power-
loom weaver is in competition with the hand-loom weaver, the unemployed
or ill-paid hand-loom weaver with him who has work or is better paid,
each trying to supplant the other. But this competition of the workers
among themselves is the worst side of the present state of things in its
effect upon the worker, the sharpest weapon against the proletariat in
the hands of the bourgeoisie. Hence the effort of the workers to nullify
this competition by associations, hence the hatred of the bourgeoisie
towards these associations, and its triumph in every defeat which befalls
them.

The proletarian is helpless; left to himself, he cannot live a single
day. The bourgeoisie has gained a monopoly of all means of existence in
the broadest sense of the word. What the proletarian needs, he can
obtain only from this bourgeoisie, which is protected in its monopoly by
the power of the State. The proletarian is, therefore, in law and in
fact, the slave of the bourgeoisie, which can decree his life or death.
It offers him the means of living, but only for an "equivalent" for his
work. It even lets him have the appearance of acting from a free choice,
of making a contract with free, unconstrained consent, as a responsible
agent who has attained his majority.

Fine freedom, where the proletarian has no other choice than that of
either accepting the conditions which the bourgeoisie offers him, or of
starving, of freezing to death, of sleeping naked among the beasts of the
forests! A fine "equivalent" valued at pleasure by the bourgeoisie! And
if one proletarian is such a fool as to starve rather than agree to the
equitable propositions of the bourgeoisie, his "natural superiors,"
another is easily found in his place; there are proletarians enough in
the world, and not all so insane as to prefer dying to living.

Here we have the competition of the workers among themselves. If _all_
the proletarians announced their determination to starve rather than work
for the bourgeoisie, the latter would have to surrender its monopoly. But
this is not the case--is, indeed, a rather impossible case--so that the
bourgeoisie still thrives. To this competition of the worker there is
but one limit; no worker will work for less than he needs to subsist. If
he must starve, he will prefer to starve in idleness rather than in toil.
True, this limit is relative; one needs more than another, one is
accustomed to more comfort than another; the E