Ernest Mandel Quotes

Workers, the most absolutely necessary part of the whole social structure, without whose services none can either eat, or clothe, or shelter himself, are just the ones who get the least to eat, to wear, and to be housed withal — to say nothing of their share of the other social benefits which the rest of us are supposed to furnish, such as education and artistic gratification.

While unions did not play a part in my family life when I was being brought up, my early years were most certainly spent in a working-class community.

I make films about working class people.

The working classes in every country only learn to fight in the course of their struggles.

These interests of the workers, as the exploited and oppressed, class of society, are the same in all countries.

Juridically they are equal; but economically the worker is the serf of the capitalist … The worker always has the right to leave his employer, but has he the means to do so? No, he does it in order to sell himself to another employer. He is driven to it by the same hunger which forces him to sell himself to the first employer.

We need writers who will joyfully impose upon themselves the discipline of understanding and acting upon working-class-theory.

That's the Rebel Girl, That's the Rebel Girl. To the working class she's a precious pearl. She brings courage, pride and joy To the fighting Rebel Boy We've had girls before, but we need some more In the Industrial Workers of the World For it's great to fight for freedom With a Rebel Girl

My sympathies have always been for working-class people.

It is we the workers who built these palaces and cities here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers, can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins.

The progress of society is mainly the improvement in the condition of the workingmen of the world.

The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade-union consciousness.

For reforms ameliorate the situation of the working class, they lighten the weight of the chains labour is burdened with by capitalism, but they are not sufficient to crush capitalism and to emancipate the workers from their tyranny.

You don't have a very motivated working class, it starts to affect the dynamics of the economy. If workers are disenchanted and disenfranchised, productivity losses will go along with that.

The late development of mass industrial organization in the United States has both stimulated and retarded the political development of the American working class.

I've had several working-man songs that I like.

When the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century brought a rapid increase in wealth, the demand of workers for a fair share of the wealth they were creating was conceded only after riots and strikes.

The focus of our public discourse has been on how American companies are competing with Japanese, German, and other foreign companies. What this allows us to ignore is how each of those American companies is really in competition with the families of the workers. That's the real competition.

Without Socialism the working class is a heterogeneous mixture of different categories, some of which have independent, varying interests, sometimes opposed to each other.

Once the working classes were in chains, now they're in chain restaurants.

When the businessmen of the country were demanding the right to organize themselves adequately to promote their legitimate interests; when the farmers were demanding legislation which would give them opportunities and incentives to organize themselves for a common advance, it was natural that the workers should seek and obtain a statutory declaration of their constitutional right to organize themselves for collective bargaining.

We were no experts in the field of labor organization, but we had something in common with our fellow workers -- we were all poor -- we were all overworked -- we were all victims of the 84 hour week. In fact, we were all so low down on the economic and social ladder that we had nowhere to go but up

During those twelve hour nights we’d chat about the motormen, conductors, guards etc. whose conditions were even worse. They had to work a ‘spread’ of 16 hours each day in order to get 10 hours pay. Negro workers could get jobs only as porters. They were subjected to treatment that makes Little Rock and Birmingham seem liberal and respectable by comparison … I also saw Catholic ticket agents fired by Catholic bosses for going to mass early in the morning while the porter ‘covered’ the booth for half an hour. Protestant bosses fired Protestant workers for similar crimes — going to church. The Jewish workers had no trouble with the subway bosses — Jews were denied employment in the transit lines.

Your Irish railways employ thousands of men, whose working hours average twelve per day. Were they restricted to a forty-eight-hour week of labor, employment would he provided for thousands of Irishmen who at present are driven exiles from their native land.

In Russia the workers are powerless, kept in spiritual as well as physical bondage. The American workers are free to take up the fight, free to act, to read, to publish, to discuss, to instruct themselves, to combine in unions, to assemble in meeting, to strike. Hence it is only here [America] that the fight for peace can begin…. The [solution] consists in mass-actions of American workers against capitalist power. If they should proceed to wrench the decision on policy from big capital, the most essential step to deter the threat of atomic war would be made