Das Kapital, Volume I

Somebody Made It

Look at the bread on your plate.
You did not grow it. You did not bake it.
Somebody made it.

A farmer grew the wheat in a big field.
A baker baked it before the sun came up.
You will never meet them.
But they are real, and they made your bread.
Somebody made it.

Now look at the shirt you are wearing.
Somebody picked the soft cotton.
Somebody sewed it, piece by piece.
Hands you cannot see made your shirt.
Somebody made it.

Now look at your favorite toy.
It did not just appear.
It did not come from nowhere.
People far away made it with their hands.
Somebody made it.

(Say it with me: Somebody made it!)

So many people you cannot see.
They did real, hard work.
A little of it is right here with you.
That is a lot of people to thank.

Here is what you can do.
Hold your bread, your shirt, your toy.
Say a quiet thank you in your heart.
And take good care of it,
because somebody made it for you.

---

A note for the grown-up

For the grown-up reading aloud: This little book borrows the gentlest true idea from Karl Marx’s Capital — that behind every object are real people whose work we never see. The grown-up book takes that much further, into a hard and contested argument about who keeps the wealth those hidden workers create; its famous prediction that the whole system would one day collapse has not come true the way Marx expected. None of that belongs in a six-year-old’s head yet. For now, the true and kind part is enough: things do not come from nowhere, and the people behind them are worth a thank-you.