A wage-labor contract is, ostensibly, a free contract between equals—but an agreement between equals in which both agree that once one of them punches the time clock, they won’t be equals any more.58 The law does recognize a bit of a problem here; that’s why it insists that you cannot sell off your equality permanently. Such arrangements are only acceptable if the boss’s power is not absolute, if it is limited to work time, and if you have the legal right to break off the contract and thereby to restore yourself to full equality, at any time.)
