CONTENTS
On authority
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Author: Engels Friedrich (1820-1895)
Year: 1872
The automatic machinery of a big factory is much more despotic than the small capitalists who employ workers have ever been. At least with regard to the hours of work one may write upon the portals of these factories: "Lasciate ogni autonomia, voi che entrate!" If man, by dint of his knowledge and inventive genius, has subdued the forces of nature, the latter avenge themselves upon him by subjecting him, in so far as he employs them, to a veritable despotism independent of all social organisation. Wanting to abolish authority in large-scale industry is tantamount to wanting to abolish industry itself, to destroy the power-loom in order to return to the spinning-wheel.
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