings based on power, not productivity; which makes a mockery of the efforts of many young people to improve their circumstances through education and training; and which reeks with discrimination. * 8 ...social inequality which divides society into two classes: the wage-slaves and the grabbers of capital... * 9 ...for what is meant by title and nobility, it is nothing more than a tall hat, tinkling jade pendants, people walking in front of your horse carts, and people following behind your carriage, sitting in a large mansion, wearing new clothing, ears wearied from so much music of stringed instruments and bamboo instruments, your mouth entertained with chilies and orchids; this I say, is all with which you mean to seduce me and nothing more. * 10 Where there is any inequality of conditions, and among nations of shepherds this soon takes place, the distress arising from a scarcity of provisions must fall hardest upon the least fortunate members of the society. * 11 ...in corrupt capitalist/statist political systems, the distribution of political goods and services both creates social inequalities and exacerbates those that already exist. * 12 The sight of the misery, and the unpleasant sensations it suggests, which, though they may be suffocated cannot be extinguished, are a greater drawback upon the felicity of affluence than the proposed ten percent [tax] upon property is worth. He that would not give the one to get rid of the other has no charity, even for himself. * 13 It is always to be taken for granted, that those who oppose an equality of rights never mean the exclusion should take place on themselves... Events : ---------------------------------- Equality -- Added : April 11, 2020 About This Textfile : ---------------------------------- Text file generated from : http://RevoltSource.com/