When the bourgeoisie gained political power and made the capitalist
system the dominating one, it began by breaking the feudal bonds
and freeing the people from all feudal ties. It was essential
for capitalism that every one should be able to take part in the
competitive struggle; that no one’s movements be tied up or narrowed
by corporate duties or hampered by legal statutes, for only thus was
it possible for production to develop its full capacity. The workers
must have free command over themselves and not be tied up by feudal or
guild duties, for only as free workers can they sell their labor-power
to the capitalists as a whole commodity, and only as free laborers can
the capitalists use them. It is for this reason that the bourgeoisie
has done away with all old ties and duties. It made the people entirely
free, but at the same time left them entirely isolated and unprotected.
Formerly the people were not isolated; they belonged to some
corporation; they were under the protection of some lord or commune,
and in this they found strength. They were a part of a social group
to which they owed duties and from which they received protection.
These duties the bourgeoisie abolished; it destroyed the corporations
and abolished the feudal relations. The freeing of labor meant at the
same time that all refuge was taken away from him and that he could no
longer rely upon others. Every one had to rely upon himself. Alone,
free from all ties and protection, he must struggle against all.
It is for this reason that, under capitalism, the human world resembles
mostly the world of rapacious animals, and it is for this very reason
that the bourgeois Darwinists looked for men’s prototype among animals
living isolated. To this they were led by their own experience. Their
mistake, however, consisted in considering capitalist conditions as
everlasting. The relation existing between our capitalist competitive
system and animals living isolated, was thus expressed by Engels in his
book, “Anti-Dühring” (page 293). This may also be found on page 59 of
“Socialism, Utopian and Scientific” as follows:
“Finally, modern industry and the opening of the world market made the
struggle universal and at the same time gave it unheard-of virulence.
Advantages in natural or artificial conditions of production now decide
the existence or non-existence of individual capitalists as well as of
whole industries and countries. He that falls is remorselessly cast
aside. It is the Darwinian struggle of the individual for existence
transferred from Nature to society with intensified violence. The
conditions of existence natural to the animal appear as the final term
of human development.”
What is that which carries on the struggle in this capitalist
competition, the perfectness of which decides the victory?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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