> he makes a rather rude comparison of wage employment to slavery.
This comparison was widely observed by Black intellectuals who were the direct descendants of slaves in the era of Reconstruction era and beyond, so it’s funny to class it as “rude.”
Capitalism emerged out of feudalism, maintained many of its hierarchical qualities and power dynamics, and replaced a bound peasant labor force with one with varying degrees of freedom. At the bottom of this hierarchy in the U.S. was a racialized slave caste that was later freed from this this specific form of bondage, but kept me in much the same position through other means. Various forms of current and historical struggle have brought us to greater equality, but it’s difficult to argue that wage labor in the U.S. wasn’t shaped and defined by the presence of slavery. How could it not be?
This starts to redefine slavery as "being forced to do something I would prefer not to do" (given a better alternative). But what drives us to work is the basic human needs for food, shelter as well as higher order needs once the basic ones are satisfied. So should we therefore take the next step and conclude we are all slaves of ourselves and our physiology? I think it's true, but then why do most people who believe that "employment is slavery" not also take this next step? Could it be because it's more psychologically satisfying to some people to be able to blame their unhappiness with work etc on someone else, rather than accepting a fundamental reality of the human condition? :)
That’s an entirely separate philosophical discussion about the meaning of “slavery.” I’m speaking to the historical and material reality that the structuring and maintenance of wage labor was informed and defined by the existence of slavery in the U.S.
And of course it still is - slavery is legal as a form of punishment in this country and we have prisoners working at pay and conditions below those of other forms of wage labor. Is it your hypothesis that the two don’t interact with each other? How could they not in a market context where forced labor persists in competition with other low wage labor?
> Could it be because it's more psychologically satisfying to some people to be able to blame their unhappiness with work etc on someone else, rather than accepting a fundamental reality of the human condition?
It's only a fundamental reality of the human condition if you're not born into wealth. So, not really fundamental at all. A fundamental component of slavery is there being a master. You're sort of ignoring that wage-slaves are in fact, creating wealth for someone else.
And how did their parents get their wealth by means fair or foul? No matter how many generations back of inheritance it still comes back to the same root cause.
The "exception of born into wealth" sounds a lot like the ancient Greek nonsense of philsophers and aristocrats justifying slavery ironically. While they themselves were willfully ignorant of actual means of wealth generation and thought it had to be stolen by conquest and holding traders in contempt.
And this sickness was modeled into the Antebellum US South combined with the projection of accusing the North of wanting to enslave everyone.
Wage employment for reconstruction era blacks was different. After slavery was abolished, a number of replacement policies were put on to basically enable it under a different name. There has been a back and forth across the years of policies forcing blacks to unfair conditions only for courts or lawmakers to nope.
E.g. In Mississipi if a black man left a contract early to seek better wages elsewhere, they would have to forfeit already earned wages and could be arrested.
Surely, there are individuals for whom their employment status, then and now, are some form of extreme leverage not unlike slavery. However, Taleb is making a general statement across all wage employment, and that's pretty dickish. Plenty of people feel they have autonomy in their lives while working a job. Taleb asserting they don't is rude.
This comparison was widely observed by Black intellectuals who were the direct descendants of slaves in the era of Reconstruction era and beyond, so it’s funny to class it as “rude.”
Capitalism emerged out of feudalism, maintained many of its hierarchical qualities and power dynamics, and replaced a bound peasant labor force with one with varying degrees of freedom. At the bottom of this hierarchy in the U.S. was a racialized slave caste that was later freed from this this specific form of bondage, but kept me in much the same position through other means. Various forms of current and historical struggle have brought us to greater equality, but it’s difficult to argue that wage labor in the U.S. wasn’t shaped and defined by the presence of slavery. How could it not be?