I was a capitalist but not an employer; I was a laborer but not an employee.
"Labor is prior to and independent of capital," said Lincoln.

This is true.

I labored to break the branches from the tree before I had any capital.

They brought me fish, which were capital because I traded them for shoe blacking with which I earned enough money to buy ten times more fish than I had caught.
So labor is prior to capital--when you use the words in their right meaning.

But call the employee "labor" and the employer "capital," and you make old Honest Abe say that the employee is prior to and independent of the employer, or that the wage earner is independent of the wage payer or, in still shorter words, the man is on the job before the job is created.