In her fascinating book, Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (2019, Princeton), Adom Getachew notes that during twentieth century imperialism a number of decolonial thinkers — mostly English speakers in the British Empire and Americas — conceptualized empire as (racialized) enslavement (pp.
The idea of “wage slavery” isn’t confined to imperialist/colonial settings, or to critics of slavery. It was used by Southern advocates of slavery in the US to contrast their allegedly paternalistic treatment of chattel slaves with the condition of notionally free workers in the North.
And it’s easy to read into Marx, if you are so inclined. The Communist manifesto starts with capitalism tearing aside the motley ties that bound workers to their natural superiors, and ends with saying that they have nothing to lose but their chains.
The idea of “wage slavery” isn’t confined to imperialist/colonial settings, or to critics of slavery. It was used by Southern advocates of slavery in the US to contrast their allegedly paternalistic treatment of chattel slaves with the condition of notionally free workers in the North.
And it’s easy to read into Marx, if you are so inclined. The Communist manifesto starts with capitalism tearing aside the motley ties that bound workers to their natural superiors, and ends with saying that they have nothing to lose but their chains.