The concept of wage labor is often seen as a distinctly modern phenomenon, tied to the industrial revolution and the rise of capitalist markets. However, historical evidence suggests that the employment relationship—defined as one individual working under the authority of another for compensation—appeared much earlier. In Mesopotamia, records from the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1750 BCE) already distinguished between free laborers, dependent workers, and slaves. Contracts inscribed on clay tablets reveal the existence of hired workers compensated in grain or silver.
While the scale and organization of such employment were limited, the structure of obligation and payment established a foundation for later economic systems. Scholars such as Karl Kautsky argue that without these early institutionalized labor relationships, capitalism could not have “sprouted” in Europe millennia later. Thus, Mesopotamian practices represent more than an isolated curiosity: they embody the proto-forms of wage dependency that would, under altered historical conditions, evolve into modern employment.
