The first articulate description of wage slavery was made by Simon Linguet in 1763, describing how it undermined self-ownership in the sense of individual autonomy, by basing it on a materialistic concept of the body and its liberty i.e. as something that is sold, rented or alienated in a class society:
“The slave was precious to his master because of the money he had cost him… Men’s blood had some price in the days of slavery. They were worth at least as much as they could be sold for in the market…It is the impossibility of living by any other means that compels our farm labourers to till the soil whose fruits they will not eat, and our masons to construct buildings in which they will not live. It is want that drags them to those markets where they await masters who will do them the kindness of buying them. It is want that compels them to go down on their knees to the rich man in order to get from him permission to enrich him… what effective gain [has] the suppression of slavery brought [him ?] He is free, you say. Ah! That is his misfortune… These men, it is said, have no master—they have one, and the most terrible, the most imperious of masters, that is, need. It is this that reduces them to the most cruel dependence. They live only by hiring out their arms. They must therefore find someone to hire them, or die of hunger. Is that to be free?”[19]
According to this view, then, the fundamental differences between a chattel slave and a wage slave are:
- The chattel slave is property (“capital”). As such, its value to an economically rational owner is in some ways higher than that of a wage slave who can be fired, replaced or harmed at no (or less) cost. For this reason, in times of recession, slaves couldn’t be fired like wage laborers. American chattel slaves in the 19th century had improved their standard of living from the 18th century[20] and, as historians Fogel and Engerman’s reported, slaves’ material conditions in the 19th century were “better than what was typically available to free [i.e. wage] urban laborers at the time”[21]. This was partially due to slave psychological strategies under an economic system different from capitalist wage slavery:
“…the preindustrial nature of these labor systems allowed slaves to establish a distinctive African American culture which eschewed the values embraced by the master class. Although intrusive and oppressive, paternalism, the way masters employed it, and the methods slaves used to manipulate it, rendered slaveholders’ attempts to institute capitalistic work regimens on their plantation ineffective and so allowed slaves to carve out a degree of autonomy, manifest in their cultural assumptions and behavior, under slavery. On the one hand, planters wanted to see themselves as beneficent masters, a position which their exploitation of slave labor required them to qualify. On the other, slaves exposed the hypocrisy of the paternalist double standard and by merely obeying but not necessarily complying with their masters’ orders ‘acted consciously and unconsciously to transform paternalism into a doctrine of protection of their own rights,’ an ‘assertion of their humanity,’ and, ultimately, the transformation of privileges into customary rights and the attendant affirmation of their African American identity (Genovese, 1976, p.49) The effect of this accommodation-resistance dialectic, so fully described by Eugene Genovese, was to render slave-holders non-capitalist masters and, more importantly for this section, made slaves pre-industrial workers whose insistence on customary rights frustrated planters who were trying to exploit slave labor. (Genovese, 1976) […] Slaves’ partial retention of an African, essentially preindustrial work ethic which, according to Genovese, stressed hard work but within a cultural framework which eschewed freneticism, time discipline, materialism, and acquisitive individualism, was a product of slaves’ labor on southern plantations which were run by essentially precapitalist masters. This experience enabled slaves to create autonomous spheres — personal relationships, familial bonds, [and] a distinctive slave religion. [Slaves] developed a variety of subtle techniques such as feigning illness, sabotage, and deliberate go-slows in order to protect themselves and their culture… slave women, by using contraceptives, engaging in sexual abstinence, and occasionally practicing infanticide, not only limited their own exploitation but circumscribed the planters’ profits (Hine, 1979)… Once this [slave] system came under increasing political attack in the 1850’s by northern proponents of free wage labor, southern masters found themselves fighting for their political independence by defending a slave society and plantation system that while not economically profitable was nonetheless ideologically and socially crucial to their way of life.”[22]
Similarly, various strategies and struggles adopted by wage slaves are deemed to have created extra-capitalist structures (unions, welfare institutions etc) that can constrain the destructive mechanisms of wage slavery. These institutions could test the limits of wage systems and eventually lead to their overthrow, though they can temporarily also appease the masses; preventing the overthrow of the elites that often take credit for the creation of these institutions.
-
A wage slave’s direct choice is “work for a boss or face poverty/starvation”. Indirectly, prison, beatings, insults and other punishments, including death lay in store for those who try to survive without working for (or becoming) a boss (e.g. workers trying to democratically run a capitalist’s factory, live freely in buildings or grow and collect food, medicine and other goods freely from the land and factories capitalists own etc). If a chattel slave refuses to work, a number of punishments are also available; from beatings to food deprivation- although an economically rational slave owner would likely try positive reinforcements (offering women, gifts etc) before killing an expensive slave and losing his investment.
-
Unlike a chattel slave, a wage slave can sometimes choose his boss, but he can’t choose to have no boss unless he wants to face poverty or starvation.
-
“The slave is sold once and for all; the proletarian must sell himself daily and hourly. The individual slave, property of one master, is assured an existence, however miserable it may be, because of the master’s interest. The individual proletarian, property as it were of the entire bourgeois class which buys his labor only when someone has need of it, has no secure existence. This existence is assured only to the class as a whole. The slave is outside competition; the proletarian is in it and experiences all its vagaries.” (Karl Marx)[23]
Tintype of two young women in Lowell, MassachusettsThe similarities between chattel and wage slavery were certainly noticed by the workers themselves; for example, the 19th century Lowell Mill Girls, who, without any knowledge of European radicalism, condemned the “degradation and subordination” of the newly emerging industrial system, and the “new spirit of the age: gain wealth, forgetting all but self”, maintaining that “those who work in the mills should own them.”[24][25] In their 1836 strike, this was one of their protest songs:
Oh! isn’t it a pity, such a pretty girl as I
Should be sent to the factory to pine away and die?
Oh! I cannot be a slave, I will not be a slave,
For I’m so fond of liberty,
That I cannot be a slave.[26]
Noam Chomsky, who believes that such sentiments are “just below the surface”[27], has used the militant history of labor movements, Bakunin’s theories about an “instinct for freedom”, Kropotkin’s mutual aid evolutionary principle of survival and Marc Hauser’s evidence supporting an innate and universal moral faculty[28], to explain the incompatibility of such oppression and greed with certain aspects of human nature.[29]
Supporters of wage and chattel slavery have linked some of the unavoidable features of reality (the subjection of man to nature) with the seemingly avoidable conditions of social structures (the subjection of man to man); arguing that hierarchy and their preferred system’s particular relations of production represent human nature and are no more coercive than the reality of life itself, which therefore cannot be improved upon by social structures–only made worse. Consequentially, any well-intentioned attempt to fundamentally change the status quo is naively utopian and will result in more oppressive conditions.[30][31][32]Bosses in both of these long-lasting systems argued that their system created a lot of wealth and prosperity. Both did, in some sense create jobs and their investment entailed risk. For example, slave owners might have risked losing money by buying expensive slaves who later became ill or died; or might have used those slaves to make products that didn’t sell well on the market. Marginally, both chattel and wage slaves may become bosses; sometimes by working hard. It may be the “rags to riches” story which occasionally occurs in capitalism, or the “slave to master” story that occurred in places like colonial Brazil, where slaves could buy their own freedom and become slave owners themselves[33][34] Social mobility, or the hard work and risk that it may entail, are thus not considered to be a redeeming factor by critics of capitalist wage slavery:
Even if the amount of social mobility in capitalism were as great as supporters of capitalism claim, it would not matter. If it is possible for someone to move from the lowest position of an authoritarian system to the highest position, it is still unethical because it is an authoritarian system. If it were possible to go from homeless person to dictator within a fascist system, fascism would still be wrong. In many Leninist states there were individuals who went from being a worker to being part of the ruling class, in some cases even joining the Politburo, yet that does not make Marxist totalitarianism an acceptable system. In Colonial Brazil, there were slaves who managed to become free and even become slave owners themselves. It was as rare as workers becoming capitalists in contemporary capitalism, but it did happen and was theoretically possible for many slaves. Just as the theoretical possibility of a slave becoming a slave owner does not justify slavery, the theoretical ability of a wage-slave to become a capitalist does not justify capitalism. The existence of social mobility does not justify a social system… Capitalists like to claim that their wealth is the result of them working hard by running their business, managing portfolios, etc. A mafia boss also does lots of work to plan his robberies and keep his illicit enterprise going but his actions are still theft. Many capitalists don’t even run a company, they derive their income solely from stocks, bonds, interest, dividends, rent, etc. This attempt to justify capitalist exploitation completely fails in these cases because they aren’t even running a company or doing any work at all. Manipulating portfolios doesn’t produce anything useful; sticking money in the bank and letting it accumulate interest isn’t hard work. It is true that investing usually entails taking risks (one could lose the investment), but just because someone is taking a risk does not mean that s/he is producing anything. Most human activity involves risks of some sort. If a criminal robs someone at gunpoint s/he is taking a risk as well. S/he could go to jail, the robbery could go wrong, s/he could get hurt, etc. That does not change the fact that it is robbery. The same is true of the risks taken by capitalists. The workers take as much of a risk, if not more, as the capitalist. If the business fails the worker is unemployed. The worker is then usually in a worse situation then the capitalist because the capitalist is wealthy and can weather such a situation much easier than those on lower levels of the hierarchy. In addition, many jobs entail risks to workers’ life or limb, whereas investment does not.”[35]
The methods of control in wage systems, differ substantially from those in chattel systems. For example, in his book, Disciplined Minds, American physicist and writer Jeff Schmidt points out that professionals are trusted to run organisations in the interests of their employers. The key word is ’trust’. Because employers cannot be on hand to manage every decision, professionals are trained to “ensure that each and every detail of their work favours the right interests – or skewers the disfavoured ones” in the absence of overt control. Schmidt continues:
“The resulting professional is an obedient thinker, an intellectual property whom employers can trust to experiment, theorise, innovate and create safely within the confines of an assigned ideology.”[36] In Propaganda (1928), the father of public relations Edward Bernays argued that “[t]he conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.”[37] Similarly Walter Lippmann argued that “the manufacture of consent” amounted to “a revolution” in “the practice of democracy” and allowed the “bewildered herd” to be controlled by their betters.[38]
Some supporters of chattel slavery claimed that those who hadn’t studied in depth the economic and social aspects of slavery, could not form a reasoned opinion on the matter.[39] Similarly, some modern economists believe that the uneducated are not in a position to reject economic systems involving wage slavery. For example Paul Samuelson asks: “…without the disciplined study of economic science, how can anyone form a reasoned opinion about the merits or lack of merits in the classical, traditional economics?”.[
Wage slavery played a very important role in the modern consolidation of the nation-state structure that originated in the pre-capitalist “…feudal period with battles for power between feudal lords, kings, the Pope and other centers of power which gradually evolved into systems of nation states in which a combination of political power and economic interests converged enough to try to impose uniform systems on very varied societies…In the course of the development of the nation state system, there also developed on the side various economic arrangements which about a century ago turned into what became contemporary corporate capitalism, mostly imposed by judicial arrangements, not by legislation, and very tightly integrated and linked to the the powerful states, [which are] [un]distinguish[able]…from the multinational corporate system, the conglomerates that rely on them, that have a relation of both dependency and domination to them…[T]heir intellectual roots…come out of the same neo-Hegelian conceptions of the rights of organic entities that led to bolshevism and fascism.”[41][42]
The close link between property and the state has been noted by many outstanding thinkers. For example John Locke, who in 1690 wrote that “[t]he great and chief end…of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property”[43] or Adam Smith who described how “…as the necessity of civil government gradually grows up with the acquisition of valuable property, so the principal causes which naturally introduce subordination gradually grow up with the growth of that valuable property… Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions…The appropriation of herds and flocks which introduced an inequality of fortune was that which first gave rise to regular government. Till there be property there can be no government, the very end of which is to secure wealth, and to defend the rich from the poor”[44]This tight link between property and state was also noted by John Jay (who repeatedly said that “Those who own the country ought to govern it,”)[45]and by US Founding Father James Madison, who said that government “…ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.”[46]
In this respect, statist welfare measures can be seen as a consequence of the elite’s fear of dispossession–yielding to some degree in order to appease the organized pressure of wage slaves.[47]
Though seemingly paradoxical, the most prominent current critic of wage slavery, the anarchist Noam Chomsky, has defended the temporary use of state power on the grounds that it prevents even more oppressive forms of authority and wage slavery:
“I don’t think the federal government is a legitimate institution. I think it ought to be dismantled, in principle; just as… I don’t think people ought to live in cages. On the other hand, if I’m in a cage and there’s a saber tooth tiger outside, I’d be happy to keep the bars of the cage in place – even though I think the cage is illegitimate…The centralized government authority is at least to some extent under popular influence… The unaccountable private power outside is under no public control. What they call minimizing the state – transferring the decision making to unaccountable private interests – is not helpful to human beings or to democracy… so there is a temporary need to maintain the cage, and even to extend the cage.”[48][49]
