Wage Slavery?

You're not a wage slave are you? You get paid a "fair days wage for a fair days work," right? If you're boss/slave-renter didn't pay you enough you could just go find another job. At least that's the usual argument.

I have a nice big sticker on my hard hat that says "Wage Slave" in nice big bold letters. I'm a wage slave. Most people, however, don't know what to make of it. They want me to explain it to them. "What's a wage slave?" they ask. When I explain it to them they usually look at me with a rather puzzled look and go on about their business.

That's not surprising. The term wage slave lost its meaning long ago. In Norman Ware's classic The Industrial Worker he points out:

The term 'wage-slave' had a much better understanding in the forties [1840s] than it hastoday. It was not then regarded as an empty shibboleth of the soap-box orator. This would suggest that it has suffered only the normal degradation of language, has become a cliche, not that it is a grossly misleading characterization.

In fact it's not at all misleading. It's an accurate description of the majority of workers who toil to earn a living each day, and it was recognized as such very early on:

When the producer, whether master or journeyman, sold his product, he retained his person. But when he came to sell his labor, he sold himself. The term 'wage' that displaced 'price' as the Industrial Revolution advanced had formerly applied only to day labor, and the extension of the term to the skilled worker was regarded by him as a symbol of a deeper change. (Norman Ware, The Industrial Worker p xxi)

Did you catch that? You can't sell your labor without selling yourself. We can't separate our labor from ourselves. We are rented slaves.

As late as 1854, a little group of highly skilled pianoforte makers in New York declared that a daily wage was equivalent to slavery and hoped that "the day is far distant when they [the wage-earners] will so far forget what is due to manhood as to glory in a system forced on them by necessity and in opposition to their feelings of independence and self-respect. May the piano trade long be spared such exhibitions of the degrading power of the day system (New York Daily Tribune, March 22, 1854).

Sadly, most American workers have long forgotten what is due to "manhood" (humanity?) and glory in a system that robs them of the wealth they create. There is no such thing as a "fair wage." We are all wage slaves to one degree or another. Recognition of this simple fact might spur us to take greater efforts in overthrowing this corrupt and immoral system of global capitalism. It's really important to realize that wage slavery isn't hyperbole.

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