To secure to each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government.

–Abraham Lincoln, 1847

Bet you never knew ole Abe was a Commie, didya? The labor theory of value rears its non-grata-since-the-end-of-the-Cold-War head — and on the side of the worker, no less! What a subversive, anti-American punk this guy must have been!

Here are some other good Abe quotes:

It is an old maxim and a very sound one, that he that dances should always pay the fiddler. Now, sir, in the present case, if any gentlemen, whose money is a burden to them, choose to lead off a dance, I am decidedly opposed to the people’s money being used to pay the fiddler. No one can doubt that the examination proposed by this resolution, must cost the State some ten or twelve thousand dollars; and all this to settle a question in which the people have no interest, and about which they care nothing. These capitalists generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece the people, and now, that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people’s money to settle the quarrel.

–from his “Speech in the Illinois Legislature Concerning the State Bank,” January 11, 1837 (emphasis added)

Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are worthy of protection as any other rights.

I guess he wasn’t a Commie after all. He thought capital had rights — why, I don’t know. And yet, why is it that no one says such things any more?