Are all employees wage slaves?

[Stovo]

Recently I've been thinking about the direction I want my life to take. I live in the UK, I am 29, and I work a job on an average British wage.

The money side is fine. I'd like to earn perhaps double the average wage, around £70,000 or $100,000, but any more than this and I don't think it would bring any further happiness or fulfillment. I'm a bit of a minimalist and I rarely manage to spend my entire monthly wage even now. 

The real question is about life purpose. My passion is in economics and finance, but most of this industry is at a stage orange level. My idea is to create an online learning platform for conscious capitalism appealing to stage green types. 

However, I also want to gain some employee skills too, as a backup if the business fails. For example, if I trained as a financial analyst and I was happy in that job, would I still be a wage slave? Is there any scope at all to living a fulfilling life and being an employee? Should I put all my energy into the business idea, even with the risks of failure? 

[mandyjw]

No one is a wage slave, it's a state of mind. Some people are such slaves to their business, they'd find much more freedom being employed. But if you love what you do working for yourself, it doesn't matter what hours you work. Get in touch with passion, inspiration, intuition, it's all about getting the inner state right, it's not about being judged as being "free" from someone else, on the outside. THAT is the real slavery. 

[Stovo]

@mandyjw That's a great perspective, thank you. 

Yes, there are many business owners that end up working for under minimum wage. They become a slave to their business, without even having employee rights. 

[BlackMaze]

3 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

No one is a wage slave, it's a state of mind. 

Haha ok. There IS wage slavery. I do agree however that mindset and not seeing yourself as a wage slave is very important even though you may be one. 

[mandyjw]

Just now, BlackMaze said:

Haha ok. There IS wage slavery. I do agree however that mindset and not seeing yourself as a wage slave is very important even though you may be one. 

Have you noticed that when someone coins a term like that, suddenly people believe it and try very hard not to be it? Karen, cringe, wage slave, etc. Watch out for language, especially new language, and language rich with connotations. If you don't know your creating it it becomes itself the ball and chain. It can both illuminate and obscure. It's a tool. 

It's a helpful term, it points to and illuminates a very real problem, but freedom is ultimately an inner state that the outer reflects in time. 

[DocWatts]

The idea that Wage Slavery is just (or primarily) an attitude or state of mind is not true for the vast majority of mankind.

Sure, an enlightened being like the Buddha may have found a way to turn inward and find happiness working in a coal mine for 18 hours a day, but you also know full well that very few people have attained a level of development where that would be possible.

Also in the case of Buddha don't forget that he came from an extremely privileged upbringing, which afforded him the freedom to travel, self actualize, and pursue enlightenment.

So framing Wage Slavery as a state of mind, while not wrong, does ignore the actual lived reality of people who are being harmed by labor exploitation.

While the technical definition of a Wage Slave simply refers to being denied the full value of one's Labor because of a lack of access to Capital (so on a technically speaking yes most wage laborers are wage slaves), what the term Wage Slave has come to mean in contemporary usage means having one's personal autonomy severely restricted due to structural economic exploitation.

Good litmus test for this is do you have the freedom to quit your job if conditions become intolerable?

Or would doing so lead to starving in the street, because the conditions of your employment have been such that you've been unable to aquire enough Capital to survive if you leave?

How free can someone actually be if they're one or two missed paychecks away from homelessness?

Edited August 21, 2021 by DocWatts

[Ilan]

There are some awakened host in coffee shop. 

[Bob Seeker]

Reality is fully created by thought. 
The end.

You could let yourself wither away, if you don’t think you are dying, you won’t be dying.

 The notion of wage slavery has no reality whatsoever. 
 

it is literally God. People hating their jobs is God.
 

A cosmic joke.

what is their soul thinking? 
 

self-actualization is a fun religion 

where is your potential? Please point to it. 

But people really do feel bad!

sure, if you think that, God.

But I want to escape wage slavery!

Go ahead.

Edited August 21, 2021 by Bob Seeker

[Stovo]

48 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

Good litmus test for this is do you have the freedom to quit your job if conditions become intolerable?

Or would doing so lead to starving in the street, because the conditions of your employment have been such that you've been unable to aquire enough Capital to survive if you leave?

How free can someone actually be if they're one or two missed paychecks away from homelessness?

This is an interesting point. So my position is that I do have enough capital to leave my job, I'd probably be able to survive for several years on zero income in fact. But I wouldn't be able to survive forever. 

To what extent am I a wage slave in this scenario? 

[DocWatts]

16 minutes ago, Stovo said:

This is an interesting point. So my position is that I do have enough capital to leave my job, I'd probably be able to survive for several years on zero income in fact. But I wouldn't be able to survive forever. 

To what extent am I a wage slave in this scenario? 

Sounds like you're in a fortunate enough position to have a relatively high degree of autonomy as far as your participation in the workforce.

The idea of Wage Slavery is more appropriate for people who do not have such autonomy because they are forced to survive on near-subsistence wages, and are thus unable to accumulate enough Capital to escape exploitative labor conditions.

Edited August 21, 2021 by DocWatts

[gettoefl]

6 minutes ago, Stovo said:

This is an interesting point. So my position is that I do have enough capital to leave my job, I'd probably be able to survive for several years on zero income in fact. But I wouldn't be able to survive forever. 

To what extent am I a wage slave in this scenario? 

you're a wage slave if you go to work solely for wages, you derive no satisfaction or growth from what you are doing, only you can decide that

another way of putting it, if you possess ever deepening awareness no matter what you do you will never be a wage slave

eckhart tolle talks about this often, punching a clock every day can be a great environment for spiritual growth

if it were me, i would try to keep the current job and pursue my passion in my spare time until it begins to bring in some profit, burning through savings makes you vulnerable to not being able to re-enter the work force

 

 

 

[Zeroguy]

7 hours ago, mandyjw said:

Have you noticed that when someone coins a term like that, suddenly people believe it and try very hard not to be it? Karen, cringe, wage slave, etc. Watch out for language, especially new language, and language rich with connotations. If you don't know your creating it it becomes itself the ball and chain. It can both illuminate and obscure. It's a tool. 

It's a helpful term, it points to and illuminates a very real problem, but freedom is ultimately an inner state that the outer reflects in time. 

What?!

Could respond in high quality way but will withdraw.

Still,what?!

Have hard time understanding what have you've been trying to say ?

 

Edited August 21, 2021 by Zeroguy

[mandyjw]

31 minutes ago, Zeroguy said:

high quality way

Brilliant. That's another term that's oh so loaded, "high quality". ?

[Zeroguy]

Just now, mandyjw said:

Brilliant. That's another term that's oh so loaded, "high quality". ?

That is not an answervto my question.Just wanted you to clarify me what have you've been trying to say.Since I didn't got it. 

[mandyjw]

11 minutes ago, Zeroguy said:

That is not an answervto my question.Just wanted you to clarify me what have you've been trying to say.Since I didn't got it. 

So for example, on this forum there's an ideal of making "high quality" posts. Obviously we all enjoy posts that are high quality and insightful, we love conversations that go deep and take thought to places it's never been before. That's what we're here for. But, the need to be "high quality" as an ideal can turn into a limitation and a standard by which we judge ourselves and identify. Entire generations, cultures, teachers and groups likeminded of people create new terms and words. Those words can create a kind of identification, or they do it in a negative way by distancing the group from people outside the group. This creates a pressure for someone that in order to maintain their identity or improve themselves, they must stick to or achieve this ideal. Rather than understanding that the word is created as a tool to illuminate and liberate, it ends up doing the opposite because we forget that we create its meaning for us. That's what I was originally pointing out was the case with the term "wage slave". 

Edited August 21, 2021 by mandyjw

[Zeroguy]

@mandyjw I will explain to you Reality of situation.

I myself and pretty much everyone else pays their workers as least as they can .All factors are calculated productivity motivation etc.It's a pyramid scheme whole society is based on it.

wage slavery is wage slavery it is exactly that.

[mandyjw]

@Zeroguy I've done farming, migrant labor type work, getting paid less than minimum wage, watching much stronger men get paid twice what I did, even having them steal the best patch for harvesting I was assigned all season, knowing I was a teenage girl alone in a field and there wasn't anything I could do about it. Except for a few parts of it as described, I loved being outside, loved doing that kind of work. I took that money and built a business with it doing what I loved to do even more, and it brought in a lot more money for a lot less work. Never felt like a slave, I was always there cause I wanted to be.

By the way, there have in human history and are currently, real cases of slavery, so I don't find the term appropriate at all. But that's just me. 

 

Edited August 21, 2021 by mandyjw

[BlackMaze]

18 hours ago, mandyjw said:

Have you noticed that when someone coins a term like that, suddenly people believe it and try very hard not to be it? Karen, cringe, wage slave, etc. Watch out for language, especially new language, and language rich with connotations. If you don't know your creating it it becomes itself the ball and chain. It can both illuminate and obscure. It's a tool. 

It's a helpful term, it points to and illuminates a very real problem, but freedom is ultimately an inner state that the outer reflects in time. 

That's true. Actually this is exactly what i'm working on. Law of attraction stuff that suddenly lost every bit of weirdness. Oh but i am a fucking slave walking to riches. Never mind. Mindset, and good things are coming my way faster than i expected. 

Edited August 22, 2021 by BlackMaze

[Gesundheit2]

All humans are slaves to each other one way or another. That's what society is in a nutshell. No matter who you are or where you are at in the hierarchy, you are a slave. Even if you are the president, you're still a slave, perhaps even more than an employee.

There's also psychological slavery, which is a lot more sneaky, but also a lot more prevalent.

The only way to end all this nonsense is to live alone away from society.

Edited August 21, 2021 by Gesundheit2

[Zeroguy]

21 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

@Zeroguy I've done farming, migrant labor type work, getting paid less than minimum wage, watching much stronger men get paid twice what I did, even having them steal the best patch for harvesting I was assigned all season, knowing I was a teenage girl alone in a field and there wasn't anything I could do about it. Except for a few parts of it as described, I loved being outside, loved doing that kind of work. I took that money and built a business with it doing what I loved to do even more, and it brought in a lot more money for a lot less work. Never felt like a slave, I was always there cause I wanted to be.

By the way, there have in human history and are currently, real cases of slavery, so I don't find the term appropriate at all. But that's just me. 

 

Finally real stuff.