. The idea that we are in an entirely different social position to chattel slaves is based upon the assumption of our freedom. But this sense of freedom is an illusion which rests upon the contradiction between law and reality. The law grants us personal liberties, and we therefore have the right to make our own decisions: where to live; who to work for; or whether to work at all. But underlying this veil of freedom are the real, material, physical facts, and they run as such: you can only live where you can afford to live; you can only work for someone who will willingly employ you; and while you are under no legal obligation to work for anyone at all, you will find it a struggle to live while not doing so. The welfare state will be your (miserable) safety net, but only as long as you abide by the contract agreeing to actively seek employment.
Whether we choose the wages system or not, we are in reality bound to it, and within this system we enter into contracts with employers whereby the value we create for them is more than the value we receive in wages, and thus they make a profit through our exploitation. We are not by law bound to a single individual, but, in fact, to the capitalist class as a whole. With the acknowledgment of these simple truths, the illusive veil of freedom is dissolved, and laid bare is the reality in which we are still in chains.
Such a strong feeling of personal aversion to claims of wage slavery no doubt stems from a sense of pride. But this objection to the mere notion of wage-slavery only acts to perpetuate the reality of the condition: people’s misplaced sense of pride paradoxically serves to maintain their humiliating position. Imagine, of those chattel slaves who fought for political emancipation, if they had instead simply denied the existence of slavery. But it’s difficult to express the common sense behind, and the political importance of, the term ‘wage-slavery’ when somebody has already decided that what you’re saying is offensive.
Noam Chomsky: Wage Slavery = Chattle Slavery
According to free market capitalists employment is voluntary. They argue that it is a mutually beneficial free agreement between owner and worker. They argue that employment would only be involuntary if it was the result of direct force. For instance an employer who gave his workers the choice between working in awful conditions or being shot to death by his private security guards would be rightly condemned.Yet we are told that it is not an act of aggression for a capitalist to hire workers and force them to work under awful conditions by giving them a choice between having a job and being unemployed. The result of being unemployed would be poverty and starvation as the worker would lack the income to pay for his survival by buying food. In both examples the worker is given the choice between death and work. In the 1st instance the threat of death is direct and immediate while in the 2nd the threat of death is the indirect and prolonged threat of starvation. Despite these differences the threats are nonetheless similar as the end result is the same. To quote Karl Marx ”He can work only with their permission, hence live only with their permission.”
An advocate of capitalism can respond by crying out “it’s voluntary, the worker can leave whenever he wants”. This argument makes a categorical error when it conflates rights with means. It is true that the worker has the right to leave the job but importantly the worker lacks the means. This is because in order to survive the worker must have an income, from this it follows that the worker labours under these awful conditions only due to the realisation that the alternative is starvation for himself and his family or working for another boss.
Indeed when a free market capitalist responds by arguing that you are free to work for another boss if you dislike your current one they are not arguing for liberty as they falsely proclaim. This is because liberty is not the capacity to choose between masters but is instead the absence of masters, it is autonomy over one’s self. The ability to choose a new master is not freedom but is instead a form of democratic tyranny as rather than being forced to accept the will of one ruler you are given the choice between several different rulers.
In response it may be argued that market competition will result in employers treating their workers better in order to attract more and better workers. This however completely misses the point. The issue is not whether your master is nice or nasty, the issue is that you have a master in the first place. We would not attempt to justify chattel slavery by arguing that market pressures to improve productivity would result in the slave master giving his slaves a better diet and living quarters. Likewise we cannot justify wage slavery by arguing for the benevolent capitalist. To quote ‘Tolstoy, “the liberal capitalist is like a kind donkey owner. He will do everything for the donkey — care for it, feed it, wash it. Everything except get off its back!”. Thus the worker’s freedom is freedom only to rent himself out to an employer or freedom to starve to death.
To quote Alexander Berkman at length
“The law says your employer does not steal anything from you, because it is done with your consent. You have agreed to work for your boss for certain pay, he to have all that you produce …
But did you really consent?
When the highway man holds his gun to your head, you turn your valuables over to him. You ‘consent’ all right, but you do so because you cannot help yourself, because you are compelled by his gun.
“Are you not compelled to work for an employer? Your need compels you just as the highwayman’s gun. You must live … You can’t work for yourself … The factories, machinery, and tools belong to the employing class, so you must hire yourself out to that class in order to work and live. Whatever you work at, whoever your employer may be, it always comes to the same: you must workfor him. You can’t help yourself. You are compelled.”
A free market capitalist can respond by arguing that if the threat of starvation makes working for a boss involuntary then it follows that choosing to eat is an involuntary action as you eat only to avoid starvation and malnutrition. If we accept that eating food does not inhibit our freedom despite being involuntary it follows that working for a capitalist does not inhibits our freedom either.
This argument is, however, absurd as it does not compare like with like. This is because discussions of freedom are only concerned with what humans are capable of doing. For instance an individual lacking the ability to grow wings and fly does not inhibit his freedom as he is not biologically capable of performing this action. His freedom would only be inhibited if he was capable of growing wings and flying but not allowed to do so. Therefore, while eating food is involuntary (as we do not have a choice in the matter unless we have suicidal tendencies) it does not inhibit our freedom as we are not capable of not eating food and continuing to survive. The same cannot be said of working for a boss. This is because wage slavery is not rooted in the biology of human beings but is instead the result of the private ownership of the means of production. The social relationship between employers and employees, unlike our biologically need for nutrients, is something which can be changed and abolished. Indeed many societies have operated without such a relationship. For instance during the Spanish Revolution of 1936-39 wage slavery was abolished and anarcho-syndicalism was put into practise. Therefore, the apparent choice workers make when they work for a boss is both involuntary and an inhibitor of freedom.
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