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Unpaid: The Past, Present and Future of Wage Theft
How capitalism steals our time and our labour, and how we can fight back.
An extra 15 minutes work here, another 20 minutes wage theft has been described as a silent epidemic blighting the global workforce. And it’s on the rise. In the UK and US alone millions of workers put in billions of unpaid hours amounting to tens of billions in wage theft. The problem pervades throughout the world, in every sector of every country, though it is often worse in low and middle-income countries. But what if wage theft, rather than being a modern bug, is a feature of capitalism itself?
In this original conceptual and empirical work, political economist Matthew Cole uncovers the long history of wage theft, its contemporary machinations and how to overcome it. There are as many ways to steal wages as there are to pay them. But rather than attribute these practices to the actions of a few nefarious employers, Cole shows how wage theft is baked into the very working of the economy. But it doesn't have to be this way. The modern economy has a history, and we can change it. Unpaid explains why wage theft occurs, how employers get away with it, and what we can do to fight back.
An extra 15 minutes work here, another 20 minutes wage theft has been described as a silent epidemic blighting the global workforce. And it’s on the rise. In the UK and US alone millions of workers put in billions of unpaid hours amounting to tens of billions in wage theft. The problem pervades throughout the world, in every sector of every country, though it is often worse in low and middle-income countries. But what if wage theft, rather than being a modern bug, is a feature of capitalism itself?
In this original conceptual and empirical work, political economist Matthew Cole uncovers the long history of wage theft, its contemporary machinations and how to overcome it. There are as many ways to steal wages as there are to pay them. But rather than attribute these practices to the actions of a few nefarious employers, Cole shows how wage theft is baked into the very working of the economy. But it doesn't have to be this way. The modern economy has a history, and we can change it. Unpaid explains why wage theft occurs, how employers get away with it, and what we can do to fight back.
288 pages, Paperback
First published May 26, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 9, 2026
The book is good. It’s quite academic in nature so there’s gonna be some terms the layman might not get but overall it’s well written and cited. I liked some of the zings Cole puts out there on some contemporaries and I enjoyed the creative writing that blossoms in the final chapter. Pretty cool I’m the first to review it on here. Looking forward to watching the interview Verso put out the other day with Cole about this book
June 18, 2026
Fun read, especially the latter half. Parts of the book were a little challenging to read and I think merited some more explanation of the terms and broader context. I often felt like I was stumbling into an academic conversation midway through and had difficulty understanding and keeping track of all the concepts. That being said, the rest of the book was great and gave me many insights about wages and economic systems. Would definitely recommend :)
August 11, 2026
For the most part I enjoyed this book. I think the topic is super important and it did a wonderful job both looking at the history of wage theft and working exploitation, and examining how it is evolving in a technocratic world.
My main reason for dropping a star, given how well-researched and salient the book was, is that it's a little *too* academic. While it's important to have rigorous academic investigation of topics, I think the information in this book was important enough that it could have/should have been made more accessible to a larger audience. Though obviously the foundational philosophies of Marx, Engels, etc are important, this book expounded on them a little too much, in language that was hard to access if you don't already have some of that foundational philosophy. And let's be honest, most people don't. And I don't think the book would've been less impactful if some of the abstractness of the philosophies was removed - there are lots of ways to explain these theories without getting overly academic (largely BECAUSE they are rooted in material conditions, which people have a good handle on).
So anyway, a good and I thought readable book on an important topic, but with the recognition that it's just a liiiiiittle academic to have broad appeal.
My main reason for dropping a star, given how well-researched and salient the book was, is that it's a little *too* academic. While it's important to have rigorous academic investigation of topics, I think the information in this book was important enough that it could have/should have been made more accessible to a larger audience. Though obviously the foundational philosophies of Marx, Engels, etc are important, this book expounded on them a little too much, in language that was hard to access if you don't already have some of that foundational philosophy. And let's be honest, most people don't. And I don't think the book would've been less impactful if some of the abstractness of the philosophies was removed - there are lots of ways to explain these theories without getting overly academic (largely BECAUSE they are rooted in material conditions, which people have a good handle on).
So anyway, a good and I thought readable book on an important topic, but with the recognition that it's just a liiiiiittle academic to have broad appeal.
August 1, 2026
Very dry, but very interesting.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews