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There are about 15 million wage slaves in this country.
According to the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey, just over 40 million South Africans were of working age (15-64 years old) in the first quarter of 2022. Of these, 14 914 000 had a job. This means that almost 15 million adults in this country are wage slaves: people who have no choice but to give up what they produce to someone else just to survive.
The rest of the working-age population is lucky enough not to have to work for an income, probably because they live off the land or something similar.
Of course, the common right-wing argument is that these people entered into voluntary contracts and that the employer is providing capital for these people to be productive in the first place.
The problem is not everyone has capital.
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To listen to the right-wingers, we must all submit to the owners of capital and be grateful for our own enslavement. Yet, knowing that you are a slave is not enough to escape slavery, you need a plan.
What is needed is a practical way for the average person to escape. Call it the modern underground railroad, if you will.
Firstly, you must accept that no one is coming to save you. The forces of the left keep failing to rescue the proletariat in almost every case. Cuba is too far away and so too is North Korea.
Having accepted your slavery, the next step is accepting that the meagre income you receive from your job can be taken away at any time by those greedy capitalists; what if the boss’ son wants a new yacht or a new supercar?
Even though these capitalists want you to take on debt in the form of car finance, a mortgage or even just a clothing account by offering these to you, refuse.
Live like the slave you are, do not fall for their tricks to make you forget your enslavement by taking on debt to purchase things that give you the appearance of wealth, even as you toil for survival and have debit orders leaving you penniless a mere two weeks after payday.
Rather, live like a poor person, get yourself the cheapest clothes you can afford and buy the cheapest food you can afford. The capitalists have taken enough of your money, don’t give them more.
Your goal should be to avoid giving the capitalists any more of your hard-earned money than they’ve already taken. You are certainly not paid the full value of what you make for the greedy capitalists, so don’t be so stupid as to give them more than they’ve taken.
Spend only the absolute minimum. If you are used to shopping for groceries at Woolies or even Pick n Pay, learn about Shoprite, Cambridge, Boxer, and others.
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If you are accustomed to buying clothes that make you look good - even as the capitalist destroys your soul, from high-end stores - learn about Mr Price, Pep, or buy from factory shops if such an option is available where you live.
To beat the slavers and free yourself, you have to avoid feeding them more than they’ve already stolen from you. Remember, you are assuming that they’ve already taken your very means of survival, you are on a starvation diet, you only buy what you need and nothing more.
Of course, you’ll also have to stop binge drinking every weekend, the capitalists want you to be addicted to alcohol, so you keep coming back to them to feed the addiction. Drinking in moderation and only occasionally is fine. But be careful, like all spending, you are giving money to your slavers, so try and avoid that.
Give it to the democratic government for safekeeping, of course. By buying Retail Savings Bonds, which can be bought at any post office branch or online, you not only help fund social infrastructures, such as schools and hospitals, but you also avoid keeping your money in the capitalist banks.
The interest rate you’ll get paid just happens to be among the best you’ll get anywhere in the country most times, but greed does not motivate you like the capitalists, so you do not care about that at all.
Choose the reinvestment option for the interest when you buy these bonds, anything to avoid spending money on the capitalists.
Over time, the money you have kept in the government’s safe hands will grow with compound interest and your regular deposits.
When the capitalists decide to starve you by firing you from your enslavement that you agreed to unwillingly via contract, then you’ll have the knowledge that you kept some of the money you made from them and didn’t give it all back.
If you’ve been serious about doing this, you might even have enough to become a capitalist yourself by paying for the factors of production: land, labour and machinery/capital, and starting your own business.
Compound interest can give you powers no person should have, so you probably want to be disciplined and just use a portion of the interest that you get paid (you can choose to have it paid monthly) for the bare minimum of your needs. The rest, just keep it away from those greedy capitalists and live among the proletariat. They survive on little, you can too.
Remember, spending just empowers the capitalist, any spending. Keep your money, as much of it as you can.
Dhlamini is a libertarian, writer, programmer and contributing author to the Free Market Foundation.
