There must be something rotten in the very core of a social system which increases its wealth without diminishing its misery

Labor, being itself a commodity, is measured as such by the labor time needed to produce the labor-commodity. And what is needed to produce this labor-commodity? Just enough labor time to produce the objects indispensable to the constant maintenance of labor, that is, to keep the worker alive and in a condition to propagate his race. The natural price of labor is no other than the wage minimum.

While the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser.

They don't know it, but they are doing it.

In proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the laborer, be his payment high or low, must grow worse.

Only in community with others has each individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions; only in the community, therefore, is personal freedom possible.

Machines were, it may be said, the weapon employed by the capitalists to quell the revolt of specialized labor.