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Today we're going to learn about wage theft
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2026
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Wouldn't call it "wage theft" so much as "wage slavery." Theft implies a higher wage was promised to you when profits increase when that absolutely wasn't the case. They told you completely shamelessly that you would be getting the same shitty wages no matter how well you do and you had no choice to accept it, you know, basically like a slave. At most a slave that could choose their slaver.
Actually, calling wage work slavery isn't that far off, since many slaves throughout history were paid in some form for their work, and some could even (in theory) buy their freedom. You will never be able to buy your freedom though, the capitalists calculate your wage to ensure you remain poor and desperate so you keep working for them.
Workers have right; those right are poorly applied but workers have unions to defend themselves. Slaves have none. This is a big difference, and being exploited is enough to be outraged; we do need to make confusion that would invisible people enslaved
Indeed, and the fact that around 60% of the population is living on subsistence wages underscores the point. They literally pay people just enough for them to keep working, literally all the value produced through labor is appropriated by the parasites.
I would definitely call it theft in most cases, because in a capitalist system, labor is structurally coerced and is not giving up its surplus value freely, as you basically said yourself in different words. Or perhaps more succinctly, I would call slavery a form of theft. But I agree it isn't "wage theft" because that has a more specific understood meaning related to what's owed according to the law.