Wage Slavery

“Ostrinski calls the current system “wage slavery.” Although America claims to be the land of the free, Ostrinski explains that political freedom doesn’t alleviate the grinding misery of wage slavery. He adds that socialism is necessarily a worldwide movement: any one nation that achieves success will be crushed by the others around it.” The Jungle, Upton Sinclair

In 2013, the average worker produced $70 in income per hour but was only paid $16.80 of it. Because of wage slavery, they aren't paid for 75%, on average, of what they produce.

Almost each new day a report is released by a think-tank highlighting the widening wealth gap and the increasing rates of inequality. What these studies leave out, and what the working class needs to know above all, is that the problem is the capitalist system of wage slavery — and the solution is socialism. When people talk about reforming capitalism, we talk about ending capitalism. Class consciousness means understanding the enemy class and all of its treacherous features.

Some pro-capitalists argue that wage labour does not limit freedom because it is voluntary. A worker has the right to work for other capitalists than their current employer or to become self-employed. Since the worker has the right to leave their current employment as a wage labourer, but chooses not to leave, it follows that they voluntarily choose to work for their employer. 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. Therefore, wage labour is voluntary.

The socialist does not deny that wage labourers have the right to seek employment elsewhere, rather they deny that wage labourers have the means to be anything other than wage labourers. One would not argue that a homeless person’s freedom is not limited by their poverty because they have the right to buy a house or food or a car. G.A Cohen notes, workers are both free to sell their labour and are not free not to sell their labour. The socialist argues that many workers are in a similar position. Workers have the right to leave their job but they lack the means due to the predictable result of them leaving their job being poverty and at worst death as a result of illness or starvation. To quote Karl Marx, “He can work only with their permission, hence live only with their permission.” In times of economic hardship, people become concerned with securing income. They will even submit, often eagerly, to effective slavery, as Karl Marx quite rightly called the plight of the propertyless worker.

The traditional socialist response to the capitalist is to deny that wage labour is voluntary and therefore that one is free under capitalism to sell one’s labour. Socialists instead insist that under capitalism workers are forced to sell their labour to capitalists. The argument is as follows. The reason why workers sell their labour to capitalists in the first place is that they have no other choice. In a capitalist society one needs money in order to purchase the essentials of life, such as food, shelter and clothing. Thus in order to avoid starvation or at best extreme poverty one must accumulate money. In order to accumulate money the vast majority of people in a capitalist society sell their labour to capitalists in exchange for a wage. This is because most people do not own capital or receive a large inheritance with which to start a business. It is true that some workers manage to create their own businesses but in order to do this they must accumulate the money required to buy the necessary capital and means of production for their business and thus at some point must partake in wage labour. Therefore the vast majority of individuals who engage in wage labour do so because if they do not they cannot purchase the goods and services required to survive.

The socialist argues that since workers engage in wage labour because they have no other choice it follows that wage labour is not voluntary. This is due to their belief that a choice lacking a meaningful alternative is no choice at all. If a person walked up to you and asked you for money, your choice to give them money would be voluntary since one can meaningfully choose between giving the person money or not giving the person money. In this example, you have realistic options to choose from. While if a robber walked up to you holding a gun and gave you the choice between giving them money or being shot to death then clearly one lacks a meaningful choice. The alternative to giving money is death and therefore when one chooses to perform the action of giving money to the robber one is not making this choice voluntarily. The victim in this instance is forced to hand over their money because they lack a realistic alternative to doing so. The socialist argues that workers are in the same position. Their choice is between working for a capitalist or extreme poverty and the possibility of death from starvation, illness etc. Workers thus lack a meaningful alternative to working for a capitalist and consequently are, under capitalism, forced to sell their labour just as the victim is forced to hand over their money to the robber. Therefore, wage labour is not voluntary and if wage labour is not voluntary it follows that it is not the case that wage labour does not limit freedom.

Wage slavery is the predominate form of oppression today. Workers are forced to sell themselves (actually, their labor power) in order to survive. Instead of being owned, and provided for in some fashion, when they clock off, they are “free” for the remainder of the day. Many workers enjoy a weekend without wage slavery, but hundreds of millions do not. However, economic necessity prevents the overwhelming mass of humanity from being truly free. Survival is linked to becoming a wage slave for another. Within capitalism, no one is free, not the capitalist, and certainly not the worker. The capitalist is constrained to accumulate more and more capital. If he (the overwhelming percentage of capitalists are men) does not, he will be gobbled up by a bigger capitalist. This process of concentration and centralization of capital is reported on nearly every day in the business section of newspapers. Likewise, the worker is a victim of economic necessity and has no freedom to quit his or her job to concentrate on art, music, or tending a garden. The very core of capitalism is based on exploitation. It cannot be reformed. The capitalist must exploit the worker to the greatest extent possible to keep up with the other capitalists. This can be done in two ways. The capitalist can lengthen the length of the working day or working week. Many workers toil for much more than 40 hours per week, which has been the legal standard in the U.S. for the past 70 years. Others must constantly work overtime to keep up with their bills. Having wage slaves work longer is called increasing absolute surplus value. The other way to increase surplus value, and profit, is to make the worker more efficient. The development of assembly lines made workers much more efficient (and more specialized). Speeding up the assembly line also makes workers more efficient – to a point. New scientific and technological developments – like computers – make work more efficient, and hence, more profitable. This is called increasing relative surplus value.

Capitalism is now a huge disaster for all humanity and if there is not a transformation to socialism – a system based on sharing and providing for human needs rather than individual greed, it may well mean the end of the world as we know it. Everyday life itself is more and more forcefully presenting us with the question: capitalism or socialism? The necessity for socialism is arising from every part of our society. It is the capitalist system which is poisoning the air we breathe and the water we drink. Even though modern science is able to know the effect of human action on nature, capitalism – based on the anarchy of production – willfully destroys the natural environment in the pursuit of maximum profit, demanding recognition but the capitalist system is blocking the way forward for the human race to advance. Socialism will enable human society to harmonize its relationship with nature and protect and enhance the natural environment which is necessary for the continued development of human society.