Chattel Slavery is a terrible thing. A chattel slave can be punished or killed if they refuse to work, and in many cases can be sold or traded, they can be forced to breed with whoever their master demands, and the offspring are slaves from birth. It was an institution in virtually all areas around the world from before the invention of writing, and it was widely accepted until the 19th century when it gradually began to be illegal. Many slaveholders resisted with all their might and many wars were fought--the American Civil War being only one of them. It is officially illegal in all countries around the world, but variations of it continue in (probably) all of them in various forms: debt bondage, serfdom, prostitution, child soldiers...estimates are around 25 million people are slaves worldwide.
Wage Slavery is a little different. In the 19th century, a desperate person would come to a company town. There they would be provided housing, food, friends, and most of their other needs, in return for work. All houses, the grocery store and most others, would all be owned by the company. Wages and prices would be such that the worker would get into debt quickly and over time this debt would grow. As long as the worker continued to work and not cause trouble, the debt would be forgiven. But if that changed, the full force of the law could be used to recover the unpaid debt--usually an impossible thing. The people in the community supported each other, and generally if someone became unable to work due to age, illness or injury, the company would be supportive. It was possible to live a relatively happy, but impoverished life as a wage slave.
The modern version of wage slavery is similar, but different in some important ways. Rather than one company owning everything in one town, and a different company in another, in the modern scheme, the companies are technically separate, although generally within each industry they are monopolies or near to it. The market has balanced prices so that things can remain relatively stable: The companies providing loans will tolerate reasonably high debt as long as the person remains employed. Many companies provide pensions and health care. In business economics, this distinction is analogous to the distinction between vertical integration and horizontal integration.
Employers like wage slavery, whether it's the 19th century, vertical kind, or the 21st century horizontal kind. They can treat employees almost as badly as they like, and the employees have little choice but take it: the other companies pay just as badly, may not offer as good a pension or health care. When employees have bargaining power--a unique skill, or a union, that forces them to be treated better, the employers resist with all their might. Many employers have tried treating their employees better, from Henry Ford paying them more to keep them from going to his competition, to high tech companies offering benefits ranging from graduate school to stock ownership, and nearly always, this leads to better employees and greater productivity and profits. But it takes imagination and a leap of faith to make this move, and one thing that most business owners are not is imaginative. For most of the 20th century, the union movement and a few enlightened political leaders, most importantly the two Roosevelts, took matters into their own hands and forced most businesses to give better pay and benefits, shorter hours and safer workplaces, and the consequence was the strongest economy the world has ever seen.
The unions were the most important source of this broad based economic boom. The better paid workers are, the more consumer products they are able to buy, and the more money is in the economy. Seems simple, but no economy in history had tried it--a few came close, such as the renaissance guilds, the Hanseatic league, and a number of others, but none tried it so broadly. Not long after WWII ended, many of the participants also tried it, and their economies boomed too.
Also very important are anti-monopoly laws and government intervention when an industry had engaged in a race to the bottom. The telephone company, the railroads and airlines, the power companies and many others. In virtually every case, the regulated companies were more profitable than their unregulated selves, and they provided better service too.
Usury laws and bank regulation keep lenders from abusing customers, but allow them to make a fair, and very safe profit.
One of the most important regulations is the minimum wage. It provides a bare minimum level of support--a full time worker making the minimum wage (and practicing a normal level of fiscal restraint) should not be in poverty, as long as the minimum wage matches the poverty level.
Social Support mechanisms like pensions, unemployment insurance, health insurance, education are very important. All of these are most efficient when practiced on a large scale, so even though employers provide some of them, a baseline level is best provided by the government and supported by employers.
One of the most important is transit. Transit allows a worker to leave a job and go to another. Or to get to a job that's moderately far from their home. Like the other social support mechanisms, it needs to be provided by a mechanism larger than an individual business. The businesses benefit hugely from it and they scream when their employers lose it.
It is difficult to directly ban wage slavery, the way chattel slavery has been banned in most countries (and even then, it's impossible to ban it completely). But all these things: unions, regulation, pensions, etc., are barriers to wage slavery. Even a few of them, in place, can make it hard for a wage slaver to keep power. But the leaders of the Wage Slavery movement, organizations like the US Chamber of Commerce, the American Legislative Exchange Council, The funders of the the Tea Party movement (including the Koch brothers), the various right wing "think tanks", have set about destroying all of these things. And in the past decade, they have succeeded.
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