But a century has passed since then, and in the order of progress that simple tool has become a mammoth machine.
The old hand tool was used by a single worker—and owned by him who used it.
The machine requires a thousand or ten thousand workers to operate it, but they do not own it, and what they produce with it does not go to them, but to the capitalist who does own it.
The workers who use the machine are the slaves of the capitalist who owns it.
The capitalist is a capitalist solely for profit—without profit he would not be in business an instant. That is his first and only consideration.
In the capitalist system profit is prior to and more important than the life or liberty of the workingman.
The capitalist’s profit first, last and always. He owns the tools and only allows the worker to use them on condition that he can extract a satisfactory profit from his labor. If he cannot do this the tools are not allowed to be used—he locks them up and waits.
The capitalist does no work himself; that is, no useful or necessary work. He spends his time watching other parasites in the capitalist game of “dog eat dog,” or in idleness or dissipation. The workers who use his tools give him all the wealth they produce and he allows them a sufficient wage to keep them in working order.
The wage is to the worker what oil is to the machine.
The machine cannot run without lubricant and the worker cannot work and reproduce himself without being fed, clothed and housed; this is his lubricant and the amount he requires to keep him in running order regulates his wage.
Karl Marx, in his “Wage, Labor and Capital,” makes these points clear in his own terse and masterly style. We quote as follows:
“The free laborer sells himself, and that by fractions. From day to day he sells by auction, eight, ten, twelve, fifteen hours of his life to the highest bidder—to the owner of the raw material, the instruments of work and the means of life; that is, to the employer. The laborer himself belongs neither to an owner nor to the soil; but eight, ten, twelve, fifteen hours of his daily life belong to the man who buys them. The laborer leaves the employer to whom he has hired himself whenever he pleases; and the employer discharges him whenever he thinks fit; either as soon as he ceases to make a profit out of him or fails to get as high a profit as he requires. But the laborer whose only source of earning is the sale of his labor power cannot leave _the whole class of its purchasers_, that is the capitalist class, without renouncing his own existence. He does not belong to this or that particular employer, but he does belong to the _capitalist class_; and more than that: it is his business to find an employer; that is, among this capitalist class it is his business to discover _his own particular purchaser_.”