Frases de Friedrich Engels (94 citas)

Principles of Communism (1847)
Contexto: Everywhere the proletariat develops in step with the bourgeoisie. In proportion, as the bourgeoisie grows in wealth, the proletariat grows in numbers. For, since the proletarians can be employed only by capital, and since capital extends only through employing labor, it follows that the growth of the proletariat proceeds at precisely the same pace as the growth of capital. Simultaneously, this process draws members of the bourgeoisie and proletarians together into the great cities where industry can be carried on most profitably, and by thus throwing great masses in one spot it gives to the proletarians a consciousness of their own strength. Moreover, the further this process advances, the more new labor-saving machines are invented, the greater is the pressure exercised by big industry on wages, which, as we have seen, sink to their minimum and therewith render the condition of the proletariat increasingly unbearable. The growing dissatisfaction of the proletariat thus joins with its rising power to prepare a proletarian social revolution.

“When all capital, all production, all exchange have been brought together in the hands of the nation, private property will disappear of its own accord, money will become superfluous, and production will so expand and man so change that society will be able to slough off whatever of its old economic habits may remain.”

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Friedrich Engels

(1847)

“How is it possible that the poorer classes can remain healthy and have a reasonable expectation of life under such conditions? What can one expect but that they should suffer from continual outbreaks of epidemics and an excessively low expectation of life? The physical condition of the workers shows a progressive deterioration.”

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Friedrich Engels

The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 (1845)

“Big industry, and the limitless expansion of production which it makes possible, bring within the range of feasibility a social order in which so much is produced that every member of society will be in a position to exercise and develop all his powers and faculties in complete freedom. It thus appears that the very qualities of big industry which, in our present-day society, produce misery and crises are those which, in a different form of society, will abolish this misery and these catastrophic depressions.
We see with the greatest clarity: (i) That all these evils are from now on to be ascribed solely to a social order which no longer corresponds to the requirements of the real situation; and (ii) That it is possible, through a new social order, to do away with these evils altogether.”

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Friedrich Engels

(1847)

“Naturally, it is in the interest of the trader to be on good terms with the one from whom he buys cheap as well as with the other to whom he sells dear. A nation therefore acts very imprudently if it fosters feelings of animosity in its suppliers and customers. The more friendly, the more advantageous. Such is the humanity of trade. And this hypocritical way of misusing morality for immoral purposes is the pride of the free-trade system.”

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Friedrich Engels

Natürlich ist es im Interesse des Handelnden, mit dem einen, von welchem er wohlfeil kauft, wie mit dem andern, an welchen er teuer verkauft, sich in gutem Vernehmen zu halten. Es ist also sehr unklug von einer Nation gehandelt, wenn sie bei ihren Versorgern und Kunden eine feindselige Stimmung nährt. Je freundschaftlicher, desto vorteilhafter. Dies ist die Humanität des Handels, und diese gleisnerische Art, die Sittlichkeit zu unsittlichen Zwecken zu mißbrauchen, ist der Stolz des Systems der Handelsfreiheit.
Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy (1844)

“The abolition of private property is, doubtless, the shortest and most significant way to characterize the revolution in the whole social order which has been made necessary by the development of industry – and for this reason it is rightly advanced by communists as their main demand.”

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Friedrich Engels

(1847)

“It makes unavoidably necessary an entirely new organization of society in which production is no longer directed by mutually competing individual industrialists but rather by the whole society operating according to a definite plan and taking account of the needs of all.”

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Friedrich Engels

(1847)

“The class of the wholly propertyless, who are obliged to sell their labor to the bourgeoisie in order to get, in exchange, the means of subsistence for their support. This is called the class of proletarians, or the proletariat.”

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Friedrich Engels

(1847)

“The proletarian works with the instruments of production of another, for the account of this other, in exchange for a part of the product. … The proletarian liberates himself by abolishing competition, private property, and all class differences.”

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Friedrich Engels libro Principles of Communism

Principles of Communism (1847)

“The slave is sold once and for all; the proletarian must sell himself daily and hourly. The individual slave, property of one master, is assured an existence, however miserable it may be, because of the master’s interest. The individual proletarian, property as it were of the entire bourgeois class which buys his labor only when someone has need of it, has no secure existence. This existence is assured only to the class as a whole.”

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Friedrich Engels

(1847)

“The state is not “abolished,” it withers away.”

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Friedrich Engels libro Anti-Dühring

Anti-Dühring, pt. 3, ch. 2 (1878)

“The introduction of free competition is thus public declaration that from now on the members of society are unequal only to the extent that their capitals are unequal, that capital is the decisive power, and that therefore the capitalists, the bourgeoisie, have become the first class in society. Free competition is necessary for the establishment of big industry, because it is the only condition of society in which big industry can make its way.”

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Friedrich Engels

(1847)

“The slave frees himself when, of all the relations of private property, he abolishes only the relation of slavery and thereby becomes a proletarian; the proletarian can free himself only by abolishing private property in general.”

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Friedrich Engels

(1847)

“What will be the consequences of the ultimate disappearance of private property? Society will take all forces of production and means of commerce, as well as the exchange and distribution of products, out of the hands of private capitalists and will manage them in accordance with a plan based on the availability of resources and the needs of the whole society. In this way, most important of all, the evil consequences which are now associated with the conduct of big industry will be abolished. There will be no more crises; the expanded production, which for the present order of society is overproduction and hence a prevailing cause of misery, will then be insufficient and in need of being expanded much further. Instead of generating misery, overproduction will reach beyond the elementary requirements of society to assure the satisfaction of the needs of all; it will create new needs and, at the same time, the means of satisfying them. It will become the condition of, and the stimulus to, new progress, which will no longer throw the whole social order into confusion, as progress has always done in the past.”

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Friedrich Engels libro Principles of Communism

Principles of Communism (1847)

“There is no country in Europe which does not have in some corner or other one or several ruined fragments of peoples (Völkerruinen), the remnant of a former population that was suppressed and held in bondage by the nation which later became the main vehicle of historical development. These relics of a nation mercilessly trampled under foot in the course of history, as Hegel says, these residual fragments of peoples (Völkerabfälle) always become fanatical standard-bearers of counter-revolution and remain so until their complete extirpation or loss of their national character, just as their whole existence in general is itself a protest against a great historical revolution.”

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Friedrich Engels

The Magyar Struggle http://www.marxistsfr.org/archive/marx/works/1849/01/13.htm in Neue Rheinische Zeitung (13 January 1849).

“The manufacturing worker almost always lives in the countryside and in a more or less patriarchal relation to his landlord or employer; the proletarian lives, for the most part, in the city and his relation to his employer is purely a cash relation. The manufacturing worker is torn out of his patriarchal relation by big industry, loses whatever property he still has, and in this way becomes a proletarian.”

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Friedrich Engels

(1847)

“What will be the attitude of communism to existing nationalities? The nationalities of the peoples associating themselves in accordance with the principle of [[community will be compelled to mingle with each other as a result of this association and thereby to dissolve themselves, just as the various estate and class distinctions must disappear through the abolition of their basis, private property.”

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Friedrich Engels

(1847)

“Some propose mere welfare measures – while others come forward with grandiose systems of reform which, under the pretense of re-organizing society, are in fact intended to preserve the foundations, and hence the life, of existing society. Communists must unremittingly struggle against these bourgeois socialists because they work for the enemies of communists and protect the society which communists aim to overthrow.”

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Friedrich Engels

(1847)

“Big industry, freed from the pressure of private property, will undergo such an expansion that what we now see will seem as petty in comparison as manufacture seems when put beside the big industry of our own day. This development of industry will make available to society a sufficient mass of products to satisfy the needs of everyone. The same will be true of agriculture, which also suffers from the pressure of private property and is held back by the division of privately owned land into small parcels. Here, existing improvements and scientific procedures will be put into practice, with a resulting leap forward which will assure to society all the products it needs. In this way, such an abundance of goods will be able to satisfy the needs of all its members.”

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Friedrich Engels

(1847)

“Terror consists mostly of useless cruelties perpetrated by frightened people in order to reassure themselves.”

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Friedrich Engels

Letter to Marx http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1870/letters/70_09_04.htm (4 September 1870)

“It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range.”

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Friedrich Engels

(1847)

“Labor is a commodity, like any other, and its price is therefore determined by exactly the same laws that apply to other commodities. In a regime of big industry or of free competition – as we shall see, the two come to the same thing – the price of a commodity is, on the average, always equal to its cost of production. Hence, the price of labor is also equal to the cost of production of labor. But, the costs of production of labor consist of precisely the quantity of means of subsistence necessary to enable the worker to continue working, and to prevent the working class from dying out. The worker will therefore get no more for his labor than is necessary for this purpose; the price of labor, or the wage, will, in other words, be the lowest, the minimum, required for the maintenance of life.”

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Friedrich Engels

(1847)

“Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat.”

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Friedrich Engels

(1847)

“Democracy would be wholly valueless to the proletariat if it were not immediately used as a means for putting through measures directed against private property and ensuring the livelihood of the proletariat.”

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Friedrich Engels

(1847)

“The Mercantile System still had a certain artless Catholic candour and did not in the least conceal the immoral nature of trade. … But when the economic Luther, Adam Smith, criticised past economics things had changed considerably. … Protestant hypocrisy took the place of Catholic candour.”

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Friedrich Engels

Das Merkantilsystem hatte noch eine gewisse unbefangene, katholische Geradheit und verdeckte das unsittliche Wesen des Handels nicht im mindesten. ... Als aber der ökonomische Luther, Adam Smith, die bisherige Ökonomie kritisierte, hatten sich die Sachen sehr geändert. ... An die Stelle der katholischen Geradheit trat protestantische Gleisnerei.
Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy (1844)