As a capitalist, he is only capital personified. His soul is the soul of capital. But capital has one sole driving force, the drive to valorize itself, to create surplus-value, to make its constant part, the means of production, absorb the greatest possible amount of surplus labour. Capital is dead labour which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks. [...] [W]hen the transaction was concluded, it was discovered that [the worker] was no ‘free agent’, that the period of time for which he is free to sell his labour-power is the period of time for which he is forced to sell it,65 that in fact the vampire will not let go ‘while there remains a single muscle, sinew or drop of blood to be exploited’.
Karl Marx, Capital Vol. 1
