production, was classified as “ dumb tools” (things), “ half-speaking tools” (beasts of burden, sheep, cows, oxen, etc. — in a word, inarticulate animals), and “ speaking tools ” (slaves, human beings). A spade, an ox, a slave, were for the master all alike tools or utensils , which he could buy, sell, misuse, or destroy, at pleasure.
The wage labourer can be neither bought nor sold. What can be bought and sold is his labour power; not the man or woman, but the capacity for labour. The wage labourer is personally free; the factory owner cannot flog him in the stable, or sell him to a neighbour, or exchange him for a wolf-hound puppy, though all these things could be done when serfdom prevailed. The wage worker can merely be hired. To all appearance the capitalist and the wage worker are equals. “Don’t work if you don’t want to; there is no compulsion,” says the factory owner. The employer actually declares that he feeds the worker, gives work to the employee.