“The capitalists misinformed and miseducated workers in the metropoles to the point where they became allies in colonial exploitation. In accepting to be led like sheep, European workers were perpetuating their own enslavement to the capitalists. They ceased to seek political power and contented themselves with bargaining for small wage increases, which were usually counter-balanced by increased costs of living. They ceased to be creative and allowed bourgeois cultural decadence to overtake them all. They failed to exercise any independent judgment on the great issues of war and peace, and therefore ended up by slaughtering not only colonial peoples but also themselves.”

—  Walter Rodney, book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Source: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 316.

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Walter Rodney50
Guyanese politician, activist and historian 1942–1980

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