Labour as Commodity

Abstract

He examines that distinguishing feature of the organization of economic life in the modern era, that one that sets it apart from both the feudal economy and the ancient, the fact that in it one person works for another in return for a wage. This relation dominates and characterizes economic life in the developed world. And the modern era has moved more or less steadily towards the purification of this relation, so that the wage and the obligation to work are the only things connecting the employer and the worker. The company house, the company store, the compulsory temperance or attendance at church, the allowance of coal, and other non-cash and semi-feudal connections and obligations standing between employer and worker have slowly been eliminated, leaving the wage on the one hand and the obligation to work on the other as the only link between the worker and the employing person or company. At managerial level, there may still be other non-cash connections that are designed to elicit loyalties and performances that are not contractually specifiable, the company car, the country club subscription, stock options and other non-taxable 'perks', but for the worker on a weekly wage, that wage and his obligation to work for it are the only connection. And it is one that can be broken with little or no notice on either side.