Did the West really abolish slavery, or did it merely re-label and re-package the concept? Are those who have to sell their labour power really just selling their skills or are they selling themselves? Can you separate the skills from the person, therefore, as an employee are you free?
Carole Pateman points out the implications of the employment contract in her book The Sexual Contract:
Capacities or labour power cannot be used without the worker using his will, his understanding and experience, to put them into effect. The use of labour power requires the presence of its “owner,” and it remains as mere potential until he acts in the manner necessary to put it into use, or agrees or is compelled so to act; that is, the worker must labour. To contract for the use of labour power is a waste of resources unless it can be used in the way in which the new owner requires. The fiction “labour power” cannot be used; what is required is that the worker labours as demanded. The employment contract must, therefore, create a relationship of command and obedience between employer and worker.... In short, the contract in which the worker allegedly sells his labour power is a contract in which, since he cannot be separated from his capacities, he sells command over the use of his body and himself. To obtain the right to the use of another is to be a (civil) master. [1]
[1]Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), pp. 150-151.
