Oppression and Liberty

Only a few defenders of economic liberalism oppose this powerful tendency, but they become more and more timid

Militants cannot take the place of the working class. The emancipation of the workers will be carried out by the workers themselves, or it will not take place at all.

“Nowadays we are practically speaking under the domination of the trade-union bureaucracy, the industrial bureaucracy and the State bureaucracy, and these three bureaucracies are so alike that any one of them could be put in place of another.”

The speed with which bureaucracy has invaded almost every branch of human activity is something astounding once one thinks about it.

when undertakings on the verge of bankruptcy, having sacked a host of workmen and working at a third or a quarter of their productive capacity, preserve almost intact a managerial staff composed of a few directors drawing fat fees and clerks who are ill-paid,

furthermore, of such importance that one step made in this direction would be more useful perhaps to humanity and to the proletariat than a whole host of partial successes in the sphere of action.

inspired by that force of mind and spirit that is found only among the proletariat,

“In the factory there exists a dead mechanism, independent of the workers, which incorporates them as living cogs.”

Such a work is a very distressing mark of the socialist movement’s deficiency in the domain of pure theory.