“The history of the regulation of the working-day in certain branches of production, and the struggle still going on in others in regard to this regulation, prove conclusively that the isolated labourer, the labourer as “free” vendor of his labour-power, when capitalist production has once attained a certain stage, succumbs without any power of resistance. The creation of a normal working-day is, therefore, the product of a protracted civil war, more or less dissembled, between the capitalist class and the working-class. As the contest takes place in the arena of modern industry, it first breaks out in the home of that industry – England. The English factory workers were the champions, not only of the English, but of the modern working-class generally, as their theorists were the first to throw down the gauntlet to the theory of capital. (…)” [Marx, from Capital, vol 1, 1867 (C, 283-86)] [in Karl Marx Friedrich Engels, a cura di Kenneth Lapides, Marx and Engels on the Trade Unions, 1987]
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- Articolo pubblicato:22 Febbraio 2012