Marx's thoughts..on "the adult relationship".
"The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors", and has left no other nexus between people than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment". It has drowned out the most heavenly ecstacies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom -- Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation."
"The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers."
"The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation into a mere money relation."
"In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capitol, develops, in the same proportion the proletariat, the modern working class develops--a class of laborers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labor increases capitol. These laborers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market."
Marx and Engels, 1848, The Communist Manifesto
In this time with the near-complete repudiation of Communism worldwide, one would do well to recall that it is the Communist solution that failed. The problem of bourgeoisie (read management) exploitation as identified by Marx and others remains pretty much intact. Laws in most nations now do a good job of moderating the problem, but the tendency to exploit lives on. Statements by CEO's such as Phil Carroll on the "adult relationship" serve to remind us of that.