I’ve heard it many times from liberals who either mean the revolution would be more violent than our current system (it wouldn’t be), or suggesting that communists claim that we will achieve utopia if we’re just allowed to commit much brutality in the mean time (obviously false). This phrase annoys me so much, not just as a utilitarian, but also as someone who understands the meaning of words, as they are either suggesting that (in the moralistic sense) literally nothing is worth doing, ever, or that morality shouldn’t matter because everything is immoral anyway.
Obligatory reminder that in the half XIX century workers in England lived in such horrible conditions that in one city (Machester or Liverpool iirc) average lifespan (icluding infant mortality etc.) for member of worker family was… 15 years, and this was taken from official statistic.
Fifteen.
Another connoisseur of The Condition of the Working Class in England, I see.
I cannot remember which city was which, either. But I remember that in the other city, the average lifespan was 17 or 19. So not much better!