Is this Noam Chomsky's most unhinged anti-capitalist take?

Leftist academic Noam Chomsky argues that wage labor is basically slavery in this clip that's gone viral on socialist TikTok. Brad Polumbo explains why this is batsh*t crazy.

#libertarian #conservative #shorts
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[Bryophyta]

>"based politics"
>gets offended by merely the thought of working conditions being unbalanced against the worker

[f.b.]

I could tell your opinion just by the edit filters lmao

[sarahw]

Anyone who thinks wage labor is "voluntary" these days is being willfully ignorant. If the entire system breaks down without it, that thing has become mandatory. I certainly don't think it's equal to slavery, but I also think you're taking a small snippet of the point he was making and disregarding the rest, which is a bit disingenuous.

[scrumbobulus]

you’re free to pick your place of work, until you need money to eat and pay rent

[pocojoyo]

Free to choose...BK vs McD, iPhone vs Android...

[theboss]

Lol wage labor under capitalism is not “free” or “voluntary, ” it’s coercive and exploitative. You think you’re free under capitalism? Try not working for a month - you lose your livelihood. Try changing workplaces in America - you put your healthcare on the line. Try starting up one of these small businesses that are always being talked about, good luck. You’re de-facto coerced to sell you labor to some capitalist who does whatever they want with the profits/value you generate. It’s certainly a progressive step from slavery or feudalism, but it’s far from being a “free, ” “democratic, ” or “voluntary” system. You’re not the property of your employer like a chattel slave, but you are exploited to generate profits for some unaccountable capitalist, which is similarly demeaning.

[gogoallison]

Either you do not have the intellectual capacity to understand Noam Chomsky’s full argument (he was not advocating for that comparison), or you deliberately cherry-picked a few seconds of his speech to completely misrepresent his views on the history of morality. Which is it?

[KeithKnightDontTreadonAnyone]

Frederick Douglas wrote an autobiography where he says slaves were paid/compensated, what makes slavery bad was not “no money” it was that it was involuntary. If it was just about money that would make volunteer work immoral.

[elkhunter]

Well not entirely true. artificially deflating wages while increasing inflation to force more people to carry 2-3 jobs to stay afloat is increasingly similar to slavery. While they might not be able to whip your kill you for not working. When your labor is worth a thousandth of management or ownership it’s not capitalism. Taking the risk away from business owners and placing it on the tax payers like our government has don’t use theft of time, labor and resources from the poor/ working class. That’s exactly what these bail outs do. We are told the wealthy are so because they incur the risk of the business but they have zero risk anymore. If they make bad choices the government uses taxes to bail them out. Bank deposits below 250k are fdic insured…. So why would we bail out the people with more than that. It’s the risk they took.

[robertakre]

it is offensive.
we are getting cheated by being forced to exchange our time for money on such terms that most aren't educated enough to comprehend.

I don't punctuate well but this is the fault of the public education system only in half .

[stewrapid]

You do get paid and a good percent of that is taken by the government, and you still had to feed and clothe and generally take care of your slaves or they die and become useless so in a way working for a wage and being taken care of as a slave have similarities for sure. Now if you show a video of someone negotiating a 100g + /yr to work at McDonald's then I'd agree 100% but when minimum wage is set by the government then there's not much negotiating happening. And no you don't have to work you can live on government assistance but if everyone chooses that path then no one gets it and as a slave you can choose not to work you will probably die or be killed but we all have freedom to choose.

[alexanderthegreat]

Wage slavery is real, and conservatives used to be the most vocal opponents against it. You don’t have to be a progressive to be against economic liberalism

[antidote]

Chomsky is saying many held that position. I think he finds chattel slavery worse, but let's be clear, wage slavery is also devastating.

[DavidByrne]

Arguing with one of the last century's most consequential intellectuals in a shouty tiktok/short is unhinged, boyo

[nhlanhlanevilleradebe]

If you can’t see that wage labour is also involuntary, you’ve lost the plot…

[TheJonnyEnglish]

If you played the whole clip your audience might actually agree

[chrisburnett]

I’m afraid you’re showing your youth and inexperience Brad. Try reading something. For 4 decades across the developed world, the share of national income going to wages has declined and the share going to capital (the owners of the business) has risen - dramatically! Businesses can’t run without the people who actually do the work, yet they don’t get to share in the prosperity of the business they work in because the key job of the corporation is to maximise profits - usually making their workforce more efficient, ie, more flexible and less expensive. So when real wages (after inflation) have not increased in decades and work is more precarious and impermanent what we get is peak inequality as we now have. And yeah, I think we can call the power imbalance wage slavery. As for your notion that people are free to leave or change jobs at their whim, are you kidding. At present many are working 50 and 60 hour weeks in two or three jobs to make ends meet. And our millennials are the first generation to have a lower standard of living than their parents.

[MichaelLFC]

It’s frustrating when an intelligent person makes a point that delves below the surface, and a stupid person emboldened by the internet (somehow) will mindlessly repeat a surface level point, not realising how thick they sound. Look up the word coercion and then indoctrination before you try to debate Chomsky, this is embarrassing.

[ThaiSocialSideReview]

The video of Chomsky already explains that. If you dare, you can share the video of him.

[paintedhorse]

Way to cut off the part where he prefaced this point by saying that this was the position of the Republucan party, and was the opinion of Lincoln as well as most 19th century Americans.