And we, in our admiration of the prodigies achieved under the new factory system, overlooked the advantages of the old system under which the tiller of the soil was an industrial worker at the same time.
Kropotkin critiques the admiration for factory achievements while neglecting the benefits of traditional agricultural practices.
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More from Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin
However, I found that the comprehension of ‘struggle for life’ in the sense of a war-cry of ‘Woe to the weak,’ raised to the height of a commandment of nature revealed by science, was so deeply inrooted in this country that it had become…
Already during my stay at Clairvaux I saw the necessity of completely revising the formula itself of ‘struggle for existence’ in the animal world, and its applications to human affairs.
Most socialists had hitherto said that in our present civilized societies we actually produce much more than is necessary for guaranteeing full well-being to all.
Far more important, however, than this outbreak of discontent, was the spirit which prevailed amongst the poorer portion of the working population in the outskirts of London.
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