Ever since Marx, the social struggle has developed into this form, despite infinite differences in other respects. Since it has been recognized that the condition of labor is determined by the objective conditions and forms of production, irrespective of the desires and capacities of particular individuals, the personal bitterness of both general and local battles has greatly decreased. The entrepreneur is no longer a bloodsucker and damnable egoist, nor does the worker suffer from sinful greediness under all circumstances. Both parties have at least begun no longer to burden each other's consciences with their mutual demands and tactics as acts of personal meanness.

XREF: Connects to later Marxian and sociological arguments that structural/systemic analysis (as opposed to personal moralizing) depersonalizes conflict — echoes of Durkheim's division-of-labor insights and Gouldner's reflections on ideology.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 307