All things were commodities, all people bought and sold. The
one commodity that labour had to sell was muscle. The honour of
labour had no price in the marketplace. Labour had muscle, and
muscle alone, to sell.
But there was a difference, a vital difference. Shoes and trust and
honour had a way of renewing themselves. They were imperishable
stocks. Muscle, on the other hand, did not renew. As the shoe
merchant sold shoes, he continued to replenish his stock. But there
was no way of replenishing the labourer's stock of muscle. The more
he sold of his muscle, the less of it remained to him. It was his
one commodity, and each day his stock of it diminished. In the end,
if he did not die before, he sold out and put up his shutters. He
was a muscle bankrupt, and nothing remained to him but to go down
into the cellar of society and perish miserably.
I learned, further, that brain was likewise a commodity. It, too,
was different from muscle. A brain seller was only at his prime when
he was fifty or sixty years old, and his wares were fetching higher
prices than ever.
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