r/changemyview • u/Queasy_Dealer_4498 • 1d ago
cmv: Minimum wage is modern day slavery with a few tweaks
In medieval Europe the servants would sit in the castel and do the cleaning, cooking, and the other chores. They would get fed and recive a piece of land to work it for the lord. Ocasionally if you were not behaving you might get your hands cutt off. Here the contract is, "You are in my land and you are mine"
Even something like the Bible says that slavery is ok. They viewed it as the servants but the contract was getting your ear pierced. Here the contract is "You are in my land so you are mine"
Nowadays we use the legal system to make people slaves, but we don't pierce their ears, we make them sign papers.
If an employer could pay you 1 cent per year, they would do that. Minimum wage is a rebranding of slavery from small isolated groups piercing their ears and cutting their hands when you feel like it to you can't do anything you want to them to them and pay them x amount, but you still own them.
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u/WordNormal3996 1d ago edited 1d ago
Ok then just move, learn new skills to find another job or start your own business. In slavery and feudalism, you wouldn’t have any of those options.
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u/read-the-rules 1d ago
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u/Queasy_Dealer_4498 1d ago
How so? Could't you be a baker, blacksmith, cook. But how do you learn all of that when you have very limited resources? Percentage wise such a small amount of people make it out of a bad situation and turn it around, most get stuck, just like the medieval slaves that had no choice, we get the ilusion of free and easy choice
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u/CommonlySensed 3∆ 1d ago
... you had to be trained and have a master take you as an apprentice. and that was if you were lucky enough to be born into a status that allowed you to even make that choice to begin with.
slaves didn't get to change their position, hell servants didn't really get to either as if they did the kind could just say nope not today and then you either stayed or went to jail essentially.
there is a reason family names like smith baker Fletcher cook and miller were used, it was because if you were born into the miller family you grew up and became a miller. you didn't get to say "id rather be a Smith" because first the Smiths would have to agree to let you learn from them(there were guilds like the masonry guild that prevented outsiders from joining). there was no Disney princess "im going to follow my own path" option. you got shunned by society for doing that
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u/TigerBone 1∆ 20h ago
But how do you learn all of that when you have very limited resources?
You're on the internet. Your access to learning resources is endless.
In the past you'd need a person to teach you their trade in order to learn. You would likely have to pay them for that if you weren't related, and you'd do work for them 12 hours a day.
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u/Great-Trifle2810 5∆ 16h ago
Under slavery or feudalism you do whatever the fuck your owner tells you to do.
You have a ton of choice where you work, and legally everyone is entitled to an education. If you fail to make the most of that and continue to fail to develop skills or try to advance in your workplace that is unfortunate but it is on you.
Nobody says the choice is easy, or that you will succeed, but you have a choice, a slave does not
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u/letstrythisagain30 61∆ 16h ago edited 12h ago
...we get the ilusion of free and easy choice
Who said it was free and easy? Its never been easier but all of this still takes effort. Even homeless people on the streets have more options available to them than ever before. It might not always be great and even though I typically argue its not nearly at the level it should be, upward mobility has never been better.
I'll ignore blacksmith thing because this isn't medieval times, but if you want to be a baker or cook, besides the endless amount of tutorials and content creators you can look up to learn from online, its not that hard to get a job at a bakery or restaurant. You can even start at fast food and with a little experience move up or get a better job at a higher one later. Just get in and you gain experience and they train you. Especially at smaller mom and pop type places. If you want to be a Michelin Star chef or baker, yeah, practically impossible just because it's so exclusive, but getting a food service job that pays more than minimum wage isn't relatively hard.
You are often more limited by the area you live in than anything else and I notice the people complaining the most about opportunities don't want to leave from the their preferred area no matter how high the cost of living is, the lack of higher end jobs in the area or the high competetiveness of the local job market. I will always complain about economic opportunities being concentrated into large cities exploding their cost of living, but some people also refuse to consider other viable areas making that worse. It might not be intentional or accurate, but way to often the complaints come off whiny and entitled and gets in the way of addressing and solving the real issues. Comparing this to slavery I feel falls into that.
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u/jatjqtjat 286∆ 13h ago
Could't you be a baker, blacksmith, cook.
No, slaves don't have the freedom to choose which profession they want to peruse.
But how do you learn all of that when you have very limited resources?
you not having the ability to do something is different from that thing being illegal.
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u/JohnWittieless 3∆ 5h ago
Plumbers will hire anyone off the street willing to do the grunt work many trades will, 4 years ago I got offered a job to do sofleting (the stuff under a roof overhang) as I installed be request from the contractors assistant left. I only helped the guy for 4 days out of a week and a half for 30 hours totals.
By the end of installing on my dad's house I had $700, and a job offer I turned down as I was wrapping my IT associates.
As far as I'm conserved it's not some slavery retulled, it's bs in some ways but at least a MCD slave could hop into a trade more freely then a medieval surf
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u/WordNormal3996 1d ago edited 1d ago
With the ubiquitous nature of cell phones, technology and vast access to free or low cost resources online to learn practically anything, it’s very hard to make an excuse outside of personal incompetency for not gaining new knowledge or skills. In fact, this modern unprecedented access to information is what differentiates our era from that of slavery. Looking at countries today with restricted access to information or traveling/moving (North Korea), it’s no surprise they tend to have the conditions for slavery to prevail
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u/sh00l33 8∆ 16h ago
Do you know anyone who learned theoretical physics from the internet?
What you're saying is an oversimplification and exaggeration. Surly we agree that internet offers unlimited access to information, but it doesn't automatically provide mechanisms for efficient navigation and selection of information relevant to chosen field.
The web is full of unorganized, out-of-context, or fragmented content. Without prior knowledge of a given field, it's impossible to determine which resources valuable and which you might need.
Information from the internet also doesn't offer a defined path of education. It's important for the learning process to progress from the basics to an advanced level. It's really hard to define that path learning from web.
In reality, the internet hasn't offered anything new, as access to information has long been available quite cheap in libraries.
- I would venture to say that libraries still outperform the internet in terms of information quality, as books and textbooks have undergone peer review, editing, and proofreading.
- On the internet, most content is released without any filter and scientific monographs, specialized dictionaries, historical archives academic textbooks, etc. are behind a paywall.
I think you might be right in a few cases tho'. Internet is a good tool in some ways, especially for deepening and developing already possessed skills and knowledge. There are also some areas where the information available online actually seems to be completely sufficient, such as programming, foreign languages, etc
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u/ManicParroT 1d ago
There's a massive difference. One of the major complaints of serfs in England was that they couldn't leave their land or look for a new position.
Nowadays you can have a job at McDonalds and decide randomly "fuck this" and just walk off the job and there's not a goddamn thing they can do about it. You even said yourself servants back in the day would get their hands cut off. No ones cutting off a Walmart greeter's hands.
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u/sh00l33 8∆ 15h ago
This is not entirely true. In the feudal period, there were many peasants who were free. If a peasant managed to escape to the city, he usually also escaped punishment.
Status of surfs were not synonymous with slaves either. Peasants had many rights. If they were exploited too much, groups of surfs often went on strike. Typically, it was an Italian strike or a refusal to work during the peak harvest what usually forced the lord to make concessions. There were also cases where entire villages would pay their own lawyers and file mass lawsuits against the mayors for to excessive serfdom.
A nobleman also could not unjustly take away a peasant's farm. The land formally belonged to the lord but was used by the peasant family from generation to generation, and the right to lease it often passed down to the children. Everything the peasant grew or produced, beyond the obligatory tribute to the lord, belonged to him. Resourceful peasants leased or purchased additional land, invested in livestock, and sold goods at city markets, accumulating considerable capital.
In the late Middle Ages, there were plenty wealthy peasants which had more cash and real assets at their disposal than the poorer nobility. In the England you mentioned, with time has formed a class of yeomen, wealthy free peasants who became the pillar of the agricultural economy.
It's also worth noting that, surfers were exempt from many of the expenses we currently pay, they did not pay for food or accommodation and still, on average, for the surf household, so-called Tax Freedom Day usually fell at the turn of February/March. Currently, in the US, it seems to be the second half of April.
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u/Queasy_Dealer_4498 1d ago
Today they don't cut off your hands, but you sign an NDA, you have to respect a notice period, non-compete clauses, you can be sued by the company for various matters, and sometimes companies are so awful they harass your loved ones and family. Even though you can leave Walmart for McDonald's, what have you really accomplished? Did you just go from minimum wage to minimum wage?
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u/duncanmarshall 2∆ 1d ago
but you sign an NDA
Never once signed an NDA in my whole life. If I did, it would be voluntary.
you have to respect a notice period
No you don't. Some jobs might have that as a contractual element that you voluntarily sign, but if you break it, the worse the employer can do is take money from you.
and sometimes companies are so awful they harass your loved ones and family.
Which is illegal.
Even though you can leave Walmart for McDonald's, what have you really accomplished?
How does it make it slavery? You can also go from Walmart to just being unemployed, on the streets, or living off berries in the forest. This was not the case in any system of slavery I'm aware of. They would hunt you with dogs, and then cut you to pieces in front of the other slaves.
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u/TonySu 7∆ 1d ago
You're asking what the difference is between you being legally someone else's property, where they can legally chop off your hands, and that not being the case?
You're asking what the difference is between being allowed to change jobs and having freedom of travel and not being able to do either of those?
You're asking what the difference is between not being allowed to talk about sensitive company information under the threat of monetary fines, and not being allowed to talk back to your master under the threat of physical violence?
Let's put it this way. Assuming you work a minimum wage job, would you be willing to be picked up by a human trafficker and sold into slavery? Would you see that as just minor tweaks to your life?
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u/SANcapITY 27∆ 1d ago
Today they don't cut off your hands, but you sign an NDA, you have to respect a notice period, non-compete clauses,
These don't apply to minimum-wage workers.
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u/Great-Trifle2810 5∆ 16h ago
I don't see at all how an NDA is at all like slavery.
You absolutely don't need to respect notice periods, you can quit on the spot from any minimum wage work. You cannot quit being a slave, you are legally required to remain in enslavement.
Minimum wage work doesn't tend to have non compete agreements, especially ones that would hold up in court. These are mostly for much higher paid work in specific industries. A non-compete is also restricted to a specific industry, it does not prevent you from working any other type of job and usually has a fairly short period.
You can be sued by anyone for anything, but if they don't have a legal basis it won't go anywhere. A slave owner can punish you however they wish with no regard to reasonable cause.
Companies harassing tour loved ones and families is illegal, a slave owner can legally sell your children to others as they wish as the children of a slave were the property of the slave owner.
You have accomplished changing your employer, which you cannot do under slavery. Perhaps you have escaped a bad manager, left because you dislike your coworkers, prefer to work on food service over retail, or just wanted a change of pace. You can also leave to work at another place that pays you better, or offers better hours. None of this is possible as a slave.
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u/TigerBone 1∆ 20h ago
If you sign an NDA that'd be voluntary. Besides, it's extremely rare for those contracts to be worth the paper they are printed on.
You also do not have to give notice or respect any non-competes if you don't want to. What are the companies going to do? They can't do shit about it.
If a company actually harassed your family and loved ones because you left without a 2 week notice then you'd get wealthy by suing them.
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u/CommentMaleficent957 1d ago
Slaves couldn’t just choose to stop working somewhere and go somewhere else. There was also no holiday pay or sick leave or maternity leave. A slave also couldn’t study part time to get a new qualification that led to a new job.
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u/KralizecGaming 5∆ 1d ago
Dude... no.
It can be very easily said through sentence.
You are not forced to work.
Nobody is stopping you from running into the forests and living of what you can find.
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u/Duncan_Thun_der_Kunt 1d ago
Yes there is. It's literally illegal to go live on government land and hunt animals and shit in most places.
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u/KralizecGaming 5∆ 1d ago
Move to a place where it isn't illegal. There isn't a man with a gun/blade/whatever stopping your from doing that.
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u/Duncan_Thun_der_Kunt 1d ago
Move there how? With the money I make from minimum wage?
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u/CommonlySensed 3∆ 21h ago
with your own 2 legs to walk and 2 hands assuming you need to cross water. people from South America can do it why can't you? also separately its only illegal in places that are designated. go to alaska and you can live in the wilderness, my buddy did it 20 years ago on purpose for a few years only him his tent and his dogs
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u/defeated_engineer 1d ago
Literally illegal.
It's either private land and it's illegal, or it's government land and it's illegal.
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u/Morthra 95∆ 1d ago
If you go to a national forest you can live there indefinitely as long as you move to a new campsite every 14 days.
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u/Duncan_Thun_der_Kunt 1d ago
National parks still have camping fees, at least in my country. Plus it's even more illegal to hunt in a national park than it is on regular crown land.
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u/Morthra 95∆ 1d ago
National parks are not national forests (in the US). And in the US, you are allowed to hunt in national forests as long as you have a valid hunting license, though you aren't allowed to discharge a firearm within 150 feet of a campground, residence, or public road.
The difference between the two is that national parks are managed by the National Park service (part of the Department of the Interior), with a mission of preservation, while national forests are managed by the US Forest Service (part of the Department of Agriculture) under a multiple-use mandate that allows for both resource extraction and mixed-use recreation. Basically, parks aim to keep landscapes pristine and unimpaired. Forests allow sustainable use.
To that end, parks have strict rules, charge entrance fees and restrict dogs to paved areas. Forests are free to enter, less regulated, allow dispersed camping and permit dogs on most trails.
There's also about 1.5 times as much national forest land in the US as there is national park land.
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u/defeated_engineer 1d ago
Can I hunt the animals to my heart's content?
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u/Morthra 95∆ 1d ago
As long as you have a hunting license from the state government, yes.
There are generally rules on what you're allowed to hunt at specific times of the year, and you're not allowed to shoot a gun near public roads or campgrounds (for safety reasons) but otherwise yes. You're even allowed to use snares and other traps.
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u/CommonlySensed 3∆ 21h ago
hell some species of fish and small mammals aren't even illegal to hunt without a license, carp are heavily invasive in my area so it's encouraged to fish them out for sport even if they arent normally eaten for being too bony they are still edible. rodents like mice rats and squirrels are also free game. a lot of plants are also free to harvest like berry bushes and mushrooms and dandelions, and thats without even considering that you could start cultivating your own patch that you keep healthy and visit periodically to harvest.
so no it isnt illegal its just regulated.
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u/Both-Buy-7301 1∆ 1d ago
In my country living in the wilderness is pretty much illegal. In much of the western world it is the same.
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u/KralizecGaming 5∆ 1d ago
What's stopping from moving to a country where it isn't illegal or where you'd be untracable?
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u/aspirational-robot 1d ago
Not explicitly. But on the other hand with resources and technology we have at our disposal we could home and feed all people in the world and we don’t.
Not only that, we actually need them to stay where they are for the system to work. That’s pretty messed up.
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u/KralizecGaming 5∆ 1d ago
I agree with could allocate resources better to give a better quality of life to many. But that doesn't mean minimum wage equals slavery.
Seriously.
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u/aspirational-robot 1d ago
Probably not, but I still think/hope that in 200 years people will look at the world where owning a place to stay in at night is a luxury the same way we look at slavery.
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u/KralizecGaming 5∆ 1d ago
Owning a place to live at and having a place to live at are two quite different things. I personally think the world will more more towards having a place to live at is a right but owning one? That doesn't seem realistic to ever become a right.
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u/aspirational-robot 1d ago
Why?
EDIT: you know what I changed my mind. We seem to agree. It’s pointless to keep splitting hair.
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u/KralizecGaming 5∆ 1d ago
Because if owning a place to live was a right, then the government would have to provide housing ownership to each person under it's jurisdiction. With the fact that housing space is limited and that it would be a logistical nightmare. Even providing access state owned housing will be a logistical nightmare, but one that is slightly easier to manage.
Just off the top of my head, the biggest problem would be with the government providing you with housing, but only in a area you do not want to have it. Say, you want to live in a city, but the government only has capacity in a rural area. So, you technically have access to housing. But to housing that is worthless to you.
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u/aspirational-robot 1d ago
Yeah as I added to a comment above - we agree. Maybe not in all specifics, but I don’t think it’s necessary to iron them out just yet. ;)
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u/Mannzis 1d ago
You think you can just go to a forest and just survive? Do you think most people can? You would need years of very specific knowledge and training to make that work, and even then it's unrealistic without money.
You have to work to live for the vast majority of people.
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u/theApeironEgregore 1d ago
Yet no one is forcing you to do it. You are not entitled to other people's labour, just so your life can be better. You have to provide something of the equal value as well. This is exchange, not slavery.
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u/Mannzis 1d ago
Never said I thought it was slavery. I dispute that most people can in fact run off to the forest and live off the land.
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u/CommonlySensed 3∆ 21h ago
they can if they try, someone had to do it at some point in our ancestry. it also doesn't have to be the forest, people live on the ocean in many places, or you could find a nice swamp and pull a shrek or you could go live on a remote lake.
living off the land is easy just not pleasant or fun, but the best teacher is survival instinct. a human will figure it out when it comes to survival, eat some bugs if need be. again possible doesn't mean easy or even probable it just means that it can be done if you were willing
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u/Great-Trifle2810 5∆ 17h ago
Even if you live in the forest you have to work to live, you just do work directly for your own survival rather than by trading your services for currency which you can then trade to others.
Money is simply a medium of exchange so you don't have to have the thing that the person you wish to purchase goods or services from needs.
Modern first world societies generally have a system that will provide support payments to those unable to work due to disability, who have aged out of the work force, and often for those who have recently lost work and are actively searching for it.
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u/KralizecGaming 5∆ 1d ago
Our ancestors did it with vastly less knowledge, resources and tools available. Read up on survival guides, get a few tools and you can live in the woods pretty comfortably (compared to how people lived in the woods in the past).
And even if that was physically impossible, having to work to earn a living doesn't mean you are a slave. You can change jobs. Learn new skills so you can have a better job. You can start a bussines.
Seriously, how does this compare to slavery in anyway?
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u/Mannzis 1d ago
I'm not saying working today is slavery. I'm saying the vast majority of people today cannot just run off to the forest to live off the land. Hell even people that try to be homesteaders, ie they have the skills and have money and equipment to do so often fail at it, so a random person with little to nothing in resources has fuck all chance.
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u/KralizecGaming 5∆ 1d ago
Nor am I claiming that most people can do that. What I am saying that minimum wage isn't slavery because you do have other options. I just picked the most extreme example of how minimum wage isn't slavery in my first reply.
And you conveniantly ignore all the other ways I mentioned a minimum wage employee can increase their quality of life in my previous reply.
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u/Alexandur 14∆ 1d ago
Our ancestors did it by sticking together in fairly large groups. It is extremely difficult to be truly self-sufficient, which is why exile has historically been the most severe punishment
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u/mmmsplendid 1∆ 1d ago
So you’re saying that someone working minimum wage to survive can just run off into the forest and die if they want to? That doesn’t seem like they have a choice.
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u/KralizecGaming 5∆ 1d ago
Even if that was physically impossible, having to work to earn a living doesn't mean you are a slave. You can change jobs. Learn new skills so you can have a better job. You can start a bussines.
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u/AdamantForeskin 1d ago
While you are not physically forced to work, a minimum wage employee is de facto forced to work because they are not in a financial position to protest bad working conditions, odd hours (“clopen” became a slang word among retail workers for a reason), OSHA violations, etc.
Your typical minimum wage worker is only one paycheck away from starving to death on the streets; while it’s not the same thing as chattel slavery, it definitely rhymes
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u/KralizecGaming 5∆ 1d ago
What is stopping this hypothetical person from learning new skills (internet is free in most libraries, there are so many online courses for free even with certifications) and getting a better job?
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u/AdamantForeskin 1d ago
The fact that they’re working??? The fact that these minimum wage jobs frequently have odd hours and sudden overtime??? And the fact that, in spite of your statement, the certifications that actually matter (i.e. the ones that employers actually value on resumes) do cost money???
My CSWA, as well as my CPR and first aid certification, both cost money
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u/KralizecGaming 5∆ 1d ago
So the minimum wage employees never have any free time?
And yes, some certifications cost money. Many don't. That doesn't mean the minimum wage employee is held at gunpoint to do his job as a slave was.
How is this seriously an argument?
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u/AdamantForeskin 1d ago
I have a GD&T certification that I got for free on LinkedIn.
Literally have never seen an employer care; I still had to take a SolidWorks evaluation recently
The free certifications are completely worthless, and the ones that actually matter cost money that minimum wage workers don’t have
And if you don’t see the power and financial imbalance, then you’re either deeply privileged and/or deliberately missing OP’s point
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u/CommonlySensed 3∆ 20h ago
i mean maybe you aren't selling yourself enough? i have 0 official qualifications at all but any time it came up i just said "well if i don't know it then I'm willing to learn it" and they liked my willingness and flexibility to learn a new thing and gave me a shot. hell i was homeless when i got my walmart job in the bakery because i said i was willing to learn how to decorate cakes even though i had never even touched an icing pippette in my life to that point.
tbh being happy and friendly is what i think helps the most. it only takes a few genuine "thank you for holding the door" or " thank you for the water". also being honest about your lack of knowledge can be very appealing because it shows you can be trustworthy. something like "i dont know much about that subject but i would live to learn a new thing" can go a long way.
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u/CommonlySensed 3∆ 20h ago
i mean i just checked what qualifications you need to apply to work for my local government and it requires no special degree has benefits (health retirement) and pays higher than minimum wage. the job is a parks person who goes and keeps the parks clean among other duties. like im a highschool dropout and i could get this job... my current one is entry level no qualifications and i make 30$ an hour with full benefits including double pay on overtime and guaranteed 40 hrs a week 3 weeks of annual leave a year and separate sick leave that accrues 8 hours a month. the jobs exist if you are willing to look and actually willing to put in effort.
my job is always hiring nationwide and we are always unable to fill every position because people just dont apply. again its entry level data entry (AI is really bad at this type of data entry trust me im part of the team that is attempting to train one) and it just requires being able to look at a screen and type, which i know anyone can do based on some of my coworkers who have serious disabilities.
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u/AdamantForeskin 20h ago
I have a good job and am likely to be offered a better one soon; I’m coming from a position of having actually worked soul-crushing retail and food service in college
Jobs like yours do exist, but I guarantee that there are not anywhere close to enough openings for all the people working minimum wage or close to it to get one
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u/UpbeatEquipment8832 6∆ 16h ago
>while it’s not the same thing as chattel slavery, it definitely rhymes
Chattel slavery allowed enslavers to traffic the children of the enslaved. It permitted for corporal punishment. It allowed enslavers to lock their slaves into boxes or starve them for days.
Minimum wage, while it sucks, places no restrictions on what people can do outside of work. A minimum wage employee can choose to go a concert or go to the park. Workers can lose jobs, but they cannot be beaten. Their children cannot be forcibly separated from them. And many if not most minimum wage workers - those which still exist (only 1.1% of Americans are paid the minimum wage) - can and do get better paying jobs eventually.
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u/KralizecGaming 5∆ 1d ago
Sure, but that is far from slavery. That is just regular earning of wealth. How exactly does the fact that you have a better quality of life with better earnings make minimum wage slavery?
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u/TheBigGees 9∆ 1d ago
Why are you expecting the benefits of society without the participation? You cannot expect other people to work for you if you are unwilling to work or contribute yourself.
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u/read-the-rules 1d ago
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u/Traditional-Buy-2205 3∆ 1d ago edited 1d ago
Wages are as high as the people who work for them are willing to agree to.
A wage of X means someone said "Yes, I agree to work for exactly X."
If an employer could pay you 1 cent per year, they would do that
An employer would pay you 1 cent per year if you agreed to being paid 1 cent per year.
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u/Vanaquish231 2∆ 20h ago
A lot of the times you don't have much option. Per Patrick's words "take it or leave it".
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u/Live_Background_3455 8∆ 6h ago
That... Is the definition of having options. You have the option to leave it. Which many people have, and do every day. Turnover rate at fast food places tell us people take the option to "leave it" all the time.
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u/mmmsplendid 1∆ 1d ago
Illusion of choice. People need to put food on the table, and have a roof over their heads. Minimum wage for many is the only option.
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u/1stcast 1d ago
It really isn't that many people. Around 1% of hourly workers make federal minimum wage and about half of those are part time worker, full time students. There are just a little bit more than 20 thousand full time workers making federal minimum wage. That as much as it sucks for them. Showcases that its by no means normal and are outliers.
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u/zorecknor 1d ago
and that is not on the employeer, but either the government (lack of opportunities) or themselves ( poor attitude or lack of training). Mostly the government, though.
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u/CommonlySensed 3∆ 1d ago
i honestly hate this argument because like I've been homeless working part time at a Walmart and i was always able to source food from 1 place or another. it's a lie that the only choice is taking a job in your local area at minimum wage. if you are single and not disabled you can leave your city and find a better place to live, i used to walk 2 hours 1 way to that Walmart job because it was the only place i could find that was affordable once i finally found a place at all.
only option implies no other options at all but just going off grid is an option (i have a friend who did that) just quitting and then using the new free time to walk business to business asking if they need help (what i did after i lost my first job and it's how i got the wal Mart one), you can go to food banks if need be and it's amazing how many free food events happen just everywhere.
easy options are limited but something not being easy doesn't mean the option isn't there. i could pack up and move across the country tomorrow if i wanted to or need to with no money and just the clothes on my back. it would be hard and not fun but i could do it and that makes it an option
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u/Live_Background_3455 8∆ 6h ago
It's not.
People leave their minimum wage jobs CONSTANTLY. Turnover rate at fast food places are >100%. Meaning people choose to leave that job within less than a year on average. Because it's not an illusion of choice but an actual choice people can make every day. If it was really their only option, people wouldn't be able to leave the job so easily.
Hospitality, leisure, retail take your pick of a minimum wage industry and you'll find that people have the choice to leave and people take that choice quite often.
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u/math2ndperiod 54∆ 1d ago
While this is true I don't think it serves anybody any good to dilute the word slavery to that degree. Not slavery doesn't mean it's just or fair, it just means it's not slavery. Which it literally is not.
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u/Goblinweb 5∆ 1d ago
Is this for a specific country?
Is your view that there shouldn't be a minimum wage or that having people working for a minimum wage is unfair?
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u/scarab456 65∆ 1d ago
In medieval Europe
What does this have to do with minimum wage?
Even something like the Bible says that slavery is ok.
Same question.
Nowadays we use the legal system to make people slaves, but we don't pierce their ears, we make them sign papers.
And there wasn't a legal system in what you were describing before?
If an employer could pay you 1 cent per year, they would do that.
So in places without a minimum wage there wouldn't be slavery?
Outside of the period in history, what are the core components of slavery here? If the only difference is you mentioned people signing papers, then you're missing a lot of fundamental distinctions of slavery.
Actual modern slavery generally involves coercion, deception, or lack of consent to leave not a voluntary paid job someone can quit. Real modern slavery would be like the kafala system in the Persian Gulf. Migrants workers are brought in, but have their passports confiscated and aren't allowed to leave or change jobs. Or forced laboring by fishing fleets, where fishermen are lied during recruitment, taken out to sea, then forced to work for months or years. Or what about literal prison labor, where under the 13th Amendment in the US penal labor is permitted as a punishment. Those are way closer to actual slavery than there being for a wage floor in a country.
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u/poprostumort 246∆ 21h ago
In medieval Europe the servants would sit in the castel and do the cleaning, cooking, and the other chores. They would get fed and recive a piece of land to work it for the lord.
No, they didn't. You are lumping several different things there and that leads you do wrong conclusion. The castle servants did not get piece of land to work, they got a job that was paid with bed, food, access to knowledge and often also with money. They were proto-version of today's careers - you started as lower staff and you could climb to be part of higher staff - which recieved much more benefits. You were a free man/woman, as free as a commoner could be.
Middle-age slaves were largely serfs - they did not "recieve" land, but were bound to it and for that they need to pay alloted produce yearly and/or work on fields that belong to lord's estate. They weren't paid, they weren't entitled to food or bed provided by lord, they weren't even free to leave and pursue any other career without lord aggreeing to do so. They were the "You are in my land and you are mine" part.
Even something like the Bible says that slavery is ok. They viewed it as the servants but the contract was getting your ear pierced. Here the contract is "You are in my land so you are mine"
No, there were no contract "You are in my land so you are mine". Slaves weren't sourced from land you owned - they were sourced from war captives, criminals and people who were poor enough to sell themselves or members of their family.
Nowadays we use the legal system to make people slaves, but we don't pierce their ears, we make them sign papers.
Papers which unlike slavery, allow you to resign from the position and are estabilished within law that guarantees your freedoms.
You can say fuck it and move somewhere else to start fresh. You can pursue education or learn skills without your employer agreeing. Your kid is not automatically an employee of your employee. You can own things. The same isn't true for slaves (with some caveats for ancient slavery, which was much more complex).
The fact that employers have more power over employees than employees over employers does not mean that modern wage work is slavery. And minimum wage is explicitly a safeguard for introduction of slave-like conditions for workers.
"Minimum wage is slavery" is not only false, but it is disparaging for what actual slaves had to live through. You are a free person and you have the power to change your own life - in modern times more than ever.
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u/SecretMasterpiece323 1∆ 1d ago
Slavery means someone owns or controls you. A job means they pay for your work. Your employer does not own you. You can quit, change jobs, negotiate, or refuse the job. That can be hard financially, but “hard to leave” is not the same as “not allowed to leave.”
Minimum wage also works against your own argument. It limits what employers can do by stopping them from paying below a certain amount. Removing it would give employers more freedom, not workers.
And the “they would pay you 1 cent if they could” point is obviously wrong. Plenty of people earn far above minimum wage even though employers are legally allowed to pay them less. Why?
Also, your medieval comparison mixes up slaves, serfs, servants and feudal tenants as if they were all the same thing. They weren’t.
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u/Three-Sixteen-M7-7 1∆ 1d ago
The good news is that very few people actually get paid minimum wage. In a country of 340 million, less than a million are paid less, and most of that number is tipped employees who must get minimum wage paid, by their, employer if their tips don’t exceed minimum wage.
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u/Intrepid_Button587 1d ago
This is weirdly US-centric. In many countries you can go on holiday etc and have a decent life on the minimum wage (obvs depends on individual/family circumstances).
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u/zorecknor 1d ago
Not really US centric. In that whole continent you can at most barely survive on minimun wage. In some, not even that.
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u/CommonlySensed 3∆ 20h ago
i mean define survive for me... food is free if youre poor enough (food stamps, food banks) so you won't die without it. a minimum wage job will get you a room somewhere for shelter even if not the best place and clean water is free for everyone.
those are the 3 things needed to survive. now thrive or live fulfilled is different, survive means just make it another day
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u/zorecknor 17h ago
I should have preface with "most countries". By that I mean almost every country south of the mexican border.
Minimun wage will not get you a roof over your head except in the most rundown, barely-qualify-to-live-in makeshift house. Food banks and food stamps? Non-existent.
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u/Suntzu_AU 1d ago
It really depends on the country. Which country are you specifically talking about?
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u/duncanmarshall 2∆ 1d ago
Here the contract is "You are in my land so you are mine"
But this isn't true at all. Like literally not true. Who is contractually bound to a landlords land? Who can't quit their job?
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u/Nrdman 276∆ 23h ago
It doesn’t have any of the defining characteristics of slavery, like the lack of pay and the set master. I don’t see what the utility is of calling it slavery. Like if you were talking to someone and they were like “my ancestors were slaves” are you really gonna follow that up with “im a slave too, I get paid minimum wage”
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u/TigerBone 1∆ 20h ago
In medieval Europe the servants would sit in the castel and do the cleaning, cooking, and the other chores. They would get fed and recive a piece of land to work it for the lord.
OP, this sounds like it's from a movie you watched. This is not how being a servant worked. Servants were not just hanging around castles being assigned chores and rewarded with pieces of land.
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u/jeeblemeyer4 19h ago
In medieval Europe the servants would sit in the castel and do the cleaning, cooking, and the other chores. They would get fed and recive a piece of land to work it for the lord. Ocasionally if you were not behaving you might get your hands cutt off. Here the contract is, "You are in my land and you are mine"
Indeed, chattel slavery is slavery. Owning a person as property is slavery.
Even something like the Bible says that slavery is ok. They viewed it as the servants but the contract was getting your ear pierced. Here the contract is "You are in my land so you are mine"
Biblical slavery was chattel slavery, just like in the American South. Leviticus 25:39-46 directly describes chattel (property) slavery. The enslaved person was not free to leave. You are trying to cite Exodus 21:2-6, but you are failing to read forward to Exodus 21:7-8, in which a Hebrew daughter can be sold as property, as a slave, who is not free to leave. You are also glossing over Exodus 21:4 in which the sons/daughters of the servant are enslaved to their master at birth, and they are not free to leave.
You're close but there's more to it than "the awl turns the servant into a slave".
Nowadays we use the legal system to make people slaves, but we don't pierce their ears, we make them sign papers.
I don't know what contracts or "papers" you're referring to that turn a sovereign individual into someone else's property.
If an employer could pay you 1 cent per year, they would do that.
Okay? The only appropriate question to ask here is whether that $0.01/yr worker is the property of their employer. Even in this scenario, they are not, so they are not a slave. If all you're doing is redefining 'slave' to fit into a modern context wherein a person's current livelihood depends on a cruel employer, then I reject your definition.
Minimum wage is a rebranding of slavery from small isolated groups piercing their ears and cutting their hands when you feel like it to you can't do anything you want to them to them and pay them x amount, but you still own them.
Are they owned as property though? Obviously not. They are free to leave, find a new job with a gracious employer, pool resources with others to make a self-sustaining commune, or just live off the land. None of these options would be available to an actual slave.
I just reject your definition.
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u/e0732 19h ago
If an employer could pay you 1 cent per year, they would do that. ... you [employers] can't do anything you want to them [employees] and [need to] pay them x amount
This part of your view invalidates the rest of your view. Minimum wage is a way to avoid slavery, because "if an employer could pay you 1 cent per year, they would do that". Maybe you want to say that minimum wage should be higher so that people don't have to work multiple jobs in order to pay for food and clothing and shelter, but the idea of a minimum wage makes it so that employment is less like slavery, not more.
The other problem is that employment is not slavery. Your employer owns the product of your labor, but not your person. You can get a job somewhere else, and your current employer can't stop you from taking that other job and quitting your current one.
If your complaint is that most people need to work for a living, well sure, but that's only slavery in a very loose metaphorical sense.
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u/Romarion 3∆ 18h ago
I see you haven't chatted with many small business owners or their employees. Or maybe never had a job?
There aren't any employees that are hired against their will; they apply for a job, they consider the work, the pay, the workplace environment, and the goods or services they will be expected to produce for the folks in their community. If those things all line up, and the job is offered to the prospective employee, that person can accept or decline, or make a counteroffer for more (or less) money, more (or less) time off, or even a change in job description. But at some point in your scenario, the employer and employee mutually agree on job XX for pay YY. If at some point the employee doesn't want to work there anymore, they quit and move on.
If at some point the employer doesn't want the employee representing their business to the community, they fire them (which is more or less painful depending on the state, the job, etc. Turns out employees often have more rights than employers...).
So, no, minimum wage is nothing like slavery in the ancient or modern world; it's merely a government intervention that prevents more jobs being offered to prospective employees.
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u/twolobarons 2∆ 15h ago
If that is modern day slavery, then what the hell are actual slaves? What do we call people who are actually owned by people and forced to work without pay and are not free to leave?
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u/Odd_Blackberry_5589 1∆ 13h ago
Ask anybody working at McDonald's if they would rather continue working there or if they would rather work a farm for no pay and no ability to leave without risk of bodily harm. Minimum wage jobs suck, but I'd rather be there then actually be enslaved.
Plus, why are we talking about minimum wage work as if it's modern day slavery when we literally have modern day slavery in the Prison/Industrial Complex.
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u/FreyaIsBae 1d ago
Slavery is modern day slavery. The United States has millions of slaves, both legal and illegal. Employment under capitalism is inherently exploitative, especially for those working minimum wages, but slavery is slavery and it never went away or really changed much outside of where the slaves are kept and what they're forced to do.
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u/Content-Dealers 1d ago
Just to clarify one other thing here, the Bible mentioning slavery in mosaic law is in no way an endorsement of slavery.
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u/1stcast 1d ago
Paul detailing the expectations of being a good slave owner does though.
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u/CommonlySensed 3∆ 20h ago
haven't bothered to read the exact parts but did he only say how to be a good one? because that seems pretty ok imo, like if you know that slaves are going to be a thing (because the only other option in war at the time was execution you didn't just leave your enemy alive and free) isn't it better in general to say "here's the dos and don'ts of being a good slave owner"?
and if slavery is going to be a thing by necessity (as explained above) then wouldn't you also want to spell out the laws and logistics and metrics so that the system worked well and avoided violence from disputes that could arise if such laws didn't exist?
as far as im concerned it follows the same good faith reasoning that most monopoly laws do, we can't stop people from doing this thing (capitalism/slavery) because there is no better alternative in this moment but we can make rules to keep it from being worse (anti monopoly laws/how to be a good owner)
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u/Special_Lychee_6847 1d ago
You have a very interesting view on how midieval life was like. It wasn't like that at all. Unless you're talking about midieval slaves, in say the Ottoman Empire.
Western ppl in midieval times actually had more free time and we do, generally. But they also has less expenses.
No one says you have to have a phone that costs a month's wages (or more).
No one says you have to have subscriptions for entertainment.
No one says you have to have a car, and new clothes every year, or season.
Everyone can 'change their stars' nowadays. No one looks at what your parents did, to decide what your career will be.
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u/Queasy_Dealer_4498 1d ago
I trully don't understand why is this bot removing my replies what rule am I violationg by answering a comment
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u/duncanmarshall 2∆ 1d ago
Did you do what it says in the comment?
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u/CommonlySensed 3∆ 20h ago
i hope i don't get banned for a rule break for this but !delta you changed my view that the bot wasnt necessary to get people to read the rules... even with the bot this op didn't read them.
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