Work, Wage, Justice

According to Capitalism, working for a wage is 'just', because it is a species of Exchange that is validated by the consent of the worker. Marxism rejects that judgment for three reasons. First, Labor is a vital process that, in such an Exchange, is reduced to an inert commodity equivalent to another inert commodity. Second, with the alternative sub-subsistence-level existence, a worker's consent to a wage is given under duress. Third, in that scenario, the worker receives no recompense for subsequent profits enjoyed by the employer, made possible by the surplus-value that material acquires through labor on it. In other words, the first and third indicate that what the worker receives in a wage is not commensurate with what they give in labor, and the second undermines the face-value of their consent. Hence, working for a wage constitutes a violation of Retributive Justice to a worker, according to Marxism.