I. The Transforming of Instinctive into Conscious Impulses

Over against the question:—What am I in reality as Man?—the modern proletarian feels this as the thing that most oppresses him, and from this his social demands instinctively proceed. He does not want any part of him to be bought and sold. We may say: He appears to himself as though a man could sell his own hands and arms. This seems to him intolerable. No matter in what form the feeling finds expression, in Marxist or in revolutionary thought, or however we may call it, the underlying feeling is, “Other folk buy and sell commodities, but I am obliged to sell my labor power.”