Wage slavery

“ All society groans under the slavery of stupendous toil and a pittance wage. The negro slavery of the Southern States of America was better than the white slavery of to-day all over the earth, but more particularly in Europe and in America. Capitalism is built on the dreadful wrong of recompensing Labour, not according to the worth of its work, but according to the worth of its members in the market of unlimited competition, and that soon comes to mean the payment of what will hold body and soul together when in the enjoyment of health and strength. ”

“ There has never been a free people, a civilized nation, a real republic on this earth. Human society has always consisted of masters and slaves, and the slaves have always been and are today, the foundation stones of the social fabric.
Wage-labor is but a name; wage-slavery is the fact. ”

“ The difference between the wage earner and the slave is, the right to change residence. The former, with his family of wife and children, is too often, for want of means, unable to avail himself of his right, and is therefore practically on a level in this respect with the bondsman, and he becomes reduced to the slavery of wages, which in this age—howling for wealth—becomes a pitiful condition, from which he seeks relief in strikes, so often in vain. ”

“ Improvements like these in the production and distribution of the products mitigate evils, but in no vital way effect the economic injustice always inherent under a slave system. The payment of wage to the convict as a right growing out of his production of valuable commodities is the phase of this legislation which tends to destroy the slavery condition. ”

“ As if political liberty made wage slavery any the more tolerable! ”

“ Factory slavery finds a refuge even in a hard home. 'Home' slavery has none.... It is in this class, utterly incapable of fixing a minimum wage for itself, that the evil of its absence stands revealed in its worst form. ”

“ To enable them to compete with whites and free negroes in the trades requiring isolated and occasional work their masters early and increasingly fell into the habit of hiring many slaves to the slaves themselves, granting to each a large degree of industrial freedom in return for a stipulated weekly wage. The rates of hire varied, of course, with the slave's capabilities and the conditions of business in their trades. The practice brought friction sometimes between slaves and owners when wages were in default. ”

“ As a result of the war between the states, chattel slavery had been abolished, but another form of industrial servitude, the wage system, had fallen heir to all of its worst features. The owners of the chattel slaves had the power to be oppressive and cruel, but personal interest demanded that the slave should always be provided with food, shelter and raiment, while the wage slave could be turned out to starve when from sickness, age of any other cause it was more profitable to dispense with his services. ”

“ The capitalist class is represented by the Republican, Democratic, Populist and Prohibition parties, all of which stand for private ownership of the means of production, and the triumph of any one of which will mean continued wage-slavery to the working class. ”

“ Nor in the hot tempers of our Southern partisans, Ruffin. Look in the mirror, my good friend. Chattel Slavery is doomed because of the superior efficiency of the wage system. Morals have nothing to do with it. The Captain of Industry abolished Chattel Slavery in the North, not the preacher or the agitator. He established the wage system in its place because it is a mightier weapon in his hand. It is subject to but one law. The iron law of supply and demand. Labor is a commodity to be bought and sold to the highest bidder. ”

“ Now, my own feelings on that subject are not quite so hopeless as here expressed, and it seems to me that you are not aware of the extent to which free labor may come into competition with slave labor. I know several instances, in the most slaveholding states, in which slave labor has been displaced, and free labor substituted in its stead. The weakness of slavery consists in the expense of the slaves, the great capital to be invested in their purchase before any work can be performed, and the constant danger of loss by death or escape. ”

“ Slave labor is cheaper than free labor, and it would go first into new regions; and wherever it goes it brings labor into dishonor, and therefore free white labor avoids competition with it. Sir, I might rely on climate if I had not been born in a laud where slavery existed — and this land was all of it north of the fortieth parallel of latitude ”

“ There is nothing strange in the fact that, in spite of the enormous increase in productive power which this century has witnessed, and which is still going on, the wages of labor in the lower and wider strata of industry should everywhere tend to the wages of slavery—just enough to keep the laborer in working condition. ”

“ What, though he is often compelled to toil in midday while the very earth is melting with fervent heat, and while the negro slave is resting from his work, still his labor is dignified and honorable, because it is free; and although commerce may languish, and manufactures go into decay, and the wages of labor fall, and the price of provisions increase, yet he can hush the mutterings of discontent and still the gnawings of hunger by the one proud, glorious thought — the dignity of labor. ”

“ By this plan, for a few petty indulgences, all of which were professedly granted in the time of slavery itself, the master could get the entire labor of the negro, and seven or eight pounds per annum besides! Some may be disposed to regard this as a mere joke, but we can assure them it was a serious proposal, and not more monstrous than many things that the planters are now attempting to put in practice. The idea of actually paying money wages was horrifying and intolerable to many of the planters; they seem to have exercised their utmost ingenuity to provide against so dreadful a result. ”

“ But are they not the happiest, most contented people in the world—at any rate, when they are in hospital? I declare that to me the more orderly, methodical, and perfect the arrangements for economising slave labour—regulating slaves—are, the more hateful and odious does slavery become. I would much rather be the animated human chattel of a Turk, Egyptian, Spaniard, or French creole, than the labouring beast of a Yankee or of a New England capitalist. ”

“ The slave states gain millions of dollars every year from the privations, the mean food, clothing, and shelter to which the slaves are subjected; and yet they grow rich less rapidly than states where millions of dollars are annually expended for the comforts and conveniences of the laborer. More is lost in production than is gained by privation.
A universal concomitant of slavery is, that it makes white labor disreputable. Being disreputable, it is shunned. ”

“ In sparsely settled regions, furthermore, slavery may afford the otherwise unobtainable advantages of labour combination, and it has undoubtedly hastened industrial development in some American areas. Yet, since all processes carried on by slave labour are conducted in the rudest manner, virtually any employer may pay a considerably greater value in wages to free labour than the maintenance of his slaves has cost him and be a gainer by the change. ”

“ During a residence of forty four years in the South, I never knew the time when white laborers could not be procured for that amount, and frequently for less. To this we may fairly add at least twenty-five per cent for loss of time by sickness, loss of slave property by death, physician's bills, &c., so that we may put down slave labor at fifteen dollars per month. Fifty per cent more, than white labor ordinarily costs in the slave states. ”

“ I mean the laws against combinations of workmen to raise wages; laws enacted and maintained for the declared purpose of keeping wages low, as the famous Statute of Labourers was passed by a legislature of employers, to prevent the labouring class, when its numbers had been thinned by a pestilence, from taking advantage of the diminished competition to obtain higher wages. Such laws exhibit the infernal spirit of the slave master, when to retain the working classes in avowed slavery has ceased to be practicable. ”

“ So the North could buy up all the land and goods which the South possesses, and then buy the whole population at $300 a head—black and white, bond and free.
The effect of Slavery on the industrial activity of the country, its business and wealth, is terrible. It degrades labour, it impoverishes the people. It concentrates their riches into the hands of a few, who, like Senator Hammond, of South Carolina, call American working men slaves, and like him add their sons and daughters to the assessable property of their estates.
Slavery is the great enemy of the labouring man who is not a slave. ”

“ Their wages are regulated according to their skill in extorting labor. The one who can make the most bags of cotton, with a given number of hands, is the one generally sought after; and there is a competition among them to see who shall make the largest crop, according to the hands he works. I ask, what must be the condition of the poor slaves, under the unlimited power of such men, in whom, by the long-continued practise of the most heart-rending cruelties, every feeling of humanity has been obliterated? But it may be asked, cannot the slaves have redress by appealing to their masters? ”

“ I desire to see every vestige of slavery completely rooted out. You must work for money; you must pay money to your employers for all you receive at their hands: a fair scale of wages must be established, and you must be entirely independent of any one. If you continue to receive those allowances which have been given during slavery and apprenticeship, it will go abroad that you are not able to take care of yourselves; that your employers are obliged to provide you with these allowances to keep you from starvation ”

“ Indeed a very brief glance will show that slavery is inconsistent with economy, whether domestic or political.
The slave is bought, sometimes at a very high price; in free labor there is no such investment of capital. ”

“ It was not altogether a mistaken judgment that led the constitutional fathers to consider the slave-trade as the backbone of slavery. An economic system based on slave labor will find, sooner or later, that the demand for the cheapest slave labor cannot long be withstood. Once degrade the laborer so that he cannot assert his own rights, and there is but one limit below which his price cannot be reduced. ”

“ A system of slave labour is, therefore, more productive, because it is more economical.
In all this argument, the anti-slavery men keep out of view a simple fact which is decisive of the absurdity of their position. ”

“ You charge upon abolitionists "the purpose to create a pinching competition between black labor and white labor;" and add, that "on the supposition of abolition the black class, migrating into the free states, would enter into competition with the white class, diminishing the wages of their labor." ”

“ Thus while the slaves had a guarantee of their sustenance, their proprietors, themselves the guarantors, had a guarantee of nothing. By virtue, or more properly by vice, of the heavy capitalization of the control of labor which was a cardinal feature of the ante-bellum régime, they were involved in excessive financial risks.
The slavery system has often been said to have put so great a stigma on manual labor as to have paralyzed the physical energies of the Southern white population. ”

“ What are the ideas of the people in this State as to the future organization of your labor system?
Answer. It is generally conceded that slavery is dead, but it is believed that the negro will not work unless compelled to. Money is no inducement that will incite him to work. He works for comfort, that is, he wants to gain something and then enjoy it immediately afterwards. ”

“ We regret to state, that a deep combination was formed by many of these middlemen to grind the peasantry to the dust, and to induce, if possible, the acceptance of remuneration which, by affording no inducement to the peasant cheerfully to labor, would have entailed pauperism on him and his family, and ruin on the absentee proprietor. It was to this circumstance, and not in the least to any unwillingness in the free negro to work, or to demand more for his labor than it was fairly worth, that for one or two weeks, in some places, the cultivation of the soil was not resumed. ”

“ The institution of slavery is as ruinous to the white man as to the black.... Three northern servants, engineered by a Yankee boarding-house keeper, would do 119 more work than a dozen of these slaves. The free blacks, who receive wages, do no more than the others. Such is the effect of slavery upon labor. ”

“ Against both of these the negro is almost proof. Now, while white labor is so high, it is evident that no one can hire a white laborer, except at a rate that would consume his profit. Not so with negro labor. That species of labor might be obtained for half the amount which you would have to pay for white labor. The result would be a profit alike to the hirer and seller of slave labor. There is no doubt, in my judgment, that almost any number of slaves might be hired out in California, were the whites willing to allow it, at from eight to ten hundred dollars a year. ”

“ But in whatever degree the question of immediate pecuniary profit may be unsettled, the evils of slavery in affecting the morals and happiness of society, in abridging public and private enterprize, in promoting idleness and extravagance, and in accelerating the impoverishment of land, are sufficiently capable of demonstration, and are indeed freely admitted by many slave holders. ”