“The bourgeoisie … lets him have the appearance of acting from a free choice, of making a contract with free, unconstrained consent, as a responsible agent who has attained his majority. Fine freedom, where the proletarian has no other choice than that of either accepting the conditions which the bourgeoisie offers him, or of starving, of freezing to death, of sleeping naked among the beasts of the forests!”

—  Friedrich Engels

Source: The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 (1845), p. 112

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Friedrich Engels87
German social scientist, author, political theorist, and ph… 1820–1895

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