Page:Shop Talks on Economics.djvu/6

 rial) ready to start on; he had machinery and power to run that machinery. Only one thing more was needed to start the plant running and to produce staves and hoops for barrels. This was the commodity which you workers supply. It is human power, human labor-power.

One hundred years ago almost everything was produced by human labor-power, but gradually improved machinery has been invented that lessens the human toil needed to make things. Big machines, run by steam, or water-power, now do-most of the heavy and difficult work. But the owner of the mine or factory or mill needs one other commodity to guide the machines, to tend the machines and feed them. He needs your labor-power.

The barrel manufacturer in Indiana said he needed "hands." He meant hands to do things. He meant labor-power. So he put an advertisement in the paper reading "Men Wanted." Of course he did not want to buy men outright, as folks used to buy chattel slaves. He hired some of you to work for him. He bought your human power (to work)—your labor-power.

And you sold him your labor-power, just as a stockman sells horses or a baker sells bread. You went to the boss with something to sell. He was in the market to buy human labor-power, and if your price was low you probably got a job.

Some of us work many years before we realize