Modern wage slavery

[kentuck]

Since the time of recorded history, there has been a struggle between the haves and the have nots. The poor have always been with us. And they have always been exploited.

At first, they were captured in war and made slaves. At one time in Greek history, there were a reported 10 slaves for every free man. The work of the world was done by slaves. At the height of the Roman Empire, some people had as many as 10,000 slaves. And most were not African heritage.

The serfs were "free men", in that they were tied to their soil. They worked for the lords that owned the land. All of his labor was unpaid. He had no competition and no fear of being unemployed.

These different systems progressed into the capitalist system, where the worker was "free" to work or not to work . The owners of production were free to let him go at any time. There was no security. Unlike the slave or the serf, the wage worker had political privileges. He agreed to sell his labor for an agreed upon price. Unlike the slave, who was not paid for any of his labor, the wage worker was paid for "some" of his labor. The "surplus value" of his labor went to the owner of the business. This has always been the undefined unfairness of capitalism. However, there has been great progress made since the days of slavery and serfdom.

The owners of production and the elite of our society still control the lives of the majority of Americans that work for a living wage. There is a constant struggle to keep from sliding back into serfdom and slavery. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely is a true statement. Those that are at the bottom in our society have no power. If their children are hungry, they will work for less than the minimum wage if the law permitted.

Just as less and less of our workers are unionized, if the owners of production had their way, no one would be unionized. That is the natural order of wealth and power. Those that are the "have-nots" must continually struggle to get ahead. That is the system that we live in and that we have always have lived in.

Unfortunately, the political Parties have used "labor" for their own political advantage. The Democratic Party has promised that workers will be better off if they are in power. The Republican Party has promised that if we give more and more to those that already have the most, then it will "trickle down" to the rest of society. Believe it or not, some folks actually believe that!. They vote to give themselves less and less, under the illusion that they will someday be part of that powerful 1% that rule this country. Either their brains have not fully developed or they have been brainwashed beyond the point of consciousness?

It is easy to find fault with both political Parties, but it is almost borderline insane to believe some of the stuff that "average" voters swear their allegiance to. So, the struggle continues and becomes more and more difficult, because some people do not realize that they are still slaves. The "Us" vs "Them" is incorrectly seen as a balance of power. That is not the case.

[NYC_SKP]

1. Thank you for posting what is the real concern these past two decades or so.

The erosion of the middle class, benefits and pensions, lower saving rates, hopelessness.

Thanks!