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this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2024
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Is working 2 full time jobs just to be able to afford rent and utilities considered slavery?
I'm going to be real - I completely empathize with your sentiment, but I feel like comparing two jobs to actual slavery is off-base.
Is it fucked that you need to do that to survive? Absolutely, it's completely horrible. The current capitalist hell scape we live in is just miserable, and there's sadly no end in sight. It really seems like the 1% are trying their best to screw over the other classes. They even lie about the statistics of the situation to try to make it sound better!
However, even with all of that...
It's no comparison to slavery as we know it. That's more akin to what our (read: United States) prisons do - pay people almost nothing (if anything at all) to do brutal work for hours and hours.
Traditionally, even the current slavery-esque system that the prisons have is way better than any slavery beforehand - no one gave a shit if your foot was infected, if you were a slave, you had to work or you were beaten / killed in many cases. Prison also pays you most of the time (albeit for criminally small amounts of money).
There was no end in sight, no opportunity to apply for other jobs, you couldn't say "fuck it, rent be damned" and quit and you damn-sure didn't have luxuries such as a fridge or plumbing.
There are lots of places still like this today - North Korea, China (Xinjiang), dotted places across South America and Africa (whom I unfortunately cannot remember at this time), Saudi Arabia and the UAE come to mind. In North Korea, as well, you almost never make it out of their system and a lot of the time your family is taken in with you for your crimes. There are countless atrocities happening with the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China, and there are undoubtedly prison camps in Russia holding Ukrainian POWs.
The idea of working two full-time jobs is not fun, but it's not exactly on the same level as slave labor. At least you can quit a job and maybe end up homeless, where you likely have a shelter of some kind and / or can seek assistance of some variety. It's not ideal, don't get me wrong, but it's better than outright being maimed and killed.
If you "quit" a job in a slave camp in pretty much any of the places I listed above, you'll be tortured for days on end and left to die a horrific death (if you aren't just outright shot). No one will come to help, and no one will care. It's just not the same.
Perhaps if we consider slavery as more of a spectrum, like we do other kinds of abuse, then economic coercion still fits the definition.
One person being denied medical care, working inhumane lengths of time in hard labor for almost no money, being unable to access different forms of work and being beaten is clearly slavery, as you've identified. But that doesn't mean the person who is experiencing all of that, but only without being beaten, is not experiencing slavery. It just makes it a (possibly) less severe form of slavery.
If the key difference between a fast food worker living in rural wherever who can't access healthcare, doesn't have a choice to move or change jobs etc. and a slave is immediate physical violence... perhaps we need to revisit the definition of "slavery" or of "employment" or both. Dying a slow death from homelessness and poverty due to systemic inequity isn't actually a hugely better deal than a fast death at the hands of one person. In some cases it may even be worse because the suffering lasts much longer.
You assume that people who are unemployed can access help and resources, I'm not sure that the reality on that widely reflects people's experiences, depending on their location.
Yep. I feel like people comparing their jobs (that pay them and that they can leave) to slavery really downplays the severity of actual slavery.
See what I mean?
Read below.
In response to BiggestBulb, you need to learn about the prison pipeline and know just because the severity could be worse the implication is still the same. Choosing to be unemployed and homeless is a choice that is not a choice.
If you want to learn about the prison pipeline, quit your job tomorrow and take a bus as far away as you can afford. My past self did. You will learn how fast the system can sweep you up and you will learn your life now is exactly where society wants you to be.
I've already been homeless before lol, it wasn't fun. I'm saying it's just not the same extreme
You don't sound like someone who has been homeless.
No, you are not a slave. 🙄
Yes it is because as soon as you stop working you will most likely die an unpleasant death from povery, violence, preventable disease linked to malnutrition etc.. If you don't have a choice, then it's slavery.
Let's see. What are the alternatives?
...not having to work 2 full time jobs just to be able to afford rent and utilities? 🤨
I mean, are you free to live a happy healthy life if you chose to leave your current job(s)? Is there a reasonably achievable and accessible pathway to a higher salary job?
(Disclaimer: I'm mostly going to be talking about the U.S. here.)
I'm not even quite sure what you're getting at here but a higher minimum wage is the obvious answer.
I also think you're taking too narrow a view by thinking just about "jobs." Consider the option of a UBI for instance.
There's also "abolish the profit motive" and "to each according to need," of course. But you did say "reasonably achievable and accessible", which probably excludes this option for the moment.
But I still don't feel like I'm answering quite the question you're asking. Seems like your questions are aimed more at the reader personally rather than at "society". So just answering literally what you asked, no I'm not free to live a happy healthy life if I choose to leave my current job (unless I were to get another job, of course.)
And I personally have a high-paying job and have the luxury of being picky about my working conditions beyond just whether I get enough money out of it to be able to eat and keep a roof over my head, so I'm not personally in need of a higher paying job. But that's not the norm (in the U.S.) Not everyone can just get a higher-paying job. (In fact, it's more the exception than the rule, I'd say.) And I'm very much in support of measures to improve conditions for most people.
Maybe what you're getting at is that "if you can switch jobs, then it's not slavery." In which case we're having a pointless argument of definition as to what qualifies as "slavery" and what doesn't. What matters to me is that the current state of the U.S. is unacceptable. Using the term "slavery" to refer to it makes an impact rhetorically. Emma Goldman is known for having used the term "wage slave" in the 1920s.
(It honsestly gives me pause considering what victims of chattel slavery would think of me using the term "slavery" to refer to my high-paying desk job. I tend to use the term "gilded cage" instead.)
Whether having to work two jobs to afford food and rent qualifies as "slavery" or not, employment is not (often) voluntary, it enriches someone else much more than it enriches the employee, and it maintains societal inequality. It fulfills many of the same purposes that chattel slavery did/does for the powerful.
Sorry if you misunderstand. I'm not arguing the con I am only hoping to further the discussion because it is easy for people to brush off the idea of wage slavery and just say, "well you can quit your job so you're not a slave" or "you can find a better one."
I didn't mean to challenge you but I appreciate your response.
Wage slavery exists because of the illusion of freedom. Its like you're driving on an endless bridge with no gaurd rails. When you ask to stop because you're dozing off you're told you are free to drive off the edge anytime you want.