to put himself in their place.  The workers are in constant competition among themselves as the members of the bourgeoisie among themselves.  The power-loom weaver is in competition with the hand-loom weaver, the unemployed or ill-paid hand-loom weaver with him who has work or is better paid, each trying to supplant the other.  But this competition of the workers among themselves is the worst side of the present state of things in its effect upon the worker, the sharpest weapon against the proletariat in the hands of the bourgeoisie.  Hence the effort of the workers to nullify this competition by associations, hence the hatred of the bourgeoisie towards these associations, and its triumph in every defeat which befalls them.

The proletarian is helpless; left to himself, he cannot live a single day.  The bourgeoisie has gained a monopoly of all means of existence in the broadest sense of the word.  What the proletarian needs, he can obtain only from this bourgeoisie, which is protected in its monopoly by the power of the State.  The proletarian is, therefore, in law and in fact, the slave of the bourgeoisie, which can decree his life or death.  It offers him the means of living, but only for an “equivalent” for his work.  It even 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!  A fine “equivalent” valued at pleasure by the bourgeoisie!  And if one proletarian is such a fool as to starve rather than agree to the equitable propositions of the bourgeoisie, his “natural superiors,” another is easily found in his place; there are proletarians enough in the world, and not all so insane as to prefer dying to living.

Here we have the competition of the workers among themselves.  If all the proletarians announced their determination to starve rather than work for the bourgeoisie, the latter would have to surrender its monopoly.  But this is not the case—­is, indeed, a rather impossible case—­so that the bourgeoisie still thrives.  To this competition of the worker there is but one limit; no worker will work for less than he needs to subsist.  If he must starve, he will prefer to starve in idleness rather than in toil.  True, this limit is relative; one needs more than another, one is accustomed to more comfort than another; the Englishman who is still somewhat civilised, needs more than the Irishman who goes in rags, eats potatoes, and sleeps in a pig-sty.  But that does not hinder the Irishman’s competing with the Englishman, and gradually forcing the rate of wages, and with it the Englishman’s level of civilisation, down to the Irishman’s level.  Certain kinds of work require a certain grade of civilisation, and to these belong almost all forms of industrial occupation; hence the interest of the bourgeoisie requires in this case that wages should be high enough to enable the workman to keep himself upon the required plane.