Wage labour

Wage labor refers to human work under conditions of free labor markets in a market economy. You shall be remunerated according to contractual arrangements between employer and employee.

Wage labor in Marxist theory

The term is used in Marxism, to characterize the situation of the working class: These possess a commodity with which they could do business on a regular basis, only their own labor power and no means of production. You must make a living from selling these labor dispute against " wages " ( wages). From the standpoint of the capitalist, the purchase of labor and other production tools reindeer only if more money then occupied by the sale of goods produced than was originally spent on labor and means of production. Since the workers must live by selling their labor power and the capitalist class requires a permanent supply of labor, wage contracts are completed on average, to cover the costs of reproduction of labor power. This goes along with the labor theory of value, according to which all goods are mutually exchange in relation to the socially necessary labor-time necessary for their production. This means that only labor creates value. The difference between the value of labor power (wages, variable capital ), the "free" of the wage-workers is sold, and the total value created, the capitalist appropriates as an added value. Machinery, working material, etc. as constant capital transferred by the labor theory of value proportionally only the objectified already working in it. From the exploited labor, therefore, results in the entire profit of the capitalist class.

There thus arise according to Marx, the three dimensions of exploitation of wage workers by the capitalists:

• Production: The employment of wage earners pays off only if, remains of the produced goods part, the surplus product in the capitalist.
• Working Hours: The employment of wage earners pays off only if the wage workers not only work to create the required of them even products ( necessary labor ), but also unrequited for the capitalists ( exploitation ). However, under capitalism this gratuitousness is veiled, not readily visible because of wage ostensibly covers the entire working hours.
• Value: The employment of wage-workers is profitable only if remains of the value created as a part of added value in the capitalist.

As a "double free wage labor " refers to Marx, the resulting after the victorious bourgeois revolution position of the workers who offer after winning the civil rights of their labor on the open market and had to negotiate their wages freely. The term is meant ironically draw attention to the dual nature of freedom, which they were exposed. Through the liberation of the feudal and feudal shackles they would indeed have gained a little more civil rights. Nevertheless, they are also of each property of means of production "liberated" was ( expropriated ). Thus they were forced under early capitalist relations of production, to go to " wage slavery ".

Wage labor in economics

In economics, wage laborers appear as workers perceive the jobs of the employer and received with these contracts, usually with fixed rewards. Until the introduction of the European System of National Accounts in Germany in 1999, they were still referred to as " salaried workers ". Marxist critics see in the new name of a reversal of the actual situation, whereby workers would give their labor, while entrepreneurs would take this and as a result of the production process it drew profits.

Wage labor in the economic practice

In practical economic life, the term wage labor still have a different meaning: companies can sometimes outside the establishment, against a wage labor. In the books of the company, this is then " made ​​in wage labor" or similarly labeled.

The ordering entrepreneur passes to edit or material to be processed by a subcontractor who performs this work under a contract and then gets compensation for work. The Contractors gets the client plans and / or a pattern of being manufactured part. The subcontractor then uses its own manufacturing plant, machinery, equipment and workforce to manufacture the parts, sometimes with rental machines. The contractor is only liable for the quality of his work, not for material defects. Sometimes these are also false self -employed persons who receive their wages paid gross and then to self-insure and to pay taxes, so they for the exploitation of the early or even the high capitalism comparable forms can take. When the term " wage work" enters at an internet search engine, you can find companies that offer such services or even contract work.

It is up to the business to determine whether it is more advantageous to perform certain work on their own farms or to be carried out by a plant contractor. Farms with free capacity can utilize better by accepting wage labor and so work often cheaper due to calculation with variable costing.

Examples:

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History of wage labor

Antiquity

The following information was derived primarily the lexicon of antiquity. Already in the Mesopotamian civilizations wage labor was common. Wage workers were still in kind - in Greece, already with money - paid, they were mainly used in agriculture, specifically in agriculture.

In ancient Greece and in ancient Rome congested much of the heavy and monotonous work - such as in fields, mines and quarries, shipyards, as construction workers, transport workers, as rowers, as a handicraft laborers, etc. - on the shoulders of two social groups:

• Slaves - they were (with exceptions) regarded by their owners as salable and quite loose objects, as mere tools for the performance of work
• Wage workers - they were unlike the slaves, although legal terms free, economically speaking - in the absence of ownership of means of production and soil - but forced to sell their labor power to the propertied

Slaves, as well as wage laborers were often used in large masses. So working in a mine, often more than 1000 of them, as many in the fields of a single landowner. Wage workers were usually paid daily wages. In agriculture, seasonal work at harvest time was common. Between wage laborers and slaves probably was some competition, where the slaves could still cheaper cost to the workers their jobs (such as rowers ). In Rome, the wage laborers, as propertyless free to identify to a large extent with the so-called Proletarii. In Greece, the wage-workers were mostly on the state of Theten. Among the wage-workers often included in the ancient writers also, Bailiff, market supervisors, teachers, doctors, etc.