Quotes About Labor

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.

Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor. Seizing the results of someone's labor is equivalent to seizing hours from him and directing him to carry on various activities.

I wouldn't necessarily assume that because Capricornia has traditionally been a Labor seat, that it'll go back to the Labor Party this time because the big issue in Capricornia which is based on the city of Rockhampton is the fact that the economy is - the regional economy is in a poor shape as a result, in particular of the decline of the mining industry and they are looking to the Carmichael mine, the Adani project as containing all of the prospects that they see for their future and that is why people in Rockhampton are very, very fearful of a Labor-Greens government.

Labor in this country is independent and proud. It has not to ask the patronage of capital, but capital solicits the aid of labor.

The Coalition's message of jobs and growth is resonating very, very strongly in North and Central Queensland and one thing they're particularly fearful of is the possibility of a Green-Labor government, a government in which the Green tail wags the Labor dog.

The 'survival of the fittest' is beneficently inevitable; the capitalist is powerless against labor, unless the State . . . steps in, and helps him catch and fleece his victims. The old plea of despotism, that liberty is unsafe, reappears now in the mistaken notion that competition is hostile to labor.

Including everyone in the economic, wealth-creating life of the nation is today the best way for Labor (Australian Labor Party) to meet its twin goals of raising national prosperity and creating a fair and decent society.

The rising productivity of labor is a myth, a statistical illusion created by measuring combined output in terms of labor input.

In a socialist society, everybody is obliged to work even though he is remunerated for his labor and not yet according to his needs, but according to the quantity and quality of the labor expended.

In his comic scenes, Shakespeare seems to produce, without labor, what no labor can improve.

During my three years as chief economist of the World Bank, labor market issues were looked at through the lens of neoclassical economics. A standard message was to increase labor market flexibility. The not-so-subtle subtext was to lower wages and lay off unneeded workers.

Unless the concepts of work and play and reward for work change absolutely, women must continue to provide cheap labor, and even more, free labor exacted of right by an employer possessed of a contract for life, made out in his favor.

If they do not share equally enjoyments and toils, those who labor much and get little will necessarily complain of those who labor little and receive or consume much. But indeed there is always a difficulty in men living together and having all human relations in common, but especially in their having common property.

Knowledge without labor is profitless. Knowledge with labor is genius.

Illegal immigration is praised only by those who benefit directly from it, whether in the familial sense of inexpensive nannies, cooks, or gardeners; or in the corporate interest of cheap labor in the hospitality industries, agriculture, and construction; or in the political sense of new liberal constituents; or in the tribal sense of expanding the so-called La Raza base. But the vast majority of Americans accept that when federal law is ignored, chaos ensues.

The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce.

I like that feeling when you’re making art, that you’re taking the energy out of your body and putting it into a physical object. I like things that are labor-intensive : you make a little thing and another little thing and another little thing, and eventually you see a possibility.

... woman is frequently praised as the more "creative" sex. She does not need to make poems, it is argued; she has no drive to make poems, because she is privileged to make babies. A pregnancy is as fulfilling as, say, Yeats' Sailing to Byzantium.... To call a child a poem may be a pretty metaphor, but it is a slur on the labor of art.

All converted people should labor to adorn the doctrine they profess by humility. If they can do nothing else, they can strive to be humble.

. . . the labor with which we give birth is simply a rehearsal for something we mothers must do over and over: turn ourselves inside out, and then let go.

To love and to labor is the sum of living.

I think [Alex Acosta]will be a tremendous secretary of labor.

With this lodging and diet our extreme toil in bearing and planting palisades so strained and bruised us and our continual labor in the extremity of the heat had so weakened us, as were cause sufficient to have made us as miserable in our native country or any other place in the world

But because many endeavor to get knowledge rather than to live well, they are often deceived and reap little or no benefit from their labor.

We can still find middle ground, truly secure our borders, deal with those already here and address our labor needs. But those who advocate giving current illegal aliens and future guest workers a special path to citizenship must compromise.

How I loathe the servitude people try to hold up to me as being so valuable. I pity the man who is condemned to it, who cannot generally escape it, but it is not the burden of his labor that disposes me in his favor, it is - it can only be - the vigor of his protest against it.

Labor and trouble one can always get through alone, but it takes two to be glad.

To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as nearly as possible, is a worthy object of any good government.

Today in America, unions have a secure place in our industrial life. Only a handful of reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions and depriving working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice. I have no use for those - regardless of their political party - who hold some vain and foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when organized labor was huddled, almost as a hapless mass. Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice.

Ah, what is more blessed than to put cares away, when the mind lays by its burden, and tired with labor of far travel we have come to our own home and rest on the couch we longed for? This it is which alone is worth all these toils.

Rest is the sweet sauce of labor.

The actual division of labor must be reflected in the division of the rewards (and prices, which is the way the consumer gets rewarded).

The main concept is that of an international solidarity expressed in practice through worldwide division of labor: free trade is the principal point in the program of internationalism.

There is scarcely anything that is right that we cannot hope to accomplish by labor and perseverance. But the first must be earnest and the second unremitting.

Labor is the true alchemist that beats out in patient transmutation the baser metals into gold.

The fundamental rights of [humanity] are, first: the right of habitation; second, the right to move freely; third, the right to the soil and subsoil, and to the use of it; fourth, the right of freedom of labor and of exchange; fifth, the right to justice; sixth, the right to live within a natural national organization; and seventh, the right to education.

In the name of economy a thousand wasteful devices would be invented; and in the name of efficiency new forms of mechanical time-wasting would be devised: both processes gained speed through the nineteenth century and have come close to the limit of extravagant futility in our own time. But labor-saving devices could only achieve their end-that of freeing mankind for higher functions-if the standard of living remained stable. The dogma of increasing wants nullified every real economy and set the community in a collective squirrel-cage.

The Republicans want illegal immigrants for different reasons. They want 'em for cheap labor. Democrats want 'em for voters. Well, Republicans would like that too.

There's so many people that are interested in film and especially in terms of the technology side of film, that suddenly the fruits of everybody's labor is really starting to manifest itself all across the planet.

Tom Perez is really bringing in the labor aspect of the Democratic Party, a group of voters that need to get back, also Latinos. You know, he is the first Latino DNC chair in the history of Democratic Party, a growing demographic that really over performed last time.

Child labor becomes a label of condemnation in spite of its ancient function as the quickest, most reliable way to human independence

Labor is getting more expensive and technology is getting cheaper.

Money confers the power to command the labor of others. Love of money is love of power. And love of power is the root of evil.

There is not such a mighty difference as some men imagine between the poor and the rich; in pomp, show, and opinion, there is a great deal, but little as to the pleasures and satisfactions of life. They enjoy the same earth and air and heavens; hunger and thirst make the poor man's meat and drink as pleasant and relishing as all the varieties which cover the rich man's table; and the labor of a poor man is more healthful, and many times more pleasant, too, than the ease and softness of the rich.

You need companies investing in these countries, so women have employment opportunities, and you also need these forces of conscience. Without the activists, in the United States we would still have child labor, we would still have 16-hour days.

Capital, and the question of who owns it and therefore reaps the benefit of its productiveness, is an extremely important issue that is complementary to the issue of full employment... I see these as twin pillars of our economy: Full employment of our labor resources and widespread ownership of our capital resources. Such twin pillars would go a long way in providing a firm underlying support for future economic growth that would be equitably shared.

By the 'mud-sill' theory it is assumed that labor and education are incompatible; and any practical combination of them impossible. According to that theory, a blind horse upon a tread-mill, is a perfect illustration of what a laborer should be -- all the better for being blind, that he could not tread out of place, or kick understandingly. According to that theory, the education of laborers, is not only useless, but pernicious, and dangerous. In fact, it is, in some sort, deemed a misfortune that laborers should have heads at all.

Labor is the curse of the world, and nobody can meddle with it without becoming proportionately brutalized.