Thursday, October 25, 2007

The Poverty of the Working Populations

An excerpt from the Inaugural Address of the Working Men's International Association given by Karl Marx in 1864.

In all countries of Europe it has now become a truth demonstrable to every unprejudiced mind, and only decided by those, whose interest it is to hedge other people in a fool's paradise, that no improvement of machinery, no appliance of science to production, no contrivances of communication, no new colonies, no emigration, no opening of markets, no free trade, nor all these things put together, will do away with the miseries of the industrious masses; but that, on the present false base, every fresh development of the productive powers of labour must tend to deepen social contrasts and point social antagonisms.


I found this to be one of the most beautiful sentences written by Marx.

End.

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