An element of commodity production – the mode of production whereby one sells their labor power in exchange for a wage.
In order for waged labor to exist as a widespread productive mode (and not merely as isolated exchanges), there must exist a class of people who have no other way of subsisting – in the instance of industrial capitalism, that is the proletarian class. This pre-requisite can only exist where the means of production have become private property, otherwise those who would normally work for a wage could instead merely work the means of production themselves and support themselves from their own labor.
The capitalist buys the labor power of the worker for a wage (based on the socially necessary labor time required for the working class to reproduce itself), and then disposes of the product of labor – the commodity – in order to realize a profit. The worker, however, is alienated from the product of their labor.
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