Slavery is the laboring condition where your means of subsistence are provided to you by your master, provided that you labor for your master.
Wage labor is a system where your means of subsistence are provided to you by the capitalist, provided that you work for your capitalist.
There can be very nice slavery situations, maybe with healthcare benefits and reasonable hours. The government may have even enacted laws for how to exploit labor from slaves in a proper manner. The same is true for wage laborers. It may seem that wage labor is very advanced and pleasant in our modern day, at least to the minority of workers who get these boring office jobs with benefits ( this is not the majority of wage labor). But the extreme advancement of technology and productivity since only a 150 years ago is so tremendous that the capitalist can afford to increase his profits while at the same time slightly increasing the wages and bettering the working conditions of the workers. In fact, the capitalist has no choice but to better the working conditions since if he doesn’t he workers will mutiny against him because they know with such advancement of productivity there should come a better standard of living.
We should not compare the conditions of slavery and wage labor. This is a subjective aspect of the types of labor since there can be very pleasant slavery and wage labor and there can also be horrible slavery and wage labor. To be more objective we have to look at how the masters and the capitalists extract their value from the slaves and the workers. It’s here that we’ll understand how the slave and the worker are one in the same only with different outer shells. The master must work the slave more than is required for the slave to compensate for his means of subsistence. The slave’s means of subsistence may even include health bene’s and such in this modern day, but it is essential to this relationship that no matter how nice the slave is treated that he provides extra value above any of the expenses that the master spends to maintain his slave. This point about extracting labor from the slave over and above directly translates to the capitalist and worker relationship as well. The worker will absolutely never stay employed if he does not produce a profit, i.e., the extra work the worker expends for the capitalist over and above what the capitalist spends providing for the necessaries for his worker.
There is another superficial difference between slaves and workers, but it is only superficial. One might say that the slave is bound to his master and is not free to leave as he pleases. The worker on the other hand is thought to be in a much better situation because he is free to leave his capitalist whenever he wishes. Both of these points are true but miss the essential compulsion of capitalism. Within capitalism the worker is free to leave his capitalist, but then to do what? He must find another capitalist to work for, i.e., another boss that will only hire him on the condition that he will make a profit off his labor. One might say that the worker can become a self-employed person. But this self-proprietor is commanded by the market, he must compete with other capitalists that dominate the market. But this second situation is a little different because in this case you are attempting to become the exploiter and not the exploited. This shows how even if one tries to take the road of a capitalist, by having employees and exploiting their labor for oneself, that one cannot liberate themselves from the compulsion of capitalism. And it should be easy to see how not everyone could be a capitalist since to be a capitalist, by definition, requires that you exploit the labor of workers. If everyone was their own “capitalist” there would be no capitalism. So wage labor appears to be more free than slavery because on the one hand slaves are restricted to only their master, whereas on the other hand wage labor allows workers the freedom to be exploited by the capitalist of their choice, and capitalists themselves are compelled by the markets.
So the central point is both systems are essentially the same: they both rely on the forceful expropriation of extra labor from slaves and workers. The fashion is different but the clothes are the same. It does not matter whether there are very nice wage labor or slavery conditions or very horrible wage labor or slavery conditions.
Hmmm... I don't know, Joe. You definitely know this pretty well, better than I do. You explained it well too. And yeah, it seems reasonable, especially when ignoring the conditions the worker or slave finds him/herself in. But that's a problem, I think. Can you ignore them without weakening the point of similarity?
ReplyDeleteHere's the thing: I'm having a hard time ignoring those conditions that call a subjective aspect. Sure, I could see how some slave situations weren't so bad, in comparison to other situations-where the slave master is notorious for murdering his slaves.
This leads to my first question: how effective is Marx's argument when ignoring those superficial/subjective aspects? As an economic theory, I could see how we'd leave the working conditions out. But that's cause our aim is different. We are more focused on the production of capital through the exploitation of labor. This is a less ethical/moral subject than the actual conditions of exploited labor (when comparing slavery and factory workers).
Second question: how common were those 'not-bad-situations'? I know Toussaint didn't have it as bad in Haiti. I think his slave master even taught him to read and educated him. Though Toussaint was also stuck with his master, I think. For the sake of paradigm example, let's assume he was stuck.
This leads to my last question: are the middle class workers willing to start revolution likes slaves in Haiti? Are they that motivated? Determined? Willing to give their lives like slaves once did in Haiti? In other words, do you think the middle class workers see their role in capitalism as intolerable, unacceptable? Do you they put up with their shitty alienated jobs for the same reasons slaves would?
Keep in mind, I'm not disagreeing with you, entirely. I actually don't have a position on this as of yet. I only bring this question up because slavery is famous for its piece of shit lifestyle it offered. In my opinion, those conditions are huge reason why shit went down like it did in Santa Domingo. In comparison to the working man now, I don't he's motivated by the economic similarity.
Thanks for writing this. I'm a fan.
Yeah, I think you pointed to the most crucial section of people within the class struggle, the so-called middle class. No doubt they are still workers who are exploited, but their working conditions and are not as bad as the super-exploited lower class workers, like the work California tends to give to undocumented immigrants. The way the middle class sways plays a part in determining when revolutions may happens or are stifled. If they feel that their lives are not that bad, then they accept their exploited situation, with their decent but out-of-their-control lifestyles, instead of siding with the lower class to take control of the means of production and create new relations of production that do not exploit workers. The French Revolution, for instance, could not get off to a start without the middle class political clubs, such as the Jacobins and its less revolutionary wing, the Girondins.
ReplyDeleteThe working class is much stronger when it is unified, of course. The arbitrary distinction between middle class and lower class workers is a divisive mechanism used to maintain control for the ruling class, the capitalist class. This tactic is used in other ways too. Racism is an arbitrary distinction used to justify lower wages and poorer living conditions based on skin color. There's also nationality: undocumented immigrants are super-exploited in California agriculture, for instance, based on the the arbitrary distinction of nationality. They use anything they can to potentially divide workers up and even get them to be against each other. Religion is another tactic. So, the middle class is a crucial element of the working class movement; they have to understand if they want fundamental change they must organize with people of the same economic interest.
I also feel that the subjective aspect of working conditions is important. It is probably the impetus for continuing the struggle (what could be more important). But even though it is important, a rational argument cannot be based on it. So that's why I think the argument is based on economics.