wage labor, which refers to employment in which someone agrees to work for someone else

in exchange for money, contrasts with

what came before, often arrangements that had people working land that was technically

owned by someone else, like a monarch, local lord, or some other type of government, or

situations in which folks either ran their own trades like blacksmith or baker,

and then took on apprentices who were usually paid some kind of small wage,

alongside having their food and shelter provided by the person to whom they were apprenticing.

The understanding being that they were mostly working for that person in exchange for

the knowledge and skills they would acquire, which would then allow them to start up their own

smithy, their own bakery, or maybe take over the one at which they were apprenticing at some point

in the future. Most common, though, throughout most of human history, was a lifestyle

built around agriculture. And for a long while, that meant agriculture for bare subsistence,

just growing enough to feed you and your family, and maybe a little bit more if you were lucky. And then later, it came to

mean something more akin to serfdom, where folks would work the land, keep some of what they

harvested for their families, and then give the rest a fair amount, to whatever government they

existed under as a tithe or a tax.

Most people were tied to the land in this way,

and the government would trade those agricultural products

that they received from their serfs to procure other sorts of goods.

So there were people working for wages back then, but it wasn't

the most common arrangement throughout all of human history, and most people just worked to

produce food, and a relative few were able to do something more specialized than that. This dynamic

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