“With the Name Changed, the Story Applies to You!”: Connections between Slavery and “Free” Labor in the Writings of Marx

Abstract

The field of Global Labor History that Marcel van der Linden more than anyone helped to develop, rests—among other elements—on the rejection of the idea that capitalism and “free” wage labor go hand in hand. This rejection entails a critique on both Marxian and Weberian approaches to labor history.1 It forms a major challenge to the theoretical framework of classical political economy in which “free” labor holds an important place. This was true for the founders of classical liberalism as well as for Marx, although they started from different theoretical assumptions and drew completely opposite political conclusions. Of these two, it is Marx who forms the real starting point for Van der Linden’s reconceptualization. In Van der Linden’s view, Marx’s analysis of capitalist development is at one and the same time “still the best we have,” but also one that contains serious “limitations, errors and immanent contradictions.”2 In an act of self-conscious heterodoxy, Van der Linden expands Marx’s notion of the centrality of commodified labor power to include forms of coerced labor that Marx explicitly excluded. This, he argues, is necessary for understanding capitalism’s past and its future. It forms the basis for a truly global labor history that acknowledges the many intermediary forms between plantation slavery as the most extreme form of coerced labor, and an idealized version of “free” wage labor, that have operated under the control of capital. Recognizing such intermediary forms is of special relevance for understanding the history of capitalism in colonial and post-colonial contexts. However, it also has important consequences for understanding capitalism in the West, where