muscular development is carefully inspected and tested. Weakly workers are not even allowed to enter the country, for it is considered that these weaklings would constitute an inferior sort of working cattle. But in the States it is an exception for the workers to attain the age of forty-five. My Lord Capital sucks the life out of them in the most “progressive” manner possible.
The dictatorship of the proletariat is obviously the first means which has been found for putting this matter of labour protection upon a secure footing. The working class is directly interested in the preservation of labour power. It must display the utmost regard for this most precious and most important force of production. The communist system will have nothing to do with a foolish, criminal, and injurious waste of human strength; it will work with the aid of a highly developed technique, whose first object will be the preservation of this strength. That is why labour protection is of such immense importance during the transition to the communist phase of human society.
LABOUR PROTECTION, THEN, SIGNIFIES THE SAFEGUARDING OF THE WORKERS FROM HARMFUL CONDITIONS OF PRODUCTION.
128. The chief Fields of Labour Protection.
The most important requisite for the protection of the working class, and the most important safeguard against its physical deterioration, against illness, increased mortality, etc., is that there should be a normal working day. It is not surprising, therefore, that the working class has always put the struggle for the reduction of working hours in the forefront of the general struggle. The working day decides the expenditure of human energy which is converted into products. In capitalist society this energy is likewise converted into capitalist profit, and for this reason the capitalists are greatly interested in protracting the working