108
" All things are for all. Here is an immense stock of tools and implements; here are all those iron slaves which we call machines, which saw and plane, spin and weave for us, unmaking and remaking, working up raw matter to produce the marvels of our time. But nobody has the right to seize a single one of these machines and say, “This is mine; if you want to use it you must pay me a tax on each of your products,” any more than the feudal lord of medieval times had the right to say to the peasant, “This hill, this meadow belong to me, and you must pay me a tax on every sheaf of corn you reap, on every rick you build.” All is for all! If the man and the woman bear their fair share of work, they have a right to their fair share of all that is produced by all, and that share is enough to secure them well-being. No more of such vague formulas as “The Right to work,” or “To each the whole result of his labour.” What we proclaim is THE RIGHT TO WELL-BEING: WELL-BEING FOR ALL! "
― Pyotr Kropotkin , The Conquest of Bread
109
" We may be artists or scientists; but none of us can do without things obtained by manual work — bread, clothes, roads, ships, light, heat, etc. And, moreover, however highly artistic or however subtly metaphysical are our pleasures, they all depend on manual labour. And it is precisely this labour — basis of life — that every one tries to avoid. We understand perfectly well that it must be so nowadays. Because, to do manual work now, means in reality to shut yourself up for ten or twelve hours a day in an unhealthy workshop, and to remain riveted to the same task for twenty or thirty years, and maybe for your whole life. It means to be doomed to a paltry wage, to the uncertainty of the morrow, to want of work, often to destitution, more often than not to death in a hospital, after having worked forty years to feed, clothe, amuse, and instruct others than yourself and your children. It means to bear the stamp of inferiority all your life, because, whatever the politicians tell us, the manual worker is always considered inferior to the brain worker, and the one who has toiled ten hours in a workshop has not the time, and still less the means, to give himself the high delights of science and art, nor even to prepare himself to appreciate them; he must be content with the crumbs from the table of privileged persons. We understand that under these conditions manual labour is considered a curse of fate. We understand that all men have but one dream — that of emerging from, or enabling their children to emerge from this inferior state; to create for themselves an “independent” position, which means what? — To also live by other men’s work! As long as there will be a class of manual workers and a class of “brain” workers, black hands and white hands, it will be thus. "
― Pyotr Kropotkin , The Conquest of Bread
112
" Lo que se necesita para favorecer el genio de los descubrimientos es, en primer término, el despertar del pensamiento; es la audacia de concepción, que toda nuestra educación no hace más que hacer languidecer; es el saber derramado a manos llenas, que centuplica el número de los investigadores, y es, por último, la conciencia de que la humanidad va a dar un paso hacia adelante, ya que muy frecuentemente es el entusiasmo -o a veces la ilusión del bien- los que han inspirado a todos los grandes benefactores.
Sólo la revolución social puede dar este choque al pensamiento, esta audacia, este saber, esta convicción de que se trabaja para todos. "
― Pyotr Kropotkin , The Conquest of Bread
114
" But, if plenty for all is to become a reality, this immense capital — cities, houses, pastures, arable lands, factories, highways, education — must cease to be regarded as private property, for the monopolist to dispose of at his pleasure. "
― Pyotr Kropotkin , The Conquest of Bread
