If the government, for example, should decree that an ox should be given for a sheep, and a sheep for a hat or a pair of stockings, its folly would b… - Thomas Hodgskin

In the system of nature, mouths are united with hands and with intelligence; they and not capital are the agents of production; and … however it may have been thwarted by the pretended wisdom of law makers, wherever there is a man there also are the means of creating or producing him subsistence… it must be plain that all those numerous advantages, those benefits to civilisation, those vast improvements in the condition of the human race, which have been in general attributed to capital, are caused in fact by labour, and by knowledge and skill informing and directing labour. Should it be said, then, as perhaps it may, that unless there be profit, and unless there be interest, there will be no motives for accumulation and improvement, I answer that this is a false view, and arises from attributing to capital and saving those effects which result from labour; and that the best means of securing the progressive improvement, both of individuals and of nations, is to do justice, and allow labour to possess and enjoy the whole of its produce.

It would be better for men to be deprived of education than to receive their education from their masters; for education, in that sense, is no better than the training of cattle that are broken to the yoke… The workers of London must proceed, like those of Glasgow, and found the new institution at their own expense.

The labourers are still more unfortunate in being descended from bondsmen and serfs. Personal slavery or villanage formerly existed in Britain, and all the living labourers still suffer from the bondage of their ancestors.