Wage Labour Is Righteous, Socialism Is Evil

Both halves of this come down to the same test: was force used, or wasn’t it? Apply it consistently and wage labour and socialism land on opposite sides.

Wage Labour Is Righteous

The Marxist claim is that workers don’t get their “fair share” under capitalism because profits go to the capitalist. This is a straight-up entitlement claim on someone else’s property with no basis:

• The capitalist forwent consumption to accumulate the capital required to start the business.
• The worker is paid an agreed-upon wage, even before they’re productive in any meaningful capacity, and regardless of whether profits ever come in.
• The capitalist alone bears the risk. If things go south, does the worker want loss-sharing too — i.e., working for less or nothing?

Once again, this is really about abolishing Private Property, which is aggression against an individual — and we know aggression to be false through The Non-aggression Principle, backed by Argumentation Ethics and underpinned by the Primacy of Existence.

Socialism Is Evil

Socialism necessitates the violation of individuals’ self-sovereignty. A portion of their private property is taken from them to fund ventures they never consented to. The individual is reduced to a tool for someone else’s benefit — percentage-based slavery, since they don’t keep all of what they earn.

Because it requires Aggression, we know socialism to be false.

Same Axiom, Opposite Verdicts

Wage labour is a voluntary trade: both parties agree, both can walk away, no one is forced to pay a cost they didn’t accept. Socialism is the opposite: one party’s gain is manufactured by force against another party who never agreed to fund it. The ethics aren’t a matter of which party you sympathize with — they’re a matter of whether consent was present. It was, in one case. It wasn’t, in the other.