Wage Slave
Wage SlaveAt the dawn of capitalism, critical thinkers (economists, philosophers and political dissidents) maintained that selling oneself for a wage was entirely equivalent to chattel slavery and so were not averse to naming the practice WageSlavery. The term came into disuse due to a combination of improving work conditions and the massive propaganda campaigns used to destroy the UnitedStates' nascent labour movement at the turn of the century. It is now very rare but there are still a few people who have the clarity of vision to use the term.
http://www.cat.org.au/dwu/abolition.html has much to say on the subject. Including work as a dehumanizing condition, work as murder and work as worse than chattel slavery.
See also http://www.whywork.org/
Discussion of work as dehumanizing
What the preceding ignores is that it is possible to leave a job while it is generally not possible to leave a prison. Also, I take issue to the idea that "prisons and factories came in at about the same time". How do you explain that the Romans had prisons but not factories?
Would they be so much better off if prisoners could transfer from prison to prison so long as they never left the prison system?
Did the Romans have actual prisons or merely jails?
Also, the last time I checked, you are not in danger of life or limb when "talking back" to an employer.
Check again. I guess you've never seen the typical police response to a workers' action. Does the term "strikebreaker" mean anything to you?
Dude. I'm really trying not to sink to the level of the AdHominem argument here. Have you ever seen a real labor strike? I have. I remember several periods in my childhood where both of my parents were no longer receiving paychecks for weeks or months because the union was on strike. I remember the literal belt-tightening that occurred as a result of that. I also remember not having Dad home because he was scheduled to walk the picket lines night after night.
At the same time, my brother in-law's dad was County Sheriff. As I remember, the "typical police response to a worker's action" consisted of dropping by the Union hall for a cup of coffee with my Mom, my Dad, my Aunts, my Uncles and pretty damn near everyone else in town.
Yes, I've read about the Haymarket riots too. It was tragic, and typical of the time, but it hasn't been typical of the UnitedStates since Organized Labor really organized on a national scale. I've seen the pictures of out-of-control police in other countries on TV, and even sometimes in the UnitedStates too (e.g. I remember Cesar Chavez as well). But maybe things are a bit more complex than you think. Stop painting the whole world with a mono-color brush.
Oh, and by the way, I've been a Corporate Officer. I don't remember ever getting together with my co-workers to "plan how to oppress the masses"...
Ontario (a province of CanadaCountry) has dismantled its labour legislation and Labour Board. IIRC, the National Labour Board has also been dismantled. We've already seen a return to the bad old days when companies called in scab workers and strikebreakers. There are four companies dedicated to nothing but strike breaking in Canada. They're made up of ex-cops of course. It's only a matter of time before we see a return to the riots that forced the creation of the NLB and labour legislation in the first place. Perhaps in small towns where "everybody knows everybody" strike breaking isn't much of an issue, but the Ontario Provincial Police was formed as a strike breaking unit. Police and corporate oppression isn't relegated to bygone times. When one of those corporate assholes calls StrikeBreakers? Incorporated, do you seriously think they see themselves as oppressing the workers? Oppressing underlings is as natural as breathing to those in positions of authority. They don't need to think about it consciously, let alone get together with their coworkers.
I'll put it into clear black and white terms since you want to muddy the picture. When a child abuser tortures or molests his or her child, do you seriously think they "get together with their fellow child abusers in order to plan how to torture their children"? Or do you think it more likely that it is natural for a person with a lot of anger and emotional problems to take it out on anyone vulnerable to their authority? Your mastery of the StrawMan fallacy is clearly lacking.
However, as those who escaped from the former SovietUnion, or members of the FalunGong can attest, this is not true of even a "moderately deStalinized" dictatorship.
Something not mentioned above: Romans did have factories. Not the sort of industrial ones we think of today, but certainly organized groups of workers for production. And while not factories per se, the agricultural latifundia instantly come to mind as an equivalent.
It says to me that people are indeed primates, and respond in exactly the same way as all other primates to issues of authority (who's the alpha here?). Welcome to the animal kingdom.
Human beings have quite a lot more variability in their behaviour than primates. Many situations and environments are constructed by humans where authority is abolished. See FreeSchools as an example.
Discussion of work as murder
Discussion of wage slavery as worse than chattel slavery
This seems self-evident to me. People care about the possessions they own, they don't care about what they rent.
--I care very much for the home that I rent. I take very good care of it. I've added a garden, improved the driveway, painted the trim, fixed and cleaned windows, shined all brass fixtures, and maintained the plumbing and airflow systems. All of this I did out of my own self-interest.
--Why make statements that 1 anecdote can refute? This whole page is made of straw... the weakest set of arguments I've read in a long time.
Perhaps because single anecdotes do not refute the vast majority of people's experiences?
Why do we work? We need money. Why do we need money? Because we wish goods or services from another person. What if we needed very little? We would have to work very little. I have enough books and music to make me happy for a long, long time. I have a comfortable home which I rent. I subscribe only to services that make me happy or make my life easier. I can do work that I love, and though it pays less than a white-collar corporate job, I have all that I need.
Whoever has written this page, I'm sure glad you're not in a position of power.
--Actually, whoever wrote this page I believe has an ulterior motive in mind. What it is, I haven't a clue!
If capitalism is a form of slavery, it is also a slippery slope down towards near-absolute Freedom. This cannot be refuted... I submit the 1900's. Only 4% of Americans work in a factory environment... only 2% of Americans are bound to their land. Individuals living in the 21st century (who have not learned that they cannot educate themselves... an easy thing to remember) are the free-est animals in Earth's history.
What leads you to these conclusions? Perhaps you could start by defining what you mean by "freedom"; we might be understanding the term in different ways.
Do you know how exceptional you must be to work in the IT industry? There are people out on the streets due to this ruthless and dehumanizing system whose laurels you laud. I submit the 1920s, 1930s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s (which are going to be the same as the 90s except worse) as evidence of the servitude and domination inherent in capitalism. I submit the actions of the FederalReserveBoard? which deliberately starts a recession whenever unemployment gets too low and employees stop acting like obedient slaves. I submit the disappearance of the middle class. I submit the impoverishment of 90% of the population over the last three decades. I submit the masses of families who have gone back to 80-hour workweeks in the past decade just to make ends meet. I submit the collapsing US economy as measured by the GenuineProgressIndicator (an accelerating decrease of more than 50% since the mid 70s).
Actually, I'm a writer, and not in IT. And you know what? I, too, hate this ruthless and dehumanizing system... because some people just won't read my stuff! I mean, don't they know that what I have written will shed light on their pitiful lives? That it will give them direction, provide criteria for evaluating stuff like Western Civilization, and probably even get them into heaven? Why don't they wise up? Man, I need to find a better system to herd people my way. I think I'll write something now... :)
There you go, conclusive evidence of the evil inherent in the system. Why, if people weren't forced to slave away then they'd have more time to enjoy fine literature. :)
Exactly where in the can you "be fired for no reason"? Certainly not in the UK and probably the US, too. That just sounds like a blatantly untrue statement intending to provoke.
Definitely a BritishCulturalAssumption. Or maybe a WikiCulturalAssumption? since you aren't likely to be fired if your employer desperately needs you. Most states in the UnitedStates are "at will" states, which means that an employer can fire you at will. Further, firing hundreds or even thousands of one's employees simultaneously in order to abscomb with their pension funds is the current management fad in North America. Another example is firing pregnant women, which is just par for the course.
As for "most road deaths due to people travelling to work", can you really be serious about this? Even if this is a fact, I argue that the problem here is not work, but the motor car and the insane way that some us drive. Ban the motor car - not work!
Why not ban both? Saying that it's only due to the motor car is much like saying that murderers who use guns don't have emotional and psychological problems which must be dealt with.
I can't help but laugh when I read "Ban the motor car - not work!" Surely you must realize how aghast most people would be at the suggestion that cars should be banned. And just as surely, you would inform them that cars are not good in themselves but merely a solution to a problem, a bad solution at that. I find myself in the same position with regards to work. Work is not valuable in itself but is merely a solution to a problem, a bad solution at that. Neither work nor the motor car are necessary to our civilization. Failure to see that fact is due to an irrational attachment to them or a poverty of the imagination.
I agree that there is a whole lot wrong with capitalism and our current system of employment (rather than 'work' itself). As such, it is an easy target for criticism. By using half truths, cliches and emotionally charged statements (eg to suggest that factory workers are worse off than slaves shows so little knowledge of the real cruelty inflicted on slaves, it is obscene), you're almost conceding that you don't have any real arguments.
My, that sure is a lot of straw you're hacking at. Around the time of the American Civil War, factory workers were certainly worse off than chattel slaves. People doubt this only because they forget the conditions common in factories of the time. And given this fact, who's to say that today's hypothetical chattel slaves would not be better off than today's workers?
Modern technique has made it possible to diminish enormously the amount of labour required to secure the necessaries of life for everyone. This was made obvious during the war. At that time all the men in the armed forces, and all the men and women engaged in the production of munitions, all the men and women engaged in spying, war propaganda, or Government offices connected with the war, were withdrawn from productive occupations. In spite of this, the general level of well-being among unskilled wage-earners on the side of the Allies was higher than before or since. The significance of this fact was concealed by finance: borrowing made it appear as if the future was nourishing the present. But that, of course, would have been impossible; a man cannot eat a loaf of bread that does not yet exist. The war showed conclusively that, by the scientific organisation of production, it is possible to keep modern populations in fair comfort on a small part of the working capacity of the modern world. If, at the end of the war, the scientific organisation, which had been created in order to liberate men for fighting and munition work, had been preserved, and the hours of the week had been cut down to four, all would have been well. Instead of that the old chaos was restored, those whose work was demanded were made to work long hours, and the rest were left to starve as unemployed. Why? Because work is a duty, and a man should not receive wages in proportion to what he has produced, but in proportion to his virtue as exemplified by his industry. -- BertrandRussell http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/leisure/russell.html
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