Explaining Wage Slavery in a simple way to those not in the know

[AK]

It's always been hard for me to justify my claim that wage slavery is just that - wage slavery. Wage and slavery and quite contrasting terms. So yeah. Help.

[ContrarianLemming]

"Why do you work"
"because I have to put food on the table"
"so you do have to work"
"yes"

"in what way is that voluntary? What is slavery? involuntary work"

[Widerstand]

"Why do you work"
"because I have to put food on the table"
"so you do have to work"
"yes"

"in what way is that voluntary? What is slavery? involuntary work"

Nice Socratic Dialogue.

[RED DAVE]

Evil (or naive) capitalism apologist: Yeah, but capitalism means you can always go somewhere if you don't like the conditions.

You: Where can I go where I don't have to work?

Evil (or naive) capitalism apologist: Try prison.

You: You're behind the times. They make you work there.

Evil (or naive) capitalism apologist: Sorry about that. How about Hawaii?

RED DAVE

[Norseman]

I think it's easiest to explain with other kinds of capital. Take air for instance. Right now, air is pretty damn good. You don't have to pay for it, you can have as much as you want, and you don't need to ask anyone for permission to have it. Air, as a form of capital, is nothing like land, and we're lucky for that.

But, maybe air could be a kind of capital, just like land. Maybe big corporations could take air and pump it into giant air reservoirs. Maybe they would do this to sell filtered, freshened, pure air to customers. Much like how you now have to pay for water, rather than just getting it as you like, perhaps, as the air becomes more polluted and dangerous to breathe, you'll have an air pipe connected to your home to supply you with clean air, and you'll pay according to how much you use, just like you have to do so with water.

Before long, the air reservoirs might contain the entire atmosphere of the Earth. Much like how, now, you can't find one scrap of land that someone else hasn't already claimed. Oh, sure, they make the air cleaner and fresher, just like how privately owned land is developed and improved. Houses, and factories and shopping malls are built on previously empty land. Capitalists insist that private ownership improves things, and, sure enough, they improve the air that they sell.

Now that we have capitalist air, let's talk about socialists. These silly socialists insist that air should belong to everyone, that you should breathe freely, in more ways than one. Some socialists might smash holes in the sides of the reservoirs to let out the air for everyone, and they would be called vandals! Some would say "If everyone can have air for free, then who will make the air fresh? These socialists are just thieves.", others would say that if socialists want free air, they should make it, not steal it, and still others would say that they would like all of the air to be free, but they can't accept the violence of destroying the air reservoirs. The socialists would insist that since the capitalists aren't using the air themselves, and they didn't make it, it's not their property, and their claim of ownership of it is nothing but an injustice, but their explanations would be quite thoroughly ignored on TV, in favor of exciting and terrifying images of socialists smashing up air reservoirs, since it will, after all, earn much higher ratings.

If you think air should be free, then shouldn't land also be free? If land should be free, then why should anyone be able to claim ownership of it if they don't use it themselves? Should another person be able to charge you for simply breathing air, or for having land to live on?

[death_by_semicolon]

I actually woke up this morning with this very question in my head. I like Aeon's answer, but the fact remains that, even if you were not employed for pay, you would still HAVE to work in order to put food on the table. Until we can spontaneously conjure sustenance out of the ether, some exertion will still be required.

I'm still kind of a novice at this, but my understanding of wage slavery arises primarily out of the relationship between worker and capitalist. The worker agrees to "sell" his or her time and energy in return for some pay, which could then be used to purchase life's necessities. Early on, this was largely a symbiotic relationship and led to great advancement (i.e. the Industrial Revolution). However, the capitalist's interests are not the same as the workers' and this inevitably leads to antagonism. The worker's time is used to further the profit interests of the capitalist, not to ensure the sustenance of the worker. In the process, the worker has lost the means of production by which they would otherwise be able to sustain themselves and their families. So, they must continue to "sell" themselves to do a job they don't necessarily want to do and become dependent on a capitalist's willingness to provide the means for acquiring life's necessities (i.e. money). That decision (what to pay the worker) is not motivated by the worker's need. It is motivated by profit, or more specifically the excess value their labor imparts on whatever the capitalist has them making or doing. The time a worker spends at a job serves the capitalist's interests MUCH more than the capitalist allows it to serve the worker's interests.

Maybe someone with more knowledge can elaborate (or correct me where I'm wrong), but that's my current understanding of the concept.

[Amado]

"You see, the only difference between wage labor and slavery is the time you spend under total control by another. After all, doesn't your boss tell you 'Do this-or else'?"

[Thirsty Crow]

The worker agrees to "sell" his or her time and energy in return for some pay, which could then be used to purchase life's necessities. Early on, this was largely a symbiotic relationship and led to great advancement (i.e. the Industrial Revolution).
I think that this is an abstraction, the "worker agrees" part.
The overwhelming majority of workers are not invited to agree or disagree.
And I don't think that early on there was a kind of a "happy symbiotic relationship", given the brutal primitive accumulation of capital, land closure etc.

[danyboy27]

i cant do it simplier, sorry.

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c235/spetznaz21/wageslavery.png

[death_by_semicolon]

I think that this is an abstraction, the "worker agrees" part.
The overwhelming majority of workers are not invited to agree or disagree.
And I don't think that early on there was a kind of a "happy symbiotic relationship", given the brutal primitive accumulation of capital, land closure etc.

Good point on the "agreement" to sell labor. It definitely is a buyer's market...we don't have much choice.

I think I made a poor choice of words with the "symbiotic" description. Capitalism has always been one-sided. However, there was perhaps more for the working class as a whole to gain from the arrangement early on- mainly through rapid technological advancement and the fact that capitalism hadn't yet perfected it's tools for exploitation and exclusion.

[HEAD ICE]

The mere fact that people "have to work" under capitalism is not an argument against wage slavery. In a communist society, we have to have food, shelter, clothing and everything else to make our lives easier. People will have to work to do this. They will be required to work.

A wage is paid to a worker in exchange for their labor. Labor, and hence the worker him/herself, is turned into a commodity to be bought and sold in a market. The surplus value of their labor is extracted by the capitalist, turned into profit, hence enriching him/herself in the process.

People have to work to survive. In capitalism and communism this is the same. Everyone does. But in capitalism, there is a class of people who profit off of this. This is wage slavery, because you are beholden to a capitalist class. You are not working to survive, you are working for a capitalist who you hope will let you survive.

[Raúl Duke]

I just point out that one is forced to work for another's profit due to the circumstances/conditions a capitalist society sets up.

It may seem "voluntary," but usually the choice is split between roughly 2 shitty choices (starve, be homeless or live a minimal living on, in most cases, temporary welfare {which is only available in some countries} vs working a shitty job where someone tells you what to do and sometimes how to do it and, as a collective {all employees}, making that person(s) richer than you for it).

Also, once you are working in "the company's time" in many cases you are in a "slave" for the company, since they have the ultimate say in ordering you what to do in "their" time for your wage. Even if you make a better suggestion on how to do something or if you refuse to do something according to a set guideline or philosogy (taylorism, etc), ultimately it's their decision and you cannot refuse unless you want to get fired.

[ZeroNowhere]

"Why do you work"
"because I have to put food on the table"
"so you do have to work"
"yes"

"in what way is that voluntary? What is slavery? involuntary work"
Slavery is not simply 'involuntary work', though. Somebody could well be stranded on a desert island, in which case they have to work to survive, yet they would not be a 'slave' except figuratively. Slavery is a social relation. It's probably important to explain it from a class perspective, which is to say talking about the proletariat and bourgeoisie as such rather than simply certain individual members.

[ContrarianLemming]

it's probably important to explain it from a class perspective, which is to say talking about the proletariat and bourgeoisie as such rather than simply certain individual members.


"Explaing wage slavery in a simple way to those not in the know"

[Adil3tr]

If you have to work, if the alternative is starvation, and you are paid little more than it takes to survive, you are a obvious wage slave. Wage slaves are far more profitable than slaves. They cost nothing for the down payment, and you can frequently pay them less than it takes to survive and let them drown in debt, then later you can replace them from the thousands of unemployed eying their job

[Robocommie]

"Why do you work"
"because I have to put food on the table"
"so you do have to work"
"yes"

"in what way is that voluntary? What is slavery? involuntary work"

We can't really use this argument though I think, because we can't really offer a society where you can simply choose to not work. Everyone has to do their part.

Edit: Stagger Lee beat me to it.

[mikelepore]

I copied the following paragraphs from a socialist pamphlet, Arnold Petersen, 'Capital and Labor', 1939. I consider this system to be a form of slavery.

________________________________________________


The vast majority are people who work for a wage - if and when they find work. Having no possessions, the means of production being held in private and exclusive ownership by the few (the capitalists), these millions of propertiless persons (the wage workers) must go to the owners and beg them for permission to use the machines and plants of production in general.

The capitalist will, in effect, say to these workers, "We own this land, these mines, these oil wells, this machinery, etc., etc., but they are useless to us without labor, or labor power. On the other hand, you have labor power, or ability to work at some job or other, but that labor power is no use to you unless you have access to the land and machines, etc., which we own, but can't operate ourselves. Very well, we will make a deal with you. If you will agree to work for us, and let us keep all you produce, we will pay you back just enough to enable you to live and raise a family. Experience demonstrates, and our experts estimate, that in two hours you can produce what you need to live and raise a family. We will allow you to keep for yourself what you produce in those two hours of labor, provided you will continue for six more hours, we to keep for ourselves everything you produce in these additional six hours. We own, and do no work, but we keep the bulk of what you produce. You work, but own nothing; you produce all, but you keep just a small fraction of the things you produce. Fair enough?"

Well, the toolless worker, himself and family starving, is not likely to be much concerned about fairness at this juncture, and so he is likely to say, in effect, "Very well, you own me and my life, because you own that whereon my life, and the lives of my dear ones, depend. I have no choice but to accept your terms, even if they do seem like the terms of highway robbers."

[mikelepore]

We can't really use this argument though I think, because we can't really offer a society where you can simply choose to not work. Everyone has to do their part.

It isn't work that makes it slavery. The problem is that one specific group of the population is required to work under the command of, and for the profit of, another specific group of the population. The situation would be clearer for everyone to notice if it were based on a physical trait, say, if all brown-eyed people were required to be the servants of all the blue-eyed people, or something else that we exhibit very plainly. In that case, everyone would notice immediately that it's slavery. Although it's not as easy for everyone to notice, it's essentially the same problem when the demographic group of all people who are so unlucky that they don't own the means of production are required, in order to survive, to become the servants of the demographic group that is lucky enough to own the means of production.

[syndicat]

It's not just that one must work but that one is forced to accept work under the terms offered by the employer including subordination to their management and them owning the entire product.

I usually make an analogy with a mugger. He points a gun at you and says "Your money or your life." You say "you were forced to go along" because the alternative (of trying to flea or fight) had a major risk of dire consequences.

Similarly, you don't get a job, you can't pay the rent, you're faced with being thrown on the street, your kids go hungry, etc. That's also dire consequences. So, you were "forced to accept the job" even tho the employer didn't put a gun to your head.

Why is it "slavery"? Because the way your working abilities are put to use by the employer and what is produced are effectively "owned" by the employer. You have to do what the employer tells you to do or you're threatened with termination. Your employer "owns" that part of your life. you become the employer's tool.

[mikelepore]

A few days ago on another web site, some right-wingers gave me the argument that the employed worker has made a "free choice", entered into a "voluntary contract" etc. Below I am copying my reply to them.

----------------------------------------------

In some cases the coercive force that prevents a choice from being a free one is originated by one of the parties to the negotiation, as in the case of saying, "If you will confess to withcraft, then I won't put you on the rack."

In other cases, the coercive force that prevents the choice from being a free one is originated elsewhere in the environment, and it is simply found by one of the parties, who can then take advantage of it, as in the case where I encounter a person dangling over a cliff, and I tell that person, "I will lower a rope to you -- if you will agree to be my servant."

People making the pro-capitalist argument only recognize the case where the coercion is introduced by one of the parties. They don't recognize the case where the coercion is found as-is, and someone who comes along can take advantage of it.

The class-based coercion that exists under capitalism is of the latter type. The capitalist doesn't force the worker to enter into employment. It is only a found situation that is to be exploited.

We are not the kind of animal that has the means of survival as part of our own bodies, as in the case of the eagle's wings and talons, the bear's claws, or the cheetah's fast legs. We are the kind of animal that has the means of survival located outside of ouselves, in the tools that have been developed. The tools have become too large and complex to be supplied spontaneously without a huge amount of capital; for example, the role that used to be the village blacksmith is now the role of a few giant steel corporations.

The modern capitalist finds this historical trend and takes advantage of it. Although the capitalist hasn't used any force personally, this historical result makes the people who own the tools the rulers over the lives of the people who don't own the tools.

[ContrarianLemming]

It's not just that one must work but that one is forced to accept work under the terms offered by the employer including subordination to their management and them owning the entire product.

I usually make an analogy with a mugger. He points a gun at you and says "Your money or your life." You say "you were forced to go along" because the alternative (of trying to flea or fight) had a major risk of dire consequences.

Similarly, you don't get a job, you can't pay the rent, you're faced with being thrown on the street, your kids go hungry, etc. That's also dire consequences. So, you were "forced to accept the job" even tho the employer didn't put a gun to your head.

Why is it "slavery"? Because the way your working abilities are put to use by the employer and what is produced are effectively "owned" by the employer. You have to do what the employer tells you to do or you're threatened with termination. Your employer "owns" that part of your life. you become the employer's tool.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Capitalism_graffiti_luebeck.jpg

[howblackisyourflag]

"You vote for politicians, why cant you vote for your boss?"

[ZeroNowhere]

"Explaing wage slavery in a simple way to those not in the know"
Yes, and wage slavery is slavery to the capitalist class as a whole, not simply to its individual members. This is not complex.

[AK]

Thank you all for your well-detailed responses.

"You vote for politicians, why cant you vote for your boss?"
Because look how voting for our politicians turned out.

It wouldn't make a difference.

[Wolf Larson]

It's always been hard for me to justify my claim that wage slavery is just that - wage slavery. Wage and slavery and quite contrasting terms. So yeah. Help.
chattle slaves could buy their freedom. as can you if you become a wealthy capitalist who lives off of other peoples labor but most wage slaves feel free because they can choose their master. the capitalists force all of us into wage slavery via private property. if most all of the earths natural recources are private property one has no choice but to play their game in order to survive.

just enough pay to keep us comming back every week. work a job on a production line be it construction or manufacturing and the term wage slavery will have a whole new meaning for you. hell, even the fast food worker feels the squeeze. we are overworked because we are profit making machines for capitalists who dont work.

[RebelDog]

"You vote for politicians, why cant you vote for your boss?"

Turkeys shouldn't vote for christmas. Turkeys should rid themselves of christmas.