20.3.25

The dream of the whole man

 

There is an extraordinary poignancy about the way Marx described the negation of man as found in the proletarian of his time. 
Labor certainly produces marvels for the rich, but it produces privation for the worker. If produces palaces, but hovels for the worker. It produces beauty, but deformity for the worker. It replaces labor by machinery, but it casts some of the workers back into a barbarous kind of work and turns the others into machines. It produces intelligence, but also stupidity and cretinism for the workers.
The proletarian in his work does not fulfil himself but denies himself,
has a feeling of misery rather than well-being, does not develop freely his mental and physical energies but is physically exhausted and mentally debased. The worker therefore feels himself at home only during his leisure time, whereas at work he feels homeless. 
Ernst Fischer
1899 - 1972