Alternative to wage slavery

[Silleuksa]

So what exactly is the communist alternative to wage slavery? Worker owned means of production? Wouldn't that still have people live off wages?

[Lolumad273]

I think the ultimate goal for Communists is the removal of money. People work because they enjoy to, and get what they need to live. Leisure items are considered necessary for living. Because without leisure, you are existing, not living.

[Caj]

Well, the ideal is to eventually abolish money, but if that is rendered impractical, a system of remuneration would be kept in place.

Remuneration differs from wages in a number of ways, the latter just being an exploitative manifestation of the former. Wages are what is payed to the worker after the extraction of surplus value (profit) by the capitalist; thus, wages are always less than the full value of the worker's labor. Remuneration, in a classless society, would cease to be exploitative in this way.

[Rooster]

The absolute expressed goal of socialists is the removal of capitalism as an economic system. Capitalism, as we all know, relies on wage labour to generate surplus value for itself. This can happen because the means of production are held privately (for who can pay the the wage labourers their wages other than the other of the MoP?). There shouldn't be any wages within a socialist economic mode of production for the very simple reason that if the means of production are held in common, then who is going to pay anyone their wages? The people who say that the state will be the one who pay wages or say that workers would pay themselves are clearly missing the point as that would mean that the means of production are still being held privately, that surplus labour is still being extracted from them even if owned by a state (see: state capitalism). We analyse class relations by how surplus value is extracted from the direct producers not by how that surplus value is distributed. The implication also, that a lot of people seem to ignore for some reason, is that being paid a wage in exchange for labour must mean that commodity production is still in operation, that labour-power is still a commodity and the things being produced are still commodities (for how else would you use wages but to exchange them for a thing?). Some folks would argue for labour vouchers but I personally don't see the point of them.

[robbo203]

So what exactly is the communist alternative to wage slavery? Worker owned means of production? Wouldn't that still have people live off wages?

There wont be any workers in the sense of constituting a working class or proletariat, in communism.

Workers having to sell their labour power for a wage demonstrates by that very fact that they are separated from the means of production rather than enjoy common ownership of those means.


Wherever there is generalised wage labour we know for certain there is capitalism - whether this be state-run capitalism (as in the ex Soviet Union) or some other variant of capitalism. This is why Marx called for the "abolition of the wages system". Abolishing the wages system means abolishing capitalism

In communism proper we will not work for a wage. In fact, "remuneration" of any kind will cease to exist. We will have free access to goods and services and will voluntarily contribuite to the production of these goods and services. Communism will be an economy based on generalised reciprocity in which we will recognise our mutual interdependence.

Most of the work that is done today under capitalism is completely and utterly socially useless , contributes nothing to human wellbeing, consumes and wastes vast resources and only exists because capitalism as a system requires these kinds of occupations - money related (like banking) and otherwise - in order to function.

In communism, we will thus be produce far more socially useful wealth with far less effort and resources than are currently required under an extraordinarily wasteful and inefficient capitalist system of production.

Work itself would become a far more pleasant and meaningful activity when we engage in it on a purely voluntary basis and, as study after study has demonstrated, volunteer labour is typically more highly motivated and self fulfilling than alienated "employment" can ever be