bound labor
Unfree compulsory toil
Bound labor is work performed under coercion or legal obligation rather than free choice.
The term covers various historical and modern arrangements: indentured servitude, debt bondage, serfdom, and forms of forced labor where workers cannot freely leave their employment.
Bound labor built much of the colonial economy.
The phrase emphasizes the constraint on the worker's freedom, distinguishing it from wage labor where employees can quit at will.
- slaveryOwnership of people
- servitudeCompulsory labor under masters
- indenturedContracted to serve
- indentured servitudeContractual unfree labor for term
- chainsLinked metal restraints
shackles · debt · bondage · forced · plantation · cotton fields · peonage · debt bondage · toil · master · chattel · unfree · human trafficking · coerced · chain gang · serfdom · yoke · captive
bound laborat-will employment
Job without guaranteed duration
labor mobility · wage labor · contract work · freelance work · self-employment
bound laborself-employment
Working for yourself
free enterprise · entrepreneurship · artisanship · freelance work · proprietorship
bound, bounds, bounding, bounded, boundary, boundaries, boundless, labor, labors