The labour market

The ethos of the people and the labour market

The labour market is where dealings in labour service are carried on. Labour service, unlike a normal commodity, cannot be stored. That labour which for any length of time whatsoever has been unemployed or squandered on enjoyment has been lost in perpetuity. Moreover labour service has to be furnished by people; there is no such thing as labour without people. Consequently a labour contract for the supply of ‘prescribed labour over a fixed period of time’ is essentially something restricting that worker during that period, and a bad labour contract is bound seriously to harm the freedom of the individual. For example a labour contract which engages ‘to work for one's whole life for a certain individual (or for a certain company)’ must essentially be regarded as something very close to a contract for the purchase and sale of slaves, and not merely as a contract governing the purchase and sale of labour service. In the case of the selling and buying of slaves not only does the payment for the sale of the slave's body not go into the hands of the slave himself, but a slave has no freedom even outside his working hours.