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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