Slave worker explained?

[RichnNL]

I would love if someone could clarify what Leo means by slave worker. To me it seems to be used as a derogatory term.

From my understanding of the working world, say for example you are an engineer you work for someone by Leo's definition you are a slave worker is Leo saying to avoid this?

Where is the line?

Say that engineer is at a company where he is learning, doing what he likes through his career etc. He saves up, learns the industry and then he decides to start his own firm. The thing is now as a CEO of a company hiring other engineers is a costly and risky endeavour , and now he is a slave to his clients. And works far more than the 9 to 5 because its his company. Which may be fine or may not be depending on what he wants out of life.

So is Leo refering to this engineering example or a McDonald's worker which he has noted as being the same just one gets paid more. 

 

[Yarco]

If you wake up in the morning and someone else tells you what you have to do, and when you have to do it.

Especially if you're stuck in the job to support your family or make ends meet. If quitting your job isn't an option because you'd be bankrupt and homeless in a month if you quit, then you're a slave. Your employer has basically unlimited power to make you do whatever, and you need the job so bad that you can't disagree.

In your first example the engineer has to do what his employer says. In your second example, a company owner can decline clients they don't want to work with. He's only a slave to his clients if operating from a place of scarcity instead of abundance, and doesn't think he can find other clients.

Edited November 17, 2020 by Yarco

[Leo Gura]

"Wage slavery" is actually a technical term from Marxism.

But I use the term rather loosely. To me it's any job where you don't have much creative autonomy and your paycheck is capped by your boss rather than your creative output.

The point of wage slavery in Marxism is that your boss is not giving you the full value of your work. You don't get to own the work you produce.

See, with Actualized.org, all the work I do I own. Not so with a wage slave job. If I was creating these videos for some boss, he would own all my work and he would reap all the profits while I would get pennies.

[charlie cho]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

"Wage slavery" is actually a technical term from Marxism.

But I use the term rather loosely. To me it's any job where you don't have much creative autonomy and your paycheck is capped by your boss rather than your creative output.

The point of wage slavery in Marxism is that your boss is not giving you the full value of your work. You don't get to own the work you produce.

See, with Actualized.org, all the work I do I own. Not so with a wage slave job. If I was creating these videos for some boss, he would own all my work and he would reap all the profits while I would get pennies.

Not saying there is nil value in being a leader of anything you do, but that presupposes the importance of having a follower too. If there are no followers, there are no leaders. Although, I know I'm more inclined to be a leader than a follower, (my personality is such ENTJ LOL), but i cannot help but deny anyone who in any way implies all followers are somewhat 'inferior' to leaders. I just cannot agree to that at all. 

[Leo Gura]

Of course followers are necessary, and that's not a problem because most people are happy being sheep.

There is a good reason why most people are wage slaves and tolerate being so -- they are not strong enough to lead themselves or others. Of course there are also systemic inequality problems which are inherent to capitalism.

[RichnNL]

@Leo Gura
Ok good points there, I think I understand. And correct me if I wrong but I have a sense of this American style entrepreneurship mentality in the sense that you are describing workers as sheep. In northern europe for example the relationship between worker and employer is quite healthy and hierarchy is quite flat. At the end of the day the company owns the output and in a sense even the CEO a cog in the machine if you will. Yes the CEO may be the highest paid. But at least I have a sense that everyone is working for the health and benefit of the company ownership and employees change.

 I also get why you use the term sheep (and by the way I strive to have my own company one day) but for a lot of people they actually do enjoy their careers, and because they are highly educated etc and have many options in who they get to work for and simply don't want to work that many hours and enjoy hobbies, spending time traveling, or with family etc. I guess what I am trying to say is for many many employers in terms of power (time, money, resources) and independence they are not completely autonomous we live in a world where employee have lots of rights cost a lot and there is a symboltic relationship.

I think this example is only relevant to northern europe but the CEOs of successful medium size companies are not swimming in money just in my experience they make maybe 20% more than their employees, and they cant tell their employees to go f@#k off and not give them creative freedom or the employees will leave and they put in a lot of time and risk which I respect dearly but just saying I dont think there is more depth to this leader and sheep/slave worker thing

Edited November 17, 2020 by RichnNL

[LilyDI]

Your question is quite interesting, and philosophical. I would like to make a comparison to my work. Due to the current pandemic, our company switched to remote work, and we had to install software to perform employee monitoring . Initially, the employees were not pleased with this decision, but but they came to appreciate that it would give proper organization to the work schedule. I would like to offer my viewpoint on this situation and how the answer to your question lies in your mind. If you think of the answer to your question in a negative light, the answer will likely be negative.

Edited January 11, 2021 by LilyDI