ABSTRACT
The historical structure which the author has described has itself been translated into a paradoxical interactional mesh through the exercise of capitalist power. The historical context of the varieties of modern employee kind-pay emerges from this analysis. Within the structures of rural enclosure and urban capitalization, “perks,” “pilferage,” and “theft” may be viewed profitably as the lingering vestiges of the annexation of customary rights by the ruling class, rather than an index of the growing amorality of the urban working class. Workers are not only, on the whole, paid as a class”, those situated at structurally disadvantaged parts receive large segments of their wages “invisibly” — as tips or fiddles from customers, or pilferage and perks from employers. The crucial common factor in these forms of “invisible wages” is the added power which accrues to employers through their establishment.
