Self Employment

[Habermas]

How does being your own boss (self employment) factor in with wage slavery?

[Thirsty Crow]

It can "factor in" by means of various sub-contracting deals which effectively bypass any labor code and draw the nominally self-employed into the relation of exploitation (all the while the same self-employed person need not depend solely on this form).

In other ways, the status of self-employed is different from that of wage workers insofar as they aren't exploited, but they do not own and forward capital either in most cases (the latter occurs either through financial transactions or through investment employing wage labor; neither is present here) which means that one shouldn't simply disregard the differences between the self-employed and small capitalists.

Furthermore, there is a generalized dependency on market exchange, in the sense that the self-employed sell their services/commodities directly and therefore directly depend on the fluctuations of demand, whereas wage workers' relationship with the "demand side" and general market exchange fluctuations is mediated through the role of the manager and/or capitalist.

[Rudolf]

There is also the form of self-employment wherein capitalists take advantage of what amounts to legal loopholes so that they don't have to pay workers minimum wage, provide holiday entitlements etc. The Cobra Group, for example, utilises this extensively