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1er- 
by 
Property and Inheritance. 
13 
it, on fitting himself into industry. The individual's 
problem is no longer work, but employment, because 
isolated work is not possible in modem industry ; 
to use the hackneyed but accurate simile, no in- 
dividual is more than a cog, or at most a cog-wheel, 
in a machine which no individual controls, and his 
income as a worker depends on the cogs, of which 
he is one, engaging with the other cogs of the machine. 
This dependence of the individual on the organisation 
is most complete in the case of the wage-earner or 
salaried worker, and is seen most clearly when he is 
out of work; but the professional man, the great 
merchant and the large employer, considered as 
workers, are equally dependent on the organisation. 
Their income depends on their finding a buyer for 
the services they have to sell ; to themselves, if they 
cannot sell it, their knowledge or ability is of no 
value. And the amount of their income, their 
economic position, depends on the bargains they 
can make—on the price they get for their services 
and the prices they have to pay for the goods they 
consume. Every one is in his place in the chain of 
prices, his economic fate dependent on the two sets 
of prices, those he pays for the goods he needs and 
those he receives for the services he renders. 
Capitalism or Industrialism P 
This dependence is commonly represented as a 
dependence on capital, and, since capital is necessary 
to the working of the productive system, that 
dependence is a fact; but the dependence on the 
organisation is an independent and more truly funda- 
mental fact. The worker is dependent on capital 
because the use of capital is involved in the productive 
system ; his dependence on the organisation will 
persist so long as the present technical organisation