Page:Shop Talks on Economics.djvu/7

 that even we wage-workers have one commodity to sell. As long as we are able to work we try to find a buyer of our labor-power. We hunt for a job and the boss that goes with a job.

Men and women who have no other means of support have to sell their labor-power for wages in order to live.

A commodity is something that satisfies some human want; something produced by labor-power for sale or exchange. A dress made by a woman for herself is not a commodity. A dress made to be sold to somebody else is a commodity. It is not made for use, but for sale.

Sheep are commodities, as are shoes, houses, gloves, bread, steam-power and water-power, when sold by one man to another. And your strength to make things, your human laboring-power (or, as Marx says, your labor-power) is also a commodity when sold to an employer for wages.

Now you know that any man who is selling a commodity asks as high a price for it as he can. The little grocer who runs the small store near your home charges just as much as possible in selling butter to you. The coal dealers raise their prices whenever they can. And when you strike the boss for a job, you ask him as high a price for your labor-power as you think you can get.

High prices for labor-power is what wage-workers