From Poverty of Philosophy

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Abstract
Big industry brings together in one place a crowd of people who are unknown to one another. Competition divides them in regard to their interests. But maintaining their wages, this common interest which they have against their master, unites them in a single thought of resistance – coalition. Thus, the coalition always has a double purpose, that of bringing the competition among them to an end, in order to be able to mount a general competition against the capitalist. If the first aim of the resistance was only to maintain wages, to the extent that the capitalists in their turn unite in the thought of repression, the coalitions, at first isolated, form themselves into groups and, in the face of the always united capital, the maintenance of the association becomes more important for them than the maintenance of wages. So true is this, that the English economists are all astonished to see the workers sacrifice a good part of their wages on behalf of the associations which, in the eyes of the economists, were established only to advance wages. In this struggle – veritable civil war – all the elements necessary for a coming battle are united and developed. At this point, the association assumes a political character. Economic conditions had first transformed the mass of the country into labourers. The domination of capital has created for this mass a common situation and common interests.

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