Wage Labor

Abstract

AbstractWage labor is the process by which workers sell their labor power to capitalists, that is, their employers, in exchange for wages, which they use to purchase the necessaries of life in the market. Wage labor becomes the predominant form of labor with the rise of capitalism, markets, commodity production, and nation‐states in the modern era. Over the capitalist epoch, wage labor is employed in a production process that transitions from small‐scale manufacturing – using hand tools in factories – to large‐scale machine‐based industry, to electronic‐based automated production and new aspects of capitalist globalization. The unique quality of labor power is that it is the only commodity that produces new value; and, as wage labor within capitalism, this means producing surplus value and thus profit for capital. This relationship between capital and labor is fraught with contradictions (Marx 1967; Marx 1986). Under the current conditions of twenty‐first century globalization, these contradictions are intensifying and giving rise to deepening systemic crises and various forms of struggle (Davis et al. 1997; Amin 2003; Robinson 2004; Katz‐Fishman et al. 2005; Berberoglu 2009).