Wage slavery

Wage slavery refers to a situation where a person is dependent for a livelihood on the wages earned, especially if the dependency is total and immediate.[1][2] The term is used to draw an analogy between slavery and wage labor. Some uses of the term may refer only to an "[un]equal bargaining situation between labor and capital,"[3] particularly where workers are paid unreasonably low wages (e.g. sweatshops). More controversially, others equate it with a lack of workers' self-management[4][5][6] or point to similarities between owning and employing a person, and extend the term to cover a wide range of employment relationships in a hierarchical social environment with limited job-related choices (e.g. working for a wage under threat of starvation, poverty or social stigma).[7][8][9]
Similarities between wage labor and slavery were noted at least as early as Cicero.[10] These comparisons were elaborated by subsequent thinkers, such as Proudhon and Marx, particularly with the advent of the industrial revolution.[11][12] The introduction of wage labor in 18th century Britain was also met with resistance--giving rise to the principles of syndicalism[13][14][15][16] The use of the term wage slave by labor organizations may originate from the labor protests of the Lowell Mill Girls in 1836.[17] Before the American Civil War, Southern defenders of African American slavery also invoked the concept of wage slavery to favorably compare the condition of their slaves to workers in the North.[18][19]The imagery of wage slavery was widely used by labor organizations during the mid-19th century to object to the lack of workers' self-management. However, it was gradually replaced by the more pragmatic term "wage work" towards the end of the 19th century, as labor organizations shifted their focus to raising wages.[20][21]