Employers and employees are not comparable to masters and slaves.

Marxist economist and speaker Richard D. Wolff remains a leading voice in the leftist movement. He has served as a uniting individual between the populist left (appearing on shows like the Michael Brookes Show and TYT) along with serving as a common citation among internet communists.

Let’s take a look at this tweet, which expresses things he has said in other debates as well as speeches.

You can read his original tweet here.

Now on the face of it, I see three immediate problems with his analogy.

The first is just a definitional one. Serfdom and Slavery are always non-consensual relationships with a master, in which the serf or slave must obey the whims of his master or suffer the consequences. But this is simply not the case when it comes to employers and employees. In fact, the roles are often reversed. As someone who has held a job (like the majority of Americans), I have seen people leave and quit because they are dissatisfied with the work, and guess what? No one stopped them! They were at liberty to leave and find another place of work. Now the most common retort to this is that “we have to have a job”. But this is a poor rebuttal. Any system that humanity invents will need someone to work. Even Lenin understood this.

The socialist principle, “He who does not work shall not eat”, is already realized; the other socialist principle, “An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor”, is also already realized. But this is not yet communism, and it does not yet abolish “bourgeois law”, which gives unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products. This is a “defect” according to Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of communism; for if we are not to indulge in utopianism, we must not think that having overthrown capitalism people will at once learn to work for society without any rules of law. (Chapter 5, Section 3, “The First Phase of Communist Society”)

So the comparison falls flat.

My second problem is Dr. Wolff’s use of the term “unjust class structures”. This idea of class structure comes from a time where peoples overall wealth rarely changed. If you were born poor, you stayed poor. If you were born rich, you stayed rich. This is the time that people like Marx lived in. But this idea doesn’t apply today. Let me demonstrate it with a graph.

You can read about the graph here.

Let’s break down this graph. What it shows is that the vast majority of adults will find themselves in the top 20% of income for at least a year, and at least half of all adults will find themselves in the top 10% of income for at least a year.

What does that have to do with class structures? Well this graph is demonstrating a concept called “wealth mobility”, or the idea that a persons wealth is not set (at least not today) in place. That means that classes are more like revolving doors, which people move in and out of. Thus it is perfectly reasonable to think (unlike Professor Wolff would have you believe) that the employee will become the employer!

My final problem is Wolff’s advocacy for worker co-ops as the solution to this problem. Mainly, that this system the Professor proposes would actually lead to the diminishing of freedom and opportunity, the exact thing Wolff is criticizing.

How exactly does he propose we move into this system of worker ownership? I see two ways by which this could occur. Either a state sponsored shift for all businesses to adopt the system would be needed, or every worker would need to strike in order to force their employers into adopting worker ownership. But I take issue with both of these.

1. The state will enforce worker co-ops everywhere.

Here is my most pressing issue with this plan: it would diminish freedom, the production of goods, and the ability for one to enter into a new career.

How would it diminish freedom? Well it’s rather simple. By forcing workers to adopt this specific system you want, you have acted in a coercive manner towards innocent people, many of which may not even want a say in their company. Beyond that, democratic ownership of the means of production is really just mob rule of the company by the employees. So even if 40% of the workers don’t wish for a change to occur, it will occur because the 60% will want it. Where is the freedom for the 40%? Have you not just created a new employer and employee system? The one you just condemned?

It would also affect the production of goods for controversial goods and services. As writer Conor Friedersdorf pointed out in this excellent article for The Atlantic:

Right now, under capitalism, vegetarians and vegans have more options every year. But there aren’t very many of them. Five percent of Americans are vegetarians. Three percent are vegans. Would “the workers” find a societal need to produce vegan meat or milk substitutes? No one knows the answer… How important would worker majorities consider hair products for African Americans? What if a majority of workers decided that only English-language commercial reading material should be printed in the United States?… So, young leftists: Would you prefer a socialist society in which birth control is available if, and only if, a majority of workers exercising their democratic control assents? Or would you prefer a society in which private businesses can produce birth control, per their preference, in part because individuals possess economic rights as producers and consumers, the preferences of a majority of people around them be damned?

On that note, let’s talk about my last point: the changing of career paths. If the workers own the means of production, that means they are deciding who is let into a company. Now when an employer is in charge, they hire for the good of the company. The employer cares about the profits and profits (generally) increase with better and more skilled employees. But this is not the concern of the employee. What I see as inevitable is the death of companies, big and small, because the majority of workers want to protect their jobs. There is also the question of firing. If the majority of workers are deciding who gets fired, then the status of an employee is really just at the whim of the mob.

2. Workers will strike and consumers will boycott till the workers own the means of production.

I have one knockdown argument against this: this isn’t socialism. This is just capitalism, where the people leverage the power they have in the capitalist system to get the business structure they want. There is no rule in capitalism that says workers can’t own their own business. In fact, it isn’t that uncommon in the US (even though most companies are standard top-down structures). What is uncommon, however, is the existence of standard top-down structures in socialist countries. This is where we see the fatal flaw in Professor Wolff’s argument: socialism is the less free system. Under capitalism, any kind of business structure can exist, and it will remain in existence as long as it is profitable and serves the consumer. But under socialism, there is one form of business. That being a mob rule of the means of production.

What I find shocking is the fact that this is not just a tweet built to stir up attention, it’s an actual argument that you will find from Dr. Richard Wolff in his books and debates. But as I’ve pointed out, this claim is totally separated from reality.