Without industrialization would we still have slavery?

[aelf]

I understand the concept of wage slavery as an analogy between wage labor and slavery, not as a serious assertion that wage labor is a type of slavery. I would say the best way to think about this is concentric circles - the innermost is slavery in its variations, then unfree or bonded labor (which would include debt peonage and convict servitude among others) and then most broadly relations founded on domination or unequal power which would include the employment relationship.

That is... interesting. Pretty sure that's not what Marx meant, though.

This reminds me of the debate on the meaning of genocide and how one side wishes to keep the definition of genocide pure out of respect for victims of 'real' genocide like the Holocaust, to prevent the term from being 'devalued'. Not exactly the same, but the sentiments are familiar.

Again there is no social formation truly free of coercion, scale matters. Categorical congruency is insufficient for a compression of concept.

Marx seemed to think coercion via material means is worse. Hard to argue with that. You can't fight hunger indefinitely with willpower.

 

[Hygro]

Nor am I claiming there is. I understand that it is your position that categorical similarities are not enough, but I disagree with it. How would I go about demonstrating the argument, or is that it?

You are going to die, social relations will always be coercive, and there will always be material scarcity.

So we can always tie whatever happens back to a greater oppression that magnified anything we do that isn’t completely liberated, which will always exist in our lives.

Does this not then make the entire discussion of escape from the category as a matter of priority an impossibility that maybe then interferes with a balanced and continued improvement of the material freedoms attainable and those worthy of building toward?

 

[uppi]

Yeah, right to leave is more what I'd consider arguable. "I'm" not free to leave my job unless I want to make an active choice to have my children starve. I'm putting this in quotes because it doesn't specifically apply directly to my personal situation. But that's the choice a lot of people face. It's not a choice when the downside is there are no other jobs available and you suffer direct and immediate material harm for doing so. Not really in any but the most technical of senses. We're trying to get at shared understanding here, not win points over legal definitions. I'd like to think we all know the relevant legal definitions, here.

Yes, it is debatable how free you are to leave your job. But you are certainly free to seek another job. There are not many cases in which there are literally no other jobs. The pay might not be better, but maybe the boss does not abuse you as much. This is a fundamental difference to a slave who cannot leave their master, even if the neighbor would be a much better master and had open positions.

 

[Gorbles]

You are going to die, social relations will always be coercive, and there will always be material scarcity.

So we can always tie whatever happens back to a greater oppression that magnified anything we do that isn’t completely liberated, which will always exist in our lives.

Does this not then make the entire discussion of escape from the category as a matter of priority an impossibility that maybe then interferes with a balanced and continued improvement of the material freedoms attainable and those worthy of building toward?

Would you apply this level of relativity to something like racism? They are going to die, people are always going to be in-group vs. out-group oriented, and there will always be material scarcity (leading to breeding grounds for racism r.e. the in-group out-group mentality)? I'm not using this as a gotcha, I'm trying to understand if this is your worldview generally, or a lens you're specifically applying to the product of capital vs. worker effort.

Because it reads like you're saying "it isn't as bad as you're saying it is, and to claim that it is comparable to slavery is a dilution of the term".

Yes, it is debatable how free you are to leave your job. But you are certainly free to seek another job. There are not many cases in which there are literally no other jobs. The pay might not be better, but maybe the boss does not abuse you as much. This is a fundamental difference to a slave who cannot leave their master, even if the neighbor would be a much better master and had open positions.

You are assuming there are "not many cases". The entire concept of zero-hour contracts exploits the worker by preventing them from looking for other employment (because they have to be available for any shift at a moment's notice) while also typically paying them very little. It doesn't give them better qualifications, there's very little career advancement, it's just grind on the mill because we need jobs to earn money to survive. That's all there is to it.

I've worked these kinds of jobs. I know people who have worked them for years or more. I know people who started in a role like mine at the time (working the tills) and twenty years later lead the team that I worked on. Again, for punishing hours with limited pay.

I can understand that generally speaking, people assume that every job has career progression, and that people generally have options. It's an understandable assumption to make about work, workers and society. However, it doesn't hold true all of the time. I myself have options now, working for ten years in a professional capacity in software development (and yet still paying off student loans). I'm not talking about my life. I'm trying to communicate there is a demographic of workers for which there are no other jobs that offer any better prospects, where the treatment (of the worker) is the same in all cases.

 

[uppi]

You are assuming there are "not many cases". The entire concept of zero-hour contracts exploits the worker by preventing them from looking for other employment (because they have to be available for any shift at a moment's notice) while also typically paying them very little. It doesn't give them better qualifications, there's very little career advancement, it's just grind on the mill because we need jobs to earn money to survive. That's all there is to it.

I've worked these kinds of jobs. I know people who have worked them for years or more. I know people who started in a role like mine at the time (working the tills) and twenty years later lead the team that I worked on. Again, for punishing hours with limited pay.

I can understand that generally speaking, people assume that every job has career progression, and that people generally have options. It's an understandable assumption to make about work, workers and society. However, it doesn't hold true all of the time. I myself have options now, working for ten years in a professional capacity in software development (and yet still paying off student loans). I'm not talking about my life. I'm trying to communicate there is a demographic of workers for which there are no other jobs that offer any better prospects, where the treatment (of the worker) is the same in all cases.

Yet you did change employers, so it is obviously possible to seek other work. If you had been a slave, you would have been legally unable to do so.

The treatment of workers is certainly not all the same in all cases, because bosses are people and people are different. Even if the contract terms are the same, a mean boss vs a likeable boss can make a huge difference. A slave with a mean boss is stuck with them, a worker has options, even if they are working for Subway instead of McDonald's.

 

[El_Machinae]

It's the nature of the universe that you have to work to live. If it bothers you, blame your parents for forcing you into it. Or blame nature for giving them the natural imperative to breed. Then you're just shaking your fist at the clouds

But after that, there will be categories of slavery. Heck, there's a fourth category that we've not even talked about, moral slavery. We have to be working much harder than we are, because there are people whose lives will only be improved if we work harder, and they're desperate for our help.

There will be coerced slavery, and it will have gradients based on how the slaves are treated. There will be debt slavery, but that will have gradients based on how voluntary entering into the debt was. There will be capitalist exploitation, but even that will have layers.

Waking up in a Thai fishing boat forced to collect fish for seasons at a time for Western cat food is slavery just as much as having to go to work so that you can save up for your kid's college, but one of those can end if the customers just get higher standards and are willing to pay for them. The other only fancy accounting such that somebody else has to do the work, if you won't.

 

[Gorbles]

Yet you did change employers, so it is obviously possible to seek other work. If you had been a slave, you would have been legally unable to do so.

The treatment of workers is certainly not all the same in all cases, because bosses are people and people are different. Even if the contract terms are the same, a mean boss vs a likeable boss can make a huge difference. A slave with a mean boss is stuck with them, a worker has options, even if they are working for Subway instead of McDonald's.

You're missing my point. My point is "two situations which are exactly the same" is not choice, outside of the mere technicality of the choice between two different corporate brands. The person is still being exploited at minimum wage for the corporation's gain.

Yes, a literal chattel slave would be unable to do even this. But what's the lesson there? That it would therefore be okay if they could? That doesn't seem like a great argument to me.

I'm not even getting into mean bosses vs. nice bosses. The contract terms are what I am presenting as evidence. And they suck, quantifiably.

 

[Farm Boy]

It's the nature of the universe that you have to work to live.

Irritation at this is irritation at not owning enough slaves.

 

[Gorbles]

It's the nature of the universe that you have to work to live.

I missed this, but this seems key to the general misunderstanding.

Doing <some measure of> work is not the same as being exploited 40+ hours a week for someone elses' gain. They shouldn't be presented as comparable.

 

[El_Machinae]

Yes, and being exploited isn't comparable to being forced to work under confinement and threat of violence.

Being able to *leave* is a very powerful factor

 

[Lexicus]

Pretty sure that's not what Marx meant, though.

It is something close to Marx's position as I understand it (not that I particularly care, as I do not subscribe to a doctrine of Karl infallibility).

Yes, and being exploited isn't comparable to being forced to work under confinement and threat of violence.

Of course it's comparable. It's not the same, but it's comparable.

 

[aelf]

It is something close to Marx's position as I understand it (not that I particularly care, as I do not subscribe to a doctrine of Karl infallibility).

Conceptually, maybe, but the "slavery" part of wage slavery isn't merely metaphorical. I believe it's meant as a form of slavery, though distinct from chattel slavery.

 

[Farm Boy]

Of course it's comparable. It's not the same, but it's comparable.

Ok, flat is not, then? Is distinct from? Just trying to understand the point.

It's not that many generations ago that were pretty crystal on the issue and the cost. My grandparents' grandparents, to use the big example. Living memory of living memory. For now, yet, still.

 

[Gorbles]

Being able to *leave* is a very powerful factor

As I have repeatedly argued, no it isn't if there's no change in situation (from having left). The utility decreases with the mobility offered. No mobility is comparable to being chained (which is exactly one of the parts about chattel slavery, because it's not predicated on literal chains, even though obviously they're a thing).

The only material distinction I've seen is Bestbank's good and valid point about ownership. That separates chattel slavery, as it should. But I was never intending for it to be a 1:1 comparison.

(there's also a constructive tangent or two from Hygro's position but waiting on the reply before starting from any more assumptions there)

 

[Lexicus]

Conceptually, maybe, but the "slavery" part of wage slavery isn't merely metaphorical. I believe it's meant as a form of slavery, though distinct from chattel slavery.

There is a reason Marx identified workers and not slaves as the revolutionary protagonist of history.

@schlaufuchs is much more familiar with Marx than I am and can probaby clear this up for us

Ok, flat is not, then? Is distinct from? Just trying to understand the point.

Well, Marxian theory is that both slavery and wage labor are systems for an owning class to extract surplus value from an exploited laboring population.

 

[Lexicus]

But surely this is - as you say - merely propaganda? Being free to starve isn't much freedom to do anything. You're still bound by capital, that's the entire point.

Are we really at the point where we're identifying different forms of subjugation that could be argued as similar to chattel slavery as being different on such technicalities? Why aren't we attempting to understand the shared commonalities? I could understand it if there was obvious bad faith, but of the replies I'm reading I see differences in opinion, attitude even, but people are expressing things they come by honestly.

I have no idea what you are trying to argue here, but I've outlined the broad commonalities in other posts.

I'm not arguing that wage labor cannot even be compared to slavery or that it lacks any commonalities, I'm arguing that it's not identical.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, Marxian theory is that both slavery and wage labor are systems for an owning class to extract surplus value from an exploited laboring population.

So the argument would be they exist on the same continuum? Alright, so if they can be compared, are you up for giving one?

 

[Lexicus]

So the argument would be they exist on the same continuum? Alright, so if they can be compared, are you up for giving one?

Already done it in this thread

 

[Gorbles]

I'm not arguing that wage labor cannot even be compared to slavery or that it lacks any commonalities, I'm arguing that it's not identical.

Fair I don't know how we got to a discussion about them being identical, but I don't think they are either. I've only ever been shooting for comparable.

 

[Farm Boy]

Already done it in this thread

Alright. I think it's a pretty big "we live in a society" level continuum to compare working at McDonalds to being a chattel, but if that's the line we're working with that's the line we're working with! Company-store sort of gets closer, but that almost always comes part and parcel with things like the Cherry Mine Disaster.