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The term “wage slavery” was first used in 1836 by female textile workers in Lowell, Massachusetts. It refers to the condition of most people who earn money for work, and some argue that it only exists when people work in jobs just above subsistence level and have to endure terrible working conditions. Marxian communism aimed to eliminate wage slavery by promoting self or community ownership of workplaces. Opponents argue that no worker can be truly free when there is an inequality in the proper ownership of skills.
Wage slavery is a complicated term that has been used in many different contexts. There have been many references to its concepts by philosophers and the like, but the term is first recorded as being used in 1836 by female textile workers in Lowell, Massachusetts called the Lowell Mill Girls. The women in the Lowell factories lived in boarding houses, often owned by the factory owners, and worked (quite frequently at a young age) about 70 to 80 hours a week. The textile mills tried to improve some aspects of these women’s lives by offering them access to concerts and lectures, and they also insisted on high moral standards and church participation. For the time being they paid relatively good wages, prompting many to “sell their freedom” to earn wages, which was echoed expressly in a protest song written in 1836 by strikers.
People tend to contrast wage slavery with castle slavery, where a person’s labor and body are owned, not leased from an employer. Being a slave to wages can also be seen as the condition of most people who earn money for work. In an economy that depends on people exchanging money instead of a trading or trading system, you need to make money to participate in that economy. In this interpretation, anyone who works for an employer is a wage slave, and this means that wage slavery would be common in virtually all places and does not always imply that working for wages means working for less money than you truly deserve. .
Some definitions of wage slavery are constructed differently. For example, some argue that wage slavery only exists when people work in jobs just above subsistence level and have to endure terrible working conditions and an inability to create better working conditions due to repression by unions. This definition of wage slavery identifies certain political structures as the most common to produce it, including fascism, dictatorships, and some forms of communism.
In fact, a major goal of Marxian communism was to eliminate wage slaves by promoting self or community ownership of workplaces, not government or private ownership and exploitation of workers. In all cases, however, regardless of who owns the corporation, most people still had to work to receive necessities, and one definition of wage slave is that the person must work to survive. Failure to function limits the ability to live in almost all government systems. Wage slavery can also be seen as an environment where employees have little or no public or government support if they cannot work and where they have little choice in where they can work.
Opponents of wage slavery argue that no worker can be truly free when there is an inequality in the proper ownership of skills. While some argue that in capitalist systems, workers are free to use their earnings to buy their own property, produce their own products, or start their own businesses, it is certainly true that many people due to lack of funds and despite hard work they will never get there. Even in rich, developed countries like the United States, it is argued that wage slaves always exist because a small percentage of the population controls most of the country’s wealth. Most people have to submit to an employer to survive, and people with little formal education or training can have the hardest time ever above the poverty level, though there are certainly exceptions. However, it is debatable whether having an employer/employee relationship is really comparable to slavery.
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