Truck system

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The term truck system refers to a form of unfree labour in which workers are paid in goods and/or services, instead of money. It should be noted that truck systems, per se, are distinguished from truck wages, a generic term for non-cash payments, which in some historical contexts have been utilised by free workers.

The labour historian George Hilton, who wrote an oft-cited book on truck systems in early modern Britain, defined them as: "a set of closely related arrangements whereby some form of consumption is tied to the employment contract [emphasis added]."^[1] Under such systems, wage-earners, people paid for piece work, or self-employed people, are paid either in unexchangeable goods and/or services, or a form of limited direct credit, tokens or scrip, which may only be used at a company store, owned by their employers and often charging inflated prices. These systems have usually only been used within small and geographically or culturally-isolated rural areas, especially farming, fishing, mining, logging and plantation communities, especially when these are company towns.

Although such systems were common in early modern history, and may be found in the least developed countries of the modern world, they are extremely rare, and usually illegal, in developed countries.

Truck systems and company stores are sometimes identified with debt bondage, although the latter works through advances on wages; by contrast, truck systems control consumption of essential items, such as food and accommodation. Often, the only alternative to accepting a truck system is working somewhere else.

It should be noted, however, that in some limited historical circumstances, such as settler colonies, the use of truck wages — a form of payment in kind — may be convenient simply because of a poor or unreliable supply of cash. In such unusual cases, payment may be in large quantities of both tradeable and/or desirable goods.

In the developed world, most truck systems died out in the early 20th century, as govenment grew and workers and trade unions became better organized. In some countries, truck systems have been formally outlawed under a Truck Act.

One kind of truck system was immortalized in the chorus of the song "Sixteen Tons", written by Merle Travis in 1947:

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt.

Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go;

I owe my soul to the company store.

[edit] References

George W. Hilton, The Truck System, including a History of the British Truck Acts, 1465-1960. Cambridge, UK: W. Heffer & Sons Ltd, 1960.
Tom Brass and Marcel Van Der Linden (eds.), Free and Unfree Labour: The Debate Continues (International and Comparative Social History, 5). New York: Peter Lang AG, 1997.
Tom Brass, Towards a Comparative Political Economy of Unfree Labour: Case Studies and Debates. London: Frank Cass Publishers, 1999.
Price V. Fishback, Operations of "Unfettered" Labor Markets. Journal of Economic Literature (June 1998): 722-65.