For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd, or a critical critic and must remain so if he does not wish to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.
Karl MarxRelated topics
becoming branch cattle comes communist dinner distribution escape evening fish fisherman general hunt hunter lose man mind morning nobody possible production rear remain shepherd thing thus tomorrow while wish means today labourRelated quotes
Education will enable young people quickly to familiarize themselves with the whole system of production and to pass from one branch of production to another in response to the needs of society or their own inclinations. It will, therefore, free them from the one-sided character which the present-day division of labor impresses upon every individual. Communist society will, in this way, make it possible for its members to put their comprehensively developed faculties to full use. But, when this happens, classes will necessarily disappear. It follows that society organized on a communist basis is incompatible with the existence of classes on the one hand, and that the very building of such a society provides the means of abolishing class differences on the other.
Friedrich Engels
[We may view the] economic organization as a system of prize relations. Seen in the large, free enterprise is an organization of production and distribution in which individuals or family units get their real income, their "living," by selling productive power for money to "business units" or "enterprises", and buying with the money income thus obtained the direct goods and services which they consume. This view, it will be remembered, ignores for the sake of simplicity the fact that an appreciable fraction of the productive power in use at any time is not really employed in satisfying current wants but to make provision for increased want-satisfaction in the future; it treats society as it would be, or would tend to become, with progress absent, or in a "static” state.
Frank Knight
Values are goals which behavior strives to realize. Any activity that is oriented towards an end is a value-oriented action. To the ancient Greeks, their culture was guided by an attainment of ‘the good life.' In the early days of Christianity, the ‘good life' was shifted from this lifetime into the next. Newtonian science and the modern era brought values under rational scrutiny, and a desire for empirical order. Modern capitalism introduced the value of ‘good' as more production per capita, and ‘better' as even more production. There is nothing in the sphere of culture which would exempt us from the realm of values-no facts floating around, ready to be grasped without valuations and expectations.
Ervin László
It would be quite false to say that competition is the only relation that obtains between species. Mutual dependence is in general quite as important. Each kind exists within an ecosystem, and needs the others to keep the system going. Thus, grazing animals on the African plains co-exist because each specializes in eating some particular kind of plant, and needs the others to keep the whole pasture at a balanced level. They depend, too, on each other's specialized capacities to give warning of danger. ... each also depends for survival on innumerable others, such as the insects which pollinate the plants, the fauna of their intestines and of course their predators. It is unthinkable that any species should be an island.
Mary Midgley
While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that we have far more critical issues to face in the 1960 election; the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers 90 miles off the coast of Florida - the humiliating treatment of our President and Vice President by those who no longer respect our power - the hungry children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills, the families forced to give up their farms - an America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space. These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues - for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.
John F. Kennedy