Their individualities are forced into a common mold, because the ultimate measure of the value of their work is the same, and is nothing but its results in cash.
Consider for a moment what individuality and individual independence really mean.

A genuine individual must at least possess some special quality which distinguishes him from other people, which unifies the successive phases and the various aspects of his own life and which results in personal moral freedom.

In what way and to what extent does the existing economic system contribute to the creation of such genuine individuals?
At its best it asks of every man who engages in a business occupation that he make as much money as he can, and the only conditions it imposes on this pursuit of money are those contained in the law of the land and a certain conventional moral code.

The pursuit of money is to arouse a man to individual activity, and law and custom determine the conditions to which the activity must conform.

The man does not become an individual merely by obeying the written and unwritten laws.