This huge increase in productivity should make it possible to hugely increase human freedom. Under capitalism, however, this potential increase in human freedom cannot become actual for the majority of the population, because the position of workers as a class in relation to capitalists as a class means that they are not free. They must take the terms the capitalists offer them, or starve; and capitalists will only employ them under terms that allow surplus value to be extracted from their labour. This is not because capitalists are cruel or greedy—though some may be—but because of the
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