Modern Slavery

[Brian Peacock]

An employer doesn't own an employee. An employee can quit his job and go find another. By your reasoning, anyone who isn't either a CEO or living off the land and doing his own hunting and gathering is a slave. You're stretching the definition of "slavery" beyond its usefulness. You can criticize capitalism without resorting to semantics.

It's a critique, thas'all.

But I don't think it's stretching the meaning of 'slavery' too far to talk about 'wage slavery' as a form of systematic exploitation, or to suggest that it's brutalising and abuive, or to point out that participation in an economic system one has no choice about, freedom within, or power to influence is akin to being a slave - if a modern form of slavery. And your boss might not actually own you in the legal sense, and can't buy or sell you (unless you're a sports star of course), but if you're working hours you don't get paid for because it's expected, or not taking your full holiday allowance because it might impact your next review, or your contract makes you subject to restrictions on your non-work activities, then that distinction starts to break down a bit doesn't it? Sure, you can always quit your job, but where does that choice leave you, and what choices are open to you if you do? In the UK, for example, if you resign from a job you disqualify yourself for welfare support - how is that where you are? Where does 'choice' sit when one is manipulated into choosing only to participate in the system like that? Seems to me the only real choice you have is to keep you head down and try not to think about it, find a better gang boss, or find a better paid job and hope the master isn't too much of a tyrant - while hoping that the government doesn't weight the law too much in favour of those who already have the majority of the power.

[Seabass]

[Brian Peacock]

Great groove on that.

[JimC]

However unequal the current relationship between labor and capital may be, and however depressing being a faceless employee may be, it does not really compare to the utter degradation and lack of freedom involved in real, historical slavery.

In what way? In what way is having no choice about, freedom within, or power to influence a system that operates to maintain the slave/master relationship not a 'real' kind of subjugation? Isn't 'historical slavery' just the name we give to past forms of slavery - or do you think it is a qualitatively different form of slavery?

In true slavery, the master can control every aspect of a slave's life, and flog them to death on a whim. Such power cannot be equated to modern employment in any sensible way, IMO. The condition of workers in a modern capitalist economy can and should be subject to criticism, but it is a misuse of the term slavery to call them wage slaves...

[Brian Peacock]

"The only difference as compared with the old, outspoken slavery is this, that the worker of today seems to be free because he is not sold once for all, but piecemeal by the day, the week, the year, and because no one owner sells him to another, but he is forced to sell himself in this way instead, being the slave of no particular person, but of the whole property-holding class."
-- Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845)

"Slavery exists in full vigor, but we do not perceive it, just as in Europe at the end of the Eighteenth Century the slavery of serfdom was not perceived. People of that day thought that the position of men obliged to till the land for their lords, and to obey them, was a natural, inevitable, economic condition of life, and they did not call it slavery.

"It is the same among us: people of our day consider the position of the laborer to be a natural, inevitable economic condition, and they do not call it slavery. And as, at the end of the Eighteenth Century, the people of Europe began little by little to understand that what formerly seemed a natural and inevitable form of economic life-namely, the position of peasants who were completely in the power of their lords-was wrong, unjust and immoral, and demanded alteration, so now people today are beginning to understand that the position of hired workmen, and of the working classes in general, which formerly seemed quite right and quite normal, is not what it should be, and demands alteration."
--- Leo Tolstoy, The Slavery of Our Times (1890), Chapter 8: Slavery Exists Among Us

[JimC]

...so now people today are beginning to understand that the position of hired workmen, and of the working classes in general, which formerly seemed quite right and quite normal, is not what it should be, and demands alteration...

And that's exactly what the union movement, plus Labour governments have attempted to do, with at least some success. I won't pretend that all is rosy, but there are at least forces in society that try to reduce the worst aspects of paid employment.

I return, however, to my main point - true slavery involves the total control of the slave, with life and death powers possessed by slave owners. Wage earners today may well be considered underpaid, and may dislike the drudgery of their work, but they are not raped at the whim of their owner, or whipped by burly overseers...

[Svartalf]

An employer doesn't own an employee. An employee can quit his job and go find another. By your reasoning, anyone who isn't either a CEO or living off the land and doing his own hunting and gathering is a slave. You're stretching the definition of "slavery" beyond its usefulness. You can criticize capitalism without resorting to semantics.

not entirely wrong, an employee is free to go away in theory, unless he has good perspective on getting a better job, like FAST, leaving his current drudgery is a peril and poverty fraught endeavour.

[Seabass]

I agree, but it's still not slavery. Like Jim says, it's a misuse of the word. People exaggerate all the time of course, which is fine, but if someone opens a serious discussion about capitalism and uses that word in that way, then invariably people will argue over definitions instead of discussing the actual issues, and we end up with a big semantical mess instead of a substantive discussion, which usually ends up being counterproductive IMO...

[Svartalf]

it's barely better than. If you don't feel free to go and be able to use that freedom without negative repercussion, you're as well as chained where you are.

[Joe]

So how is this different from calling taxation slavery, as Seth used to do?

[Hermit]

"Wage slavery" is an apt metaphor for the condition we all live in today, but there is a categorical difference between this form of slavery and the slavery of yore. It takes me about a nanosecond to decide which one I prefer. As usual, I fully agree with Jim's comments .

[pErvinalia]

I don't think it's supposed to be a direct analogue of ye olde slavery. It's an apt metaphor. But clearly not as bad as actual bodily slavery.

[Seabass]

I don't think it's supposed to be a direct analogue of ye olde slavery. It's an apt metaphor. But clearly not as bad as actual bodily slavery.

Sure, we're all familiar with the phrase, but Brian seems to be arguing that actual, chattel slavery and "wage slavery" are just two different kinds of slavery, one "better" than the other.

[laklak]

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody

[JimC]

In Eastern Europe, it's common to be a wage Slav...

I'll get my coat...