Why is it called wage slavery?

[exeexe]

Why is it called wage slavery?

According to http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/what_is_modern_slavery.aspx
slavery is defined by the following:

There are many different characteristics that distinguish slavery from other human rights violations, however only one needs to be present for slavery to exist. Someone is in slavery if they are:


forced to work - through mental or physical threat;
owned or controlled by an 'employer', usually through mental or physical abuse or the threat of abuse;
dehumanised, treated as a commodity or bought and sold as 'property';
physically constrained or has restrictions placed on his/her freedom of movement.

But when you work for a capitalist you can always quit. And the capitalist cant sell you, so if he cant sell you then he doesnt own you. And you are not physically constrained, you are only constrained through a contract.

[Tim Cornelis]

Wage slavery is to draw an analogy between wage-labour and slavery. I don't think it can be used to accurately describe the social relations between labour and capital and the relations of production.

Forced to work: circumstances compel the labourer, whom is dispossessed, to sell his labour-power to a fortunate and privileged owner of means of production. He can choose to not work, but then he chooses to not have an income, which is unreasonable as it leaves you without food or housing.
Owned and controlled: after selling his labour-power to a capitalist, the worker is controlled by the capitalist.
Dehumanised: the worker is often treated like a child and labour has become commodified s per the selling and buying of labour-power.


A worker is a par-time slave. The boss says when to show up, when to leave, and what to do in the meantime. He tells you how much work to do and how fast. He is free to carry his control to humiliating extremes, regulating, if he feels like it, the clothes you wear or how often you go to the bathroom. With a few exceptions he can fire you for any reason, or no reason. He has you spied on by snitches and supervisors, he amasses a dossier on every employee. Talking back is called "insubordination," just as if a worker is a naughty child, and it not only gets you fired, it disqualifies you for unemployment compensation.
http://www.primitivism.com/abolition.htm

[tuwix]

Why is it called wage slavery?


Because people are treated as private property, product, commodity, resource, etc. Besides contracts are only fiction. In times of high unemployment, employer and demand everything and frequently does. Time of working is frequently "flexible" that means you must work as long as employer want. The only difference is that you're getting a payment. This is the only difference between classic slavery and wage slavery.

[MarcusJuniusBrutus]

Why is it called wage slavery?

According to http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/what_is_modern_slavery.aspx
slavery is defined by the following:


forced to work - through mental or physical threat;
owned or controlled by an 'employer', usually through mental or physical abuse or the threat of abuse;
dehumanised, treated as a commodity or bought and sold as 'property';
physically constrained or has restrictions placed on his/her freedom of movement.

But when you work for a capitalist you can always quit. And the capitalist cant sell you, so if he cant sell you then he doesnt own you. And you are not physically constrained, you are only constrained through a contract.

Forced to work: if you don't or don't do it to the boss's satisfaction, you lose you paycheck, which means you will go hungry, get tossed out of your home, possible get divorced, lose your health insurance in America, etc. etc. Also being fired will be an impediment to finding another job, which will want to talk to the previous employer. And of course the same expectations will be present at the new job, if you find one in time to avert disaster.

The corporate environment is mentally abusive and coercive by nature, and physically as well. Job stress will kill you as surely as smoking, drinking, or being overweight. It killed my Dad. You are an expendable commodity to your boss. Your discomfort is irrelevant to his profits. If you quit, you have the same problems as if you get fired.

Commodity, as noted, workers are disposable. And everyone who has every been transferred by a company knows that we are effectively bought and sold. Sure there is no change of title like a car or a house, but the worker will inevitably pay for whatever changes the boss wants.

Freedom of movement: are you kidding? They can fire you for using the toilet at the wrong time.

Add to all of this an inadequacy of job opportunities and debt. People who can manage to go to college graduate with crushing debts. That is a powerful means to enforce social control and compliance.

So we may not be slaves in the 18th and 19th c. meaning of the word, but societies always have a servile class and in the post-industrial age, those folks are called "employees," which is a euphemism for "servants." (Seriously, look up employer-employee relations in West's legal encyclopedia Corpus Juris Secundum, it will say "See Master-Servant relations." Workers are most definitely unfree.

[Ele'ill]

Why is it called wage slavery?

According to http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/what_is_modern_slavery.aspx
slavery is defined by the following:
[/LIST]
But when you work for a capitalist you can always quit. And the capitalist cant sell you, so if he cant sell you then he doesnt own you. And you are not physically constrained, you are only constrained through a contract.

When we quit, or are fired for not meeting the ever increasingly demanding requirements for less and less pay/stable living situation we are faced with that and the situations it presents and creates and it is violent. It is used as a weapon, it is an ever present ultimatum, it is intentional. There are not enough jobs available to simply quit a 'bad one' and jump into 'the best one ever'. It is usually a lateral move in both pay and general work situation. We are constrained to that system as workers.

[adipocere]

I think the scenario is when an owner knowingly and purposefully exploits the worker to the extent that the worker is literally trapped by poverty. This sort of work could only be seen as voluntary in the sense that the worker may quit and starve. The post-slavery sharecropping was a good example of this. In modern times, fast food workers and walmart employees are also good examples. Farm labor still tends to be wage slavery, particularity on plantations in the developing world - with the added perk of frequently being coercive. Here in the US, we exploit migrant workers and that line becomes blurred with human trafficking - a more polite term for a modern slave trade.

In my opinion, to be a wage slave, one must purposefully/indirectly kept in poverty. If your neighbor hires you to mind their highway fruit stand for a few hours on the weekend and pays you minimum wage - that is hardly wage slavery. A stressed out guy working in an office making 75K a year with an asshole boss, a mortgage on his vacation home and luxury car note he's having trouble making is not exactly a wage slave either, he's just irresponsible. However, the single mother of three who works 80 hours a week cleaning the office toilets at night for minimum wage is.

[exeexe]

Freedom of movement: are you kidding? They can fire you for using the toilet at the wrong time.

You are still constrained by contract. You should understand it as such that if there was a fire at the workplace you would die because you couldnt escape..

[MarcusJuniusBrutus]

You are still constrained by contract. You should understand it as such that if there was a fire at the workplace you would die because you couldnt escape..

Huh? A lot of folks die or are crippled from occupational injuries and diseases. The alternative again is crushing poverty and expulsion from society. Also, "fired" means the boss terminated the worker's employment.

I don't know about Denmark, but here in the USA we have something called at-will employment. Very few workers actually have contracts for employment. For most workers, the boss can end employment at any time for any reason or for no reason. There are a few very narrow exceptions like discrimination for race, ethnicity, religion, or sex. Of course, if that does happen, it is very hard to prove. Otherwise, the boss can take away your job because it's Tuesday, or because cats have whiskers, or because his favorite football team lost, or because they won....

[tuwix]

You are still constrained by contract. You should understand it as such that if there was a fire at the workplace you would die because you couldnt escape..

Do you really think that such behavior is motivated by worker's safety? :D From my experience, employer doesn't care in the most cases at all about worker's safety. The miners tragedy in Turkey exactly proves that. If you are sacked sue to using a toilet, it's only to show to all workers that there is an owner and there are slaves...

[exeexe]

I don't know about Denmark, but here in the USA we have something called at-will employment. ....
In Denmark if you are working in the public sector and you work full time you can get fired after 1 month. So the boss tells you, you are fired and then 1 month later you are fired. Lets call this the delay.
But if you have been working for a long time the delay increases as following:
worked for --------- delay
up to 5th months - 1 month
2 years 9 months - 3 months
5Y 8M - 4 months
8Y 7M - 5 months
more than 8Y 7M - 6 months

If you for example is working in the iron and metal sector then its like this:
Up to 6 months - 0
after 6M - 14 days
after 9M - 21D
After 2Y - 28D
after 3Y - 56D
after 6Y - 70D

And if you are 50 years old:
have worked for 9Y its 90D
have worked for 12Y its 120D

[MarcusJuniusBrutus]

In Denmark if you are working in the public sector and you work full time....

When you say "public sector," do you mean these rules are only for government employees? You mentioned the iron and metal sectors, so it seems like you are talking about corporations and not just government workers. Or maybe iron and metal are government-controlled in Denmark?

Unfortunately, in my country, we have a capitalist classification system that makes everything either public or private sectors. Under this system, anything owned by the government is "public sector," and anything not governmental (individual, family, small business, non-government universities and schools, non-govt. hospitals, ecclesiastical, and corporations) are all lumped together as "private." The only real exception is when the government hires outside companies to avoid union contracts.

[exeexe]

In Denmark you work in the public sector if your wage is funded by taxes

The Iron and metal sector is a private sector. I wanted to take an example from both worlds.

[RebelDog]

Chattel slavery: owned slave
Wage slavery: rented slave

[Loony Le Fist]

Why is it called wage slavery?

Because it is a type of slavery where one can choose a master, and masters have limits to how much they can exploit their slaves. Despite being nowhere near as horrific, it is still subjugation and a suspension of liberty. Liberty cannot be traded for money. Just like someone cannot kill you, even if you payed them. Some rights are more important than others.



forced to work - through mental or physical threat;


If you don't work, you don't eat.



owned or controlled by an 'employer', usually through mental or physical abuse or the threat of abuse;


The IRS defines an employee-employer relationship as one where the employer can control the work an employee does. As an employee you are definitely under the control of an employer.



dehumanised, treated as a commodity or bought and sold as 'property';


Employees are commodities.



physically constrained or has restrictions placed on his/her freedom of movement.


You have restrictions placed on your movement at work.



But when you work for a capitalist you can always quit. And the capitalist cant sell you, so if he cant sell you then he doesnt own you. And you are not physically constrained, you are only constrained through a contract.

Having a choice of masters does not eliminate subjugation.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

This can also be applied in many ways to those on benefits. If the people who claim benefits don't turn up on time, don't follow precise orders and don't act in exactly the way they had been ordered to act then they have their benefits sanctioned and go two weeks without an income. That lingering threat of starvation and homelessness is the structural chains that keep the working class subordinate to capital.

[exeexe]

So whats the difference between wage slavery and wage robbery?
http://www.workinglife.org/2014/03/04/its-not-wage-stagnation-its-wage-robbery/

[Loony Le Fist]

So whats the difference between wage slavery and wage robbery?
http://www.workinglife.org/2014/03/04/its-not-wage-stagnation-its-wage-robbery/

It is still an important fight to be had. Working for a wage is a type of slavery. So money being taken to pay off executives that could have gone to paying wages is robbery on top of that.

[RedMaterialist]

In Denmark if you are working in the public sector and you work full time you can get fired after 1 month. So the boss tells you, you are fired and then 1 month later you are fired. Lets call this the delay.
But if you have been working for a long time the delay increases as following:
worked for --------- delay
up to 5th months - 1 month
2 years 9 months - 3 months
5Y 8M - 4 months
8Y 7M - 5 months
more than 8Y 7M - 6 months

If you for example is working in the iron and metal sector then its like this:
Up to 6 months - 0
after 6M - 14 days
after 9M - 21D
After 2Y - 28D
after 3Y - 56D
after 6Y - 70D

And if you are 50 years old:
have worked for 9Y its 90D
have worked for 12Y its 120D

A few questions on the Denmark system:

1. Do you receive full pay for the last month?
2. Do you receive unemployment compensation or other benefits if you can't find a new job, if so, for how long?
3. Is your old employer allowed to tell a new, prospective employer that you were fired?
4. Is your old employer required to pay some type of penalty if your firing was not justified? (In some parts of the U.S. that employer has to pay an increased tax for unemployment compensation. This gives employers a strong incentive to fabricate reasons for terminating employment.)
5. Is there any appeal from the firing?
6. How prevalent is the firing under this system?

7. What is the point of allowing someone to stay on the job for a period of time after being fired? Is it a kind of severance pay?