The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.
George OrwellTags: peace war destruction pacifism labour
Don't think of yourself as a surrogate mule, think of yourself as an entrepreneur of the physical.
George SaundersAll the mega corporations on the planet make their obscene profits off the labor and suffering of others, with complete disregard for the effects on the workers, environment, and future generations. As with the banking sector, they play games with the lives of millions, hysterically reject any kind of government intervention when the profits are rolling in, but are quick to pass the bill for the cleanup and the far-reaching consequences of these avoidable tragedies to the public when things go wrong. We have a straightforward proposal: if they want public money, we want public control. It's that simple.
Michael Hureaux-PerezTags: environment capitalism suffering exploitation profit banks corporations labour workers nationalisation deepwater economic-interventionism public-sector subprime-mortgage-crisis
The rich run a global system that allows them to accumulate capital and pay the lowest possible price for labour. The freedom that results applies only to them. The many simply have to work harder, in conditions that grow ever more insecure, to enrich the few. Democratic politics, which purports to enrich the many, is actually in the pocket of those bankers, media barons and other moguls who run and own everything.
Charles MooreTags: politics wealth freedom democracy capitalism economics media banks labour united-kingdom 2011 economic-inequality social-class rupert-murdoch
Speaking the words he had been taught, directing them no longer upward but to the earth on which he knelt, he prayed: 'For what we are about to receive make us truly thankful.' ... he... felt his heart suddenly flow over with thankfulness... like a gush of warm water... All that remains is to live here quietly for the rest of my life, eating food that my own labour has made the earth to yield. All that remains is to be a tender of the soil.
J.M. CoetzeeTags: grace gardening earth labour
This business of petty inconvenience and indignity, of being kept waiting about, of having to do everything at other people’s convenience, is inherent in working-class life. A thousand influences constantly press a working man down into a passive role. He does not act, he is acted upon. He feels himself the slave of mysterious authority and has a firm conviction that ‘they’ will never allow him to do this, that, and the other. Once when I was hop-picking I asked the sweated pickers (they earn something under sixpence an hour) why they did not form a union. I was told immediately that ‘they’ would never allow it. Who were ‘they’? I asked. Nobody seemed to know, but evidently ‘they’ were omnipotent.
George OrwellTags: labour working-class servility hops trade-unions wage-labour
It is not possible even at great length to “pot” The Lord of the Rings in a paragraph or two … It was begun in 1937, and every part has been written many times. Hardly a word in its 600,000 or more has been unconsidered. And the placing, size, style, and contribution to the whole of the features, incidents, and chapters has been laboriously pondered. I do not say this in recommendation. It is, I feel, only too likely that I am deluded, lost in a web of vain imaginings of not much value to others – in spite of the fact that a few readers have found it good, on the whole. What I intend to say is this: I cannot substantially alter the thing. I have finished it, is “off my mind”: the labour has been colossal: and it must stand or fall, practically as it is.
[1951]
Tags: writing lord-of-the-rings creative labour 1937
Let your rest be perfect in its season, like the rest of waters that are still. If you will have a model or your living, take neither the stars, for they fly without ceasing, nor the ocean that ebbs and flows, nor the river that cannot stay, but rather let your life be like that of the summer air, which has times of noble energy and times of perfect peace. It fills the sails of ships upon the sea, and the miller thanks it on the breezy uplands; it works generously for the health and wealth of all men, yet it claims it hours of rest.. “I have pushed the fleet, I have turned the mill, I have refreshed the city, and now though the captain may walk impatiently on the quarter-deck, and the miller swear, and the city stink, I will stir no more until it pleases me.
Philip Gilbert HamertonLa femme ne peut être émancipée que lorsqu'elle prend part dans une grande mesure sociale à la production et n'est plus réclamée par le travail domestique que dans une mesure insignifiante.
Friedrich EngelsTags: gender-equality labour production female-emancipation
C'est par le travail que la femme a conquis sa dignité d'être humain; mais ce fut une conquête singulièrement dure et lente.
Simone de BeauvoirTags: gender-equality labour female-emancipation
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