Wouldn’t call it “wage theft” so much as “wage slavery.” Theft implies a higher wage was promised to you when profits increase when that absolutely wasn’t the case. They told you completely shamelessly that you would be getting the same shitty wages no matter how well you do and you had no choice to accept it, you know, basically like a slave. At most a slave that could choose their slaver.
Actually, calling wage work slavery isn’t that far off, since many slaves throughout history were paid in some form for their work, and some could even (in theory) buy their freedom. You will never be able to buy your freedom though, the capitalists calculate your wage to ensure you remain poor and desperate so you keep working for them.
Workers have right; those right are poorly applied but workers have unions to defend themselves. Slaves have none. This is a big difference, and being exploited is enough to be outraged; we do need to make confusion that would invisible people enslaved
Okay, when people had to literally arm themselves, fight and die for the right to a union, and then to rights those unions fought for i.e. the 8 hour workday, do you not see the similarity between those literal armed struggles and slave rebellions
There are multiple kinds of slavery. Forced penal labor is a different kind of slavery than debt slavery, which is different than racial chattel slavery, forced marriage and so on. Most of those “have rights” to some extent. The US, for instance, had slave codes that delineated things like just how much owners were allowed to beat their slaves.
That is to say: When people talk about workers being wage slaves, they aren’t saying the modern worker has it just as bad as other slaves, they’re talking about institutionalized forced labor.
Indeed, and the fact that around 60% of the population is living on subsistence wages underscores the point. They literally pay people just enough for them to keep working, literally all the value produced through labor is appropriated by the parasites.
I would definitely call it theft in most cases, because in a capitalist system, labor is structurally coerced and is not giving up its surplus value freely, as you basically said yourself in different words. Or perhaps more succinctly, I would call slavery a form of theft. But I agree it isn’t “wage theft” because that has a more specific understood meaning related to what’s owed according to the law.
Wouldn’t call it “wage theft” so much as “wage slavery.” Theft implies a higher wage was promised to you when profits increase when that absolutely wasn’t the case. They told you completely shamelessly that you would be getting the same shitty wages no matter how well you do and you had no choice to accept it, you know, basically like a slave. At most a slave that could choose their slaver.
Actually, calling wage work slavery isn’t that far off, since many slaves throughout history were paid in some form for their work, and some could even (in theory) buy their freedom. You will never be able to buy your freedom though, the capitalists calculate your wage to ensure you remain poor and desperate so you keep working for them.
Workers have right; those right are poorly applied but workers have unions to defend themselves. Slaves have none. This is a big difference, and being exploited is enough to be outraged; we do need to make confusion that would invisible people enslaved
Okay, when people had to literally arm themselves, fight and die for the right to a union, and then to rights those unions fought for i.e. the 8 hour workday, do you not see the similarity between those literal armed struggles and slave rebellions
There are multiple kinds of slavery. Forced penal labor is a different kind of slavery than debt slavery, which is different than racial chattel slavery, forced marriage and so on. Most of those “have rights” to some extent. The US, for instance, had slave codes that delineated things like just how much owners were allowed to beat their slaves.
That is to say: When people talk about workers being wage slaves, they aren’t saying the modern worker has it just as bad as other slaves, they’re talking about institutionalized forced labor.
Indeed, and the fact that around 60% of the population is living on subsistence wages underscores the point. They literally pay people just enough for them to keep working, literally all the value produced through labor is appropriated by the parasites.
I would definitely call it theft in most cases, because in a capitalist system, labor is structurally coerced and is not giving up its surplus value freely, as you basically said yourself in different words. Or perhaps more succinctly, I would call slavery a form of theft. But I agree it isn’t “wage theft” because that has a more specific understood meaning related to what’s owed according to the law.