NP but speaking of labor and business............

[alice wellintown]

The hedgehog's dilemma, or sometimes the porcupine dilemma, is an
analogy about the challenges of human intimacy. It describes a
situation in which a group of hedgehogs all seek to become close to
one another in order to share their heat during cold weather. However,
once accomplished, they cannot avoid hurting one another with their
sharp quills. They must step away from one another. Though they all
share the intention of a close reciprocal relationship, this may not
occur for reasons which they cannot avoid.

Both Arthur Schopenhauer and Sigmund Freud have used this situation to
describe what they feel is the state an individual will find
themselves in relation to others. The hedgehog's dilemma suggests that
despite goodwill, human intimacy cannot occur without substantial
mutual harm, and what results is cautious behavior and weak
relationships. With the hedgehog's dilemma one is recommended to use
moderation in affairs with others both because of self-interest, as
well as out of consideration for others. The hedgehog's dilemma is
used to justify or explain introversion and isolationism.

from Wiki

The Hedgehog dilemma is taken up in _The Children of the Dream_ By
Bruno Bettelheim. The kibbutz, the anarchists, the Brook Farmers, so
on, there, as Melville sez of Emerson, is a rainbow we are not long
comfortable under, for we prefer to swing in a harness of our own
making. Easy enough if one has a room of one's own or a lighthouse or
even a tower shred with a Mulligan and a Newspaper man, but most men
and women, the mass of men, as Thoreau refers to them, live lives of
the body. The body or mass of men are controlled by the heads. The
heads exploit the body, send it off to war or to bartleby tombs, or to
meaningless labor. A few good women and men, exercise the conscience;
these are made heroes, martyrs, saints, labor leaders who gave us
better lives, even given a 17 January Holiday, after being labled
black devils and after dehumanization, after, as enemies of the state
or head, the mass of men are busy dying, and all is propaganda, all is
phony.