How prevalent is wage slavary? Eun Soo Park

"Wage slavery is the new slavery"

Wage slavery is a term that refers to a person’s dependence on wages for their livelihood; in theory, you are stuck doing a job solely for the money, leading to a situation in which you are effectively enslaved to your job. Often, it is indicative of low wages, inferior treatment, and poor conditions, as well as the scarce chances of upward social mobility.

The term is used by critics of 'wage-based employment; to criticize the exploitation of labour and ‘social stratification’, with the former seen primarily as unequal bargaining power between labour and capital and the latter described as a lack of worker self-management, fulfilling job choices, and leisure in an economy.

Wage slavery is tied to slavery because "wage slaves" have few options at their disposal and are forced to work jobs that offer little bargaining power to the worker. The only bargaining power slaves had were things like active resistance, such as slowing down the pace of work or faking illness.

In addition to a lack of bargaining power, wage slaves usually have a lack of fulfilling job choices at their disposal. Their opportunity for leisure is little, and they lack self-management when it comes to their jobs. This means they have little control or say over their work. Their jobs are predicated on following instructions, without input from the individual. Although the circumstances are incomparable, the characteristics of slavery and wage slavery are similar.

“Wage slavery” dates back to western philosophical and scientific traditions which viewed human work as inherently onerous, wearisome, and degrading.

Adam Smith, writing in the 18th, saw work as the toil and trouble that humans really pay for everything they need or want. Karl Marx, writing in the 19th century, considered wage labour alienating but saw the possibility of selfexpression in work. Dupré and Gagnier, a philosopher and a critic writing near the end of the twentieth century, agreed that work could be self-fulfilling, but only for an elite minority.

Various methods proposed in an effort to ‘eradicate’ wage slavery such as:

Promote full employment

A classic, free-market approach to providing flexibility and freedom to workers is by promoting FE. By growing the economy, more jobs are created, reducing unemployment. Then, when the economy is near "full employment" (categorized by unemployment around four percent), companies begin competing for workers by offering higher wages and better benefits, thereby reducing the ‘inferior’ work conditions.

Lower the cost of living

Through technological advances, we can make subsistence cheaper. The drop in prices of some of the necessities of life should mean we have more flexibility to job hop without starving and, therefore, reducing one’s reliability to wages.

Create a better ‘safety net’

Perhaps the introduction of a universal basic income, a social welfare proposal in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive a guaranteed income in the form of an unconditional transfer payment, could be the first step to help eliminate wage slavery. Clearly, such a complex and exorbitant program has its downfalls, but it would mean that everyone could live, even without having to work. Furthermore, this could incentivise employers to end the exploitation of their workers due to the constant awareness of the fact that their workers are free to leave at any time.

Clearly, one solution cannot eradicate wage slavery—but neither can the status quo.

Throughout history, people have often been subjected to working in horrible conditions to eke out a living. Although, the pace of poverty alleviation has accelerated, meaning fewer people are forced to live hand to mouth, wage slavery is still prevalent today.