Criticism
Many abolitionists in the United States regarded the analogy of wage workers as wage slaves to be spurious. They believed that wage workers were "neither wronged nor oppressed". The abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass declared "Now I am my own master" when he took a paying job. However, Abraham Lincoln and the republicans "did not challenge the notion that those who spend their entire lives as wage laborers were comparable to slaves", though they argued that the condition was different, as laborers were likely to have the opportunity to work for themselves in the future, achieving self-employment.
Some advocates of laissez-faire capitalism, among them philosopher Robert Nozick, have said that inalienable rights can be waived if they are done so voluntary:
"The comparable question about an individual is whether a free system will allow him to sell himself into slavery. I believe that it would."
Read more about this topic: Wage Slavery
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