19th century American workersThinkers

Ownership (n.) belongs ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠with the work: they who work in the mills ought to own them, wrote New England mill hands — no radical intellectuals required.

Selfishness (n.) was ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠what the 19th-century workers' press called 'the New Spirit of the Age': Gain Wealth, forgetting all but Self.

Wage labor (n.) seemed ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠to nineteenth-century American workers hardly different from chattel slavery; self-directed work was what made a democrat.

Wage slavery (n.) differed ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠little from plantation slavery, said 19th-century mechanics: they were forced to sell themselves rather than what they made.