But wage slavery isn’t only about how much people make; it’s about the freedom to walk away to choose a better option. As a society, we owe it to ourselves to pursue freedom from wage slavery.

In the booming textile mills of 19th-century America, young women were promised opportunity but found exploitation instead.

It’s long past time to end this vestige of slavery. Carrie N. Baker is a professor in the Program for the Study of Women and Gender at Smith College and a regular contributor to Ms. Magazine.

But wage slavery isn’t only about how much people make; it’s about the freedom to walk away to choose a better option. As a society, we owe it to ourselves to pursue freedom from wage slavery.

The wage Slavery In the decade between 1846 and 1855, more than three million immigrants came to the United States, with a vast majority of them settling in the free states of the North.