Wages versus Wage Slavery
One of the ongoing roadblocks to left and libertarian reconciliation, one which deserves more of our attention, is the matter of conflation of context with causality, an intellectual error committed by most on both sides.
Leftists typically blame markets for state-caused injustice that takes place in markets.
Free-market libertarians often apply a shallow analysis that causes them to defend state-caused injustice merely because its visible manifestation is in the marketplace.
Both fail to recognize that the market is the context, the cause is the state.
Let’s look at the topic of wage slavery, for example.
Every marginalized worker viscerally knows wage slavery to be a very real phenomenon — yet libertarians typically bury their heads in the sand and leftists typically fundamentally misunderstand the problem.
Most libertarians deny the existence of wage slavery, seeing only the voluntaristic nature of the concept of wages in principle rather than the real world of state-tainted injustice in practice.
Most radical leftists attack the voluntaristic nature of the concept of wages, assuming there is something inherently evil about wages for reasons that are mirror images of the intellectual errors commonly committed by libertarians.
They’re both right and both wrong.
A deeper libertarian analysis, a left libertarian analysis, points to the role of the state in artificially concentrating capital in the hands of state-allied big business — giving statist plutocrats far more bargaining power in the labor market than is their natural due. Injustice happens to play out in the marketplace, but the cause is the state.
I urge, and challenge, free-market libertarians to show their solidarity with labor by supporting radical unions such as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), rather than establishment unions in league with big business and the state. Click here to join the IWW.
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Excellent piece Brad. One of the things that held me back from embracing libertarianism initially were these very concepts.
Looking at it as a power relationship as well as an economic one makes it much clearer.
Well said.
Hear, hear! Well put!
Anyone who is so stupid as to associate real slavery with freely-chosen work does not deserve anyone’s support.
You lost me forever on this post. Goodbye.
Au Revoir!
If market anarchism is going to have an expanded following, distinctions need to be made between anarcho-”capitalism” and what the left would refer to as “anarcho”-capitalism.
Brad’s writing reflects the former trend. Those who continually defend statism under the guise of free market advocacy reflect the latter trend.
@Mr. Tremblay,
It seems odd that you would make reference to
…when the whole point of the post is to draw a distinction between wages qua wages and “wage slavery”.
Now, I’ll grant that the IWW lists “abolition of the wage system” as a goal. The IWW is (for the most part) a stridently anti-political organization, though. You need never fear their legislative agenda will be enacted because they basically don’t have one.
Now, let me draw an analogy…
Would you buy an alternative theory of gravity from someone who maintains gravity is a myth?
You certainly can’t expect to have any impact on discussions of the nature of wage slavery if you maintain, against all of the experience of many people who have experienced it firsthand, that “wage slavery” doesn’t even exist.
Now, if you wish to take issue with my essential point, a libertarian understanding of what “wage slavery” is (and the implication of market anarchism as its remedy) here:
Then great. I’d also be interested in hearing ideas about alternative terminology that doesn’t fail to distinguish between a completely free agreement and an agreement that has been shaped by a context of statist privilege granted to only one of the two parties to an agreement. In particular, if you care to make the point that the term “wage slavery” cheapens the meaning of the word “slavery”, I’d certainly be amenable to that notion and would be willing to look at using alternative terms that *also* adequately describe what I am referring to. Right now, only the term “wage slavery” does that, to the best of my knowledge.
Now, if you don’t think market anarchism ought to be relevant or made relevant to (gasp!) ordinary people — well, suit yourself and stay out of my way. I’d urge you, though, to consider the remote possibility that maybe, just this once, you might be mistaken.
Another example of the kind I dogma that I blogged about the other day. Your ideas don’t match the dogma he has learned and accepted, so therefore not only are you wrong, you are to be ignored or fought against.
Silly really when this makes so much sense when you think about it.
I agreed with everything you said right up until the IWW bit. Regardless of whether they will actually gain or use political power, they actually want to destroy the wage system. This is not some minor, trivial point on which we can just “agree to disagree”. Well, perhaps it is such a point to you, I am not fully acquainted with your views, but to me it is rather important.
By saying that they are not political, are you making the claim that, should the IWW somehow succeed, they will let wage paying businesses go their own way in peace? I rather doubt it.
Uhh, what dogma is Brad preaching? That they have a fundamental difference of opinion and, therefore, there is no discussion to be had?
That sounds rather forthright and honest to me. But I’ll check out your blog article just to make sure.
Unless Mike was addressing the other dude. Oops.
For Mr. Spangler,
Your “dialectical” détour on context, cause, and the usual errors that follow when we conflate them is certainly welcome and well said I think, but I have some trouble to understand how you make fit the exploited/exploiter opposition with the worker/employer dichotomy, as we see so often on “left libertarian” blogs.
You talk about “…the role of the state in artificially concentrating capital in the hands of state-allied big business  giving statist plutocrats far more bargaining power in the labor market than is their natural due.” Well, I’d like to understand how we get there. For example, it does not seem obvious to me than this concentration of capital would result in systematically diminishing the demand for labor in general and lower its price (this is how I understand your point about the “bargaining power” but please correct me if I’m wrong)?
And if you’re right, do you have some kind of typology of interventions that could bring this result instead of advantaging and penalizing some in both groups of employers and wage earners (as we would expect for a tax-and-spend scheme)?
Sorry if my english is a bit approximative, I’m French.
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“Unless Mike was addressing the other dude. Oops.”
I was, sorry for not being more clear…
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Brad, I really wanted to thank you for the insights this article holds. I think it perfectly pins down the differences between leftists and libertarian — not just regarding wage slavery. Your distinction between context and causality can be applied to so many issues and I have been reminded of it frequently lately. I think it might prove as a powerful tool in discussions with leftists.
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