Capital’s command power rests on workers lacking land alternatives.
Evidence
Peel’s assumption was that his workers had no option other than waged labour. It was a sound assumption in Britain where, following the enclosures – the mass privatisation of common land that took place from the end of the eighteenth century onwards – expelled peasants lacked access to any land. Landless labourers resigning a waged job in Manchester, Liverpool or Glasgow would simply starve to death. In Western Australia, however, the plentiful land (even allowing for the presence of Australia’s indigenous inhabitants) offered them an alternative: resignation and self-employment. And so, the hapless Mr Peel was left with splendid, Made in England capital goods, money in hand, but no power to command his workers. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 255
Categorization
- XREF: The enclosures as origin of landless waged labour connects to the reader’s interest in feudalism vs capitalism distinctions, and anticipates the book’s technofeudalism thesis. — connects to: Capital confers power over workers only when workers lack land alternatives — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 254; Land-based reciprocity offers an alternative to capital’s promised security. — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 244; Fear of unemployment disciplines workers into subordination to capital. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 250
- STORYSTEM: A 19th-century employer whose workers decamp to self-employment when frontier land opens is a potent inversion-of-power narrative device.
Broader Connections
- Capital confers power over workers only when workers lack land alternatives
#corroborates(1.00) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 254 - Fear of unemployment disciplines workers into subordination to capital.
#corroborates(0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 250 - Land-based reciprocity offers an alternative to capital’s promised security.
#qualifies(0.75) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 244