THERE IS NO LABORING CLASS

 It cannot too often be stated that the labor¹ problem is not a class affair, but that it concerns the entire human race. There may be a class of aristocrats², of plutocrats, of criminals, of society idlers, or of any such group whose instinct is to withdraw itself from the common mass of humanity. But for laborers³ this is an impossibility. They remain, and must remain, part and parcel of the whole people. They are the people. There can be no laboring⁴ class. It is a contradiction of terms.

 

Especially is this true in America, where from the President of the country down to the coal-heaver everybody is supposed to 23 work. So strong is this supposition, that the inference is that whoever does not bear some part of the world’s burden is a diseased unit in humanity. The ultimate aim of all normal progress in social justice is to remove these units. All who have wealth in excess of a reasonable accumulation of the products of their own labor, all who live on endowment and inheritance, all who are sycophants⁵, idlers, or holders⁶ of sinecures⁷, must some day, when the terms of justice shall have been worked out, be put to work, and those who will not work shall not eat.

 

Just by what route the millennial⁸ state of simple equity⁹ shall come we cannot say, but come it surely will, and the profits of individual labor of brawn¹⁰ or brain shall go to the individual, and the profits arising from the state or social combination shall go to the state, to the people as a whole.

 

24

One of the most far-reaching acts of 1914 was the statement by the national congress, in its passage of the anti-trust law preventing the use of the Sherman act against trade unions, that “the labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce.”

 

The implications of this declaration it will be difficult to see for some time. It seems now to strike a blow at the very centre of the old system of business under which the world has operated for some six thousand years.

 

It means that humanity does not consist of employers and endowed persons, of nobles, wealthy people, and professional men—doctors, lawyers, priests, and squires¹¹; that culture, schools, courts, and senates are not for these only, and that the employed, the clerks, and workmen, who make the money for these upper classes, are not on the 25 same economic level as the spades and pens they handle; but that a man; any man, and his wage are direct concern of government; that the iron law of supply and demand may govern the grinding of flour, but not of human creatures, and that the brute¹² law of competition shall some time, in some way, be changed to the human law of co-operation.

1 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

2 aristocrats   

n.贵族( aristocrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Many aristocrats were killed in the French Revolution. 许多贵族在法国大革命中被处死。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• To the Guillotine all aristocrats! 把全部贵族都送上断头台！ 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

3 laborers   

n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工

参考例句：

• Laborers were trained to handle 50-ton compactors and giant cranes. 工人们接受操作五十吨压土机和巨型起重机的训练。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. 雇佣劳动完全是建立在工人的自相竞争之上的。 来自英汉非文学 - 共产党宣言

4 laboring   

n.劳动，操劳v.努力争取(for)( labor的现在分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转

参考例句：

• The young man who said laboring was beneath his dignity finally put his pride in his pocket and got a job as a kitchen porter. 那个说过干活儿有失其身份的年轻人最终只能忍辱，做了厨房搬运工的工作。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• But this knowledge did not keep them from laboring to save him. 然而，这并不妨碍她们尽力挽救他。 来自飘（部分）

5 sycophants   

n.谄媚者，拍马屁者( sycophant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The office is a menagerie of egotists and sycophants. 该办公室乃是自私者与谄媚者汇集之处。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They even praise such a disappointing program, they really are sycophants. 这么差劲的节目也有人夸赞，真是捧臭脚！ 来自互联网

6 holders   

支持物( holder的名词复数 )； 持有者； （支票等）持有人； 支托（或握持）…之物

参考例句：

• Slaves were mercilessly ground down by slave holders. 奴隶受奴隶主的残酷压迫。
• It is recognition of compassion's part that leads the up-holders of capital punishment to accuse the abolitionists of sentimentality in being more sorry for the murderer than for his victim. 正是对怜悯的作用有了认识，才使得死刑的提倡者指控主张废除死刑的人感情用事，同情谋杀犯胜过同情受害者。

7 sinecures   

n.工作清闲但报酬优厚的职位，挂名的好差事( sinecure的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He had lined up four sinecures that I knew of. 据我所知，他起码有四个挂名头衔。 来自辞典例句

8 millennial   

一千年的，千福年的

参考例句：

• Both Russia and America looked to the future to fulfill their millennial expectations. 俄国和美国都把实现他们黄金时代的希望寄托于未来。
• The millennial generation is celebrating the global commons every day, apparently unmindful of Hardin's warning. 千禧一代显然对哈丁的警告不以为然，每天都在颂扬全球“公地”。

9 equity   

n.公正，公平，（无固定利息的）股票

参考例句：

• They shared the work of the house with equity.他们公平地分担家务。
• To capture his equity,Murphy must either sell or refinance.要获得资产净值，墨菲必须出售或者重新融资。

10 brawn   

n.体力

参考例句：

• In this job you need both brains and brawn.做这份工作既劳神又费力。
• They relied on brains rather than brawn.他们靠的是脑力，而不是体力。

11 squires   

n.地主，乡绅( squire的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The family history was typical of the Catholic squires of England. 这个家族的历史，在英格兰信天主教的乡绅中是很典型的。 来自辞典例句
• By 1696, with Tory squires and Amsterdam burghers complaining about excessive taxes. 到1696年，托利党的乡绅们和阿姆斯特丹的市民都对苛捐杂税怨声载道。 来自辞典例句

12 brute   

n.野兽，兽性

参考例句：

• The aggressor troops are not many degrees removed from the brute.侵略军简直象一群野兽。
• That dog is a dangerous brute.It bites people.那条狗是危险的畜牲，它咬人。