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We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate […] Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy till the moment of execution; and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do without resistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by other people.Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, “On the Wages of Labour”
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Man gets accustomed to everything, the scoundrel!Fyodr Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
But if that’s a lie [he suddenly exclaimed involuntarily], if man is not a scoundrel – in general that is, the whole human race – then the rest is all mere prejudice, instilled fear, and there are no barriers.
