[b]“…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 buy 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 accomodation-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.” [Debating Slavery: Economy and Society in the Antebellum American South p.44] [3] Similarly, various strategies and struggles adopted by wage slaves are deemed to have created extra-capitalist structures (unions, welfare institutions etc) that constrain the destructive mechanisms of wage slavery. These institutions, though considered positive in some regards, can also serve to appease the masses; preventing the overthrow of the elites that often take credit for the creation of these institutions.
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A wage slave’s direct choice is “work for a boss or starve”. Indirectly, prison, beatings, insults and other punishments lay in store for those who try to survive without working for a boss (workers trying to democratically run a capitalist’s factory, live freely in buildings or grow and collect food 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.
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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 and starvation.
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“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) [4]
Bosses in both, chattel and wage slavery do, in some sense “provide jobs”. Marginally, both chattel and wage slaves may become bosses. It may be the “rags to riches” story which occasionally occurs in capitalism, or the “slave to master” story that occured in places like colonial Brazil, where slaves could buy their own freedom and become slave owners themselves [Family and Frontier in Colonial Brazil Alida C. Metcalf p. 201] [5] Social mobility is thus not considered to be a redeeming factor:
“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.” [6]
It is important to note that wage slaves, just like chattel slaves, remain so even if they think of themselves as free due to propaganda, self-deception, or false consciousness.[/b]
