Ask Lemmy

(Disclaimer: I'm mostly going to be talking about the U.S. here.)

I'm not even quite sure what you're getting at here but a higher minimum wage is the obvious answer.

I also think you're taking too narrow a view by thinking just about "jobs." Consider the option of a UBI for instance.

There's also "abolish the profit motive" and "to each according to need," of course. But you did say "reasonably achievable and accessible", which probably excludes this option for the moment.

But I still don't feel like I'm answering quite the question you're asking. Seems like your questions are aimed more at the reader personally rather than at "society". So just answering literally what you asked, no I'm not free to live a happy healthy life if I choose to leave my current job (unless I were to get another job, of course.)

And I personally have a high-paying job and have the luxury of being picky about my working conditions beyond just whether I get enough money out of it to be able to eat and keep a roof over my head, so I'm not personally in need of a higher paying job. But that's not the norm (in the U.S.) Not everyone can just get a higher-paying job. (In fact, it's more the exception than the rule, I'd say.) And I'm very much in support of measures to improve conditions for most people.

Maybe what you're getting at is that "if you can switch jobs, then it's not slavery." In which case we're having a pointless argument of definition as to what qualifies as "slavery" and what doesn't. What matters to me is that the current state of the U.S. is unacceptable. Using the term "slavery" to refer to it makes an impact rhetorically. Emma Goldman is known for having used the term "wage slave" in the 1920s.

(It honsestly gives me pause considering what victims of chattel slavery would think of me using the term "slavery" to refer to my high-paying desk job. I tend to use the term "gilded cage" instead.)

Whether having to work two jobs to afford food and rent qualifies as "slavery" or not, employment is not (often) voluntary, it enriches someone else much more than it enriches the employee, and it maintains societal inequality. It fulfills many of the same purposes that chattel slavery did/does for the powerful.