Economic coercion to work, an attitude characteristic of capitalism economic dependence and coercion between capitalists and wage workers. Its economic basis is formed by a monopoly private property capitalists for the means of production. Deprived of the material means of subsistence and working conditions, legally free workers are forced to sell their own labor power to the owners of the means of production and work for the capitalists.

Thus, material labor conditions become a means of subordinating the labor of others for the purpose of exploiting it. The capitalist directs labor, directs it, determines its duration, intensity, organizes and controls it. With the growth of the scale of production, capitalists transfer these functions to a special hired administration that manages labor on behalf of capital.

As the owner of the means of production, the capitalist becomes the owner of the entire product produced by the labor of the workers. Relations of economic dependence and coercion are being reproduced throughout constant process production: the product of the worker’s labor is always removed from him as someone else’s property and returned back only partially, in the form wages; the second part always turns into the income of the capitalist and means of production.

Labor is reproduced as wage labor, the means of production as capital. In contrast to the non-economic coercion characteristic of slave-owning and feudal societies (based on relations of strict subordination), economic labor to labor appears externally as a relationship between free, legally equal commodity owners, and the labor of workers as optional. Ultimately, the labor of a worker for a capitalist is evidenced by wage slavery.

In modern conditions scientific and technological revolution capitalism uses science and technology to expand and strengthen the relationship of economic coercion. Capital intensifies labor, displaces some workers from production, and places demand only for literate and highly skilled labor. Knowledge workers - engineers and scientists - are increasingly drawn into the orbit of capitalist exploitation.

This substantiates the inconsistency of modern bourgeois theories of harmony of interests, social partnership, collective, popular capitalism, trying to present subordination and relations of domination, objectively characteristic of capitalism, as equal cooperation. The totality of economic activity cannot be wiped off the face of the earth under capitalism. To do this, it is necessary that the means of production pass into the hands of the working people, that is, to eliminate personal ownership of the means of production.

Lit.: Marx K. and Engels F., Works, 2nd ed. t. 23, dep. 3, 4, 5; Archive of Engels and Marx, vol. 2 (VII), M., 1933, p. 5¾146, 167-77; Lenin V.I., criticism and the economic content of his populism in the book of Mr. Struve, Complete. collection cit., 5th ed., vol. 1, p. 459-60; see also lit. at Art. Capitalism.

Non-economic coercion

Non-economic coercion is direct form of forced labor, based on the personal dependence of the direct producer (producers) on any person (group of persons). The direct form of forced labor is characteristic of the slaveholding and feudal periods of social development. As a form of exploitation, it is due to the low degree of development of the productive forces of these periods. The ownership of the direct producer by slave owners and feudal lords is a condition and prerequisite for their appropriation of the main results of the labor (product) of slaves and serfs.

Elements Non-economic coercion arose back in the primitive communal period, when some public works(construction of roads, irrigation structures, military fortifications, etc.) all able-bodied community members were forcibly recruited. In addition, at the end of the existence of primitive society, after the emergence of economically isolated families and individuals, some brothers, for not repaying debts, became economically dependent on lenders, and were forced to work off these debts for a long time, and sometimes for life, becoming, in fact, temporary or permanent slaves. Of course, at the beginning of their appearance, such “slaves” were more like family members, but as these relationships developed, these workers increasingly turned into a powerless labor force. And already under the slave system Non-economic coercion performed in the crudest, naked forms (which is especially characteristic of ancient Greece and Rome). Slave labor was used mainly in quarries, quarries, and in the construction of palaces, temples, and luxurious tombs of pharaohs and kings. Slaves were actually turned into draft animals and were subjected to the most merciless exploitation. Along with forms of complete slavery in a slave society, there were other forms of dependence with varying degrees Non-economic coercion(for example, the dependence of helots in Ancient Sparta, who were considered the property of the state, had their own farm and paid rent in kind; laoi in Hellenistic Egypt, who were primarily engaged in cultivating the royal land and preserved the remnants of a communal structure).

During the period of feudalism Non-economic coercion was determined by the nature of the relationship between the serfs, who had land allotment and their own tools, and the feudal lord (landowner), who owned all these lands. And therefore, the peasant had to be personally dependent on the feudal lord and was obliged to work most of the time on the lands of the feudal lord or on his farm. Thus, feudal land ownership was economically realized in the form of rent (working out) in favor of the landowner, being Non-economic coercion. The most severe forms are Non-economic coercion had during the period of dominance of labor rent and gradually weakened with the transition to food and cash rent, in which the peasants became less and less economically dependent on the feudal lord. With the predominance of money rent, the personal dependence of the serfs receded into the background in comparison with land rent. However, the relationship between serfs and feudal lords did not lose their coercive character. The full judicial and administrative power of the patrimonial owner and the class inferiority of the peasants were preserved.

With the advent of capitalist relations, employee is no longer an object Non-economic coercion, but becomes only economically dependent on the employer. Capitalism presupposes the personal freedom of the worker, but at the same time the deprivation of any means of production. Thus, economic coercion appears for the majority of citizens under capitalism. However, it is worth noting that under capitalism no one is prohibited from becoming an entrepreneur, even if it is a solo entrepreneur, and working only for himself and, of course, the state. But the role of an entrepreneur, firstly, is not suitable for everyone, and, secondly, not everyone wants to be one, since the work of an entrepreneur is not so simple and carefree, unless, of course, you count the actual and conditional rentiers . Therefore, to say that the proletarian, supposedly in order not to die of hunger, is forced to sell his labor power to the capitalist, is experiencing the oppression of exploitation, is simply unfair. In the conditions of a developing economy of any state, most of the mercenaries also receive a certain income when hired, and not just the capitalist. But here in periods of crisis, significant inflation and increased unemployment, exploitation (appropriation of part of the result of labor) takes place, since the exchange (hiring) between a worker and an entrepreneur, as a rule, is not equivalent, infringing on the economic benefit of the mercenary.

Non-economic coercion, however was inherent in many ways to the so-called socialist system, especially in the USSR, which was massively manifested in the direct exploitation of political prisoners who erected most of the victorious new buildings of socialism. With the help of ideological covers, the Soviet government simply massively used unpaid labor in the most severe conditions of heat, cold and hunger. Mass death from the unbearable conditions of exploitation in no way stopped this method of using a significant part of the citizens by the rulers of the “bright future”, who in words were ardent opponents of any exploitation in accordance with their communist programs, but in practice, far from an outside observer, were engaged in the most brutal exploitation, which neither the slave owner nor the feudal lord even thought about. Therefore, it is worth remembering that the most cruel Non-economic coercion can only be created by the state itself, and not by an individual (slave owner, feudal lord, etc.), who still has certain legislative restrictions, unlike the state itself, which can itself come up with the necessary laws for this Non-economic coercion.

Economic coercion to work

Economic coercion to work is the basis of any period of human development. The basis for satisfying a person’s needs is his own labor. And life itself forces a person to work in order to survive. But for some reason, some economic theorists associate the concept of “Economic coercion to work” only with capitalism, believing that the relationship of economic dependence and coercion between wage workers and capitalists arises only under capitalism. They explain this by saying that the economic basis for this is the monopoly of private ownership of the capitalists over the means of production. And deprived of the material conditions for the application of labor and means of subsistence, legally free workers are forced to sell their labor power to the owners of the means of production and work for the capitalists. However, under socialism, almost the entire population is deprived of the right to have own funds production, which are completely in the hands of the state, or rather its top. And therefore, the entire population automatically becomes mercenaries of the state. The explanation that all state property is also people's property is just an ideological ploy to attract poor citizens to their side. Neither the land, nor the factories, nor the plants promised by the Bolsheviks, were ever transferred to the people. And they were always managed by the Bolshevik (communist) elite in their own interests. That is, as the founders of Bolshevism themselves said, “material conditions of labor become a means of subordinating the labor of others for the purpose of exploiting it.” It makes absolutely no difference to any person whether the capitalist or the state “commands his labor, manages it, determines its duration, intensity, organizes and controls it.” Moreover, with the growth of the scale of production, capitalists transfer these functions to a special hired administration that manages labor on behalf of capital. The state does the same under socialism, which existed in the USSR and other socialist countries.

Historically and economically, it has developed that a product produced by some collective or community does not belong to the entire collective or community, but only to the owner of the means of production. Whether this is fair or not, everyone has their own opinion, but this is how it happened. These relations arose at the end of the primitive period during the separation of separate families within the clan and the birth of the neighboring community. And it was precisely Economic coercion to work, as a means of a more prosperous life, that led to the separation of patriarchal families and the birth of commercial (mutually beneficial) constant exchange between them. Actually, work itself is the result of a person forcing himself to do something in order to survive, and to survive as best as possible. At first, labor was expressed in self-employment, then labor became collective, in which everyone received a part of the result of this collective labor. This part may or may not correspond to the labor expended. So, of course, the elderly and children received more than they could actually give due to their physical capabilities. That is, collective labor, which appeared in the primitive period of human development, already implied a certain level of social security.

So, when a person began to more clearly determine or feel the difference in skills among themselves, the difference in the amount of labor expended, and when it became large, then the idea appeared among craftsmen and workaholics to isolate themselves in order to get more from their expended labor. But any economic isolation is, first of all, the isolation of property and the results of one’s labor, that is, means of production and consumer products. And if before separation all the labor expended was dissolved in the labor of the entire community, then after separation it all remained within the family, that is, a much smaller collective than the community. The most capable, skillful and resilient people, in order to obtain greater benefits or achieve some of their goals, almost always force themselves to take action, to do more work, and therefore do not consider themselves economically forced, although, in fact, they are still forced, only by themselves yourself. But people who are less eager to work are directly economically forced, and therefore feel disadvantaged in the benefits they receive in comparison with the labor expended.

Initially, after separation, each family in conditions subsistence farming had exactly as many benefits as she herself created. But with the advent of exchange, and the emergence of economic differences in this or that activity, and therefore the emergence of not only skill in real labor, but also exchange skill, the amount of goods often depended not on real labor, but on the ability to exchange. It was this skill that over time began to be valued in society much higher than real work that creates real benefits. This difference began to look especially significant after the advent of money (intermediary goods). Nowadays, real work is usually assessed wages, that is, someone’s assessment of your work, but exchange skill is expressed by the concept of profit (or profitability), because it in itself does not create anything real, but knows how to use someone else’s labor or product in the best way.

Labor is the only and fair source of our benefits, and therefore it should determine, first of all, our well-being, and not just conventionally accumulated past labor, which may be partially or completely alien in life (which most often happens). But the established division of the common newly created product according to the property or power principle is far from perfect.

Economic coercion to work is a completely natural thing inherent in a relatively normal society. But in addition to this coercion, there is also direct coercion to work (or it is also called non-economic), characteristic of slavery and feudalism, in which the concept of decent (appropriate) remuneration for work is generally absent. For in these societies, as a rule, the entire result of his labor is taken from a person, leaving him only the minimum amount of product with which he can live (survive), and no more.

Of course, the work of a mercenary is valued much higher than the work of a slave or serf, but we must always remember that a mercenary exchanges his labor for wages. But how fair and mutually beneficial this exchange is depends on the state of society as a whole, the state of the economy, legislation, the structure of the economy and the level of unemployment. The last indicator is most indicative for determining the level of fairness of the exchange between the employee and the employer. The higher the unemployment rate, the less mutually beneficial this exchange is for the mercenary, that is, the lower his real and potential wages. For a fair, truly mutually beneficial exchange between employer and employee, there must be at least a conditional surplus of jobs. Only in this case can this exchange be considered completely mutually beneficial. Under other worse conditions for the mercenary, this exchange can only be considered conditionally mutually beneficial, and its profitability for the mercenary decreases with increasing unemployment, up to direct exploitation. For in this case, all the benefits and even part of the labor costs during the exchange go into the hands of the employer. And to prevent this from happening, the state must, firstly, constantly create itself or conditions for increasing jobs and ensure that the minimum wage is higher than living wage, and not vice versa, as is the case today in Russia. Otherwise, you can slide from the concept of “Economic coercion to work” to the concept of “Direct (non-economic) compulsion to work, that is, to slavery or feudalism, despite the presence of capitalist relations in society.

Good luck with your knowledge of economics!