What is the actual status of the workingman in the capitalist society of today?
Is he in any true sense a citizen?
Has he any basis for the claim that he is a free man?
First of all, he cannot work unless some capitalist finds it to his interest to employ him.
Why not? Because he has no tools and man cannot work without them.
Why has he no tools? Because tools in these days are, as a rule, great machines and very costly, and in the capitalist system are the private property of the capitalists.
This being true, the workingman, before he can do a tap of work, before he can earn a dime to feed himself, his wife or his child, must first consult the tool-owning capitalist; or, rather, his labor-buying superintendent. Very meekly, therefore, and not without fear in his heart and trembling in his knees, he enters the office and offers his labor power in exchange for a wage that represents but a part, usually a small part, of what his labor produces.
His offer may be accepted or rejected.
Not infrequently the “boss” has been annoyed by so many job-hunters that he has become irritable, and gruffly turns the applicant away.
But admitting that he finds employment, during working hours he is virtually the property of his master.