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Comment by vjerancrnjak | Hacker News Reader

This is actually a very old observation.

Wage labor (private tyrannies), consent under coercion (work or starve), availability of exploitative contracts, "free market" supported by corporate welfare, state, intellectual property etc.

You've given examples for all of the points.

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Isn't "work or starve" just a fact of nature? In what system do people not have to work to survive? (aside from a system where robots do all the labor)

I meant "consenting" to a wage contract when the other option is to starve.

Many social democracies almost provide an option where you don't have to participate in capitalism with universal healthcare, government welfare etc.

I think the fact that people can pick and choose which contracts to engage in, can back out at any time, and in many cases if you live in a rich country, opt out altogether. Even if there are "pressures" (either socially induced or biological) to work in some form, "consent" seems like a perfectly reasonable word to describe modern conditions.

Like, do we really, truly believe the current world is no different from the feudal past? Is that not hasty reductionism?

I believe it is different.

Work for others owning the means of production or starve is not a fact of nature.

In what type of society do I not have to do that? Even if I live in a society where everything is collectively owned, I’m still forced to work for the collective (of which I have one share among the population, essentially giving me about as much control as a “vote”)

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