070295 SE Seminar - Free and Unfree Labor Relations in Global Perspective, 17th Century to the Present (2020S)

What is the difference between free and unfree labor? Which continuities and ruptures can be discerned in labor relations from antiquity to the “medieval” and modern periods? Which role did and do servitude, coerced labor and chattel slavery play in comparison to self-employment and wage labor in the emergence and dynamics of capitalism? For Marx and orthodox Marxists it was especially those labor relations based on wage labor that enabled the reproduction of industrial capitalism. On the other hand, heterodox Marxists and some adherents of Global Labor History caution that unfree labor relations have not decreased. To the contrary, they point out that forms of unfree labor have increased throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Some of these topics and other similar themes will be examined in the course of this seminar. The main focus is on the period between the 18th and 20th centuries even though earlier and later periods will also be touched upon. Finally, we will discuss what we might learn from these debates with regard to labor relations in the 21st century.