"All you want to do is to buy brains.” (1927)

From the July 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

  When I started business in America Andrew Carnegie told me, "All you want to do is to buy brains.” (Sir Algernon Frith, Shoe and Leather Record, 6/5/27.)

Simple, isn’t it? Obviously they don’t buy their own brains. Those brains belong to workers, even if in return they receive salary and dress so like the buyers. The latter may be prospectus ornaments of any number of concerns, while the actual, as distinct from the nominal directing, is undertaken by these “special kind of wage earners.” The “Daily Chronicle” (16/11/26), commenting on the increase in the numbers seeking these kinds of jobs, made a discovery and headed their comments : “Brains nearly as cheap as Brawn.”

Mac.