Free Enterprise

Free Enterprise "Work hard, save your money, and you can become wealthy - or, at least, "independent!" This is the motto of old-fashioned, "free enterprise." It expresses the idea that everybody in a capitalist society can participate and compete on the same terms with similar chances of success. It implies that the working class is just a collection of individuals who have not yet established their independence (worked their way up) through "individual initiative," rather …

…competition without increasing their earnings. Because of these realities, workers learn to "work smart" according to their own understanding. Working smart for the worker means withholding his labor power, working more slowly and learning the tricks of the trade, better known as bargaining. These things raise the price of his labor-power. This in turn forces the capitalist to concentrate more on improving productivity through better machinery and production processes in order to increase his profits.