[f. WAGE sb. + -DOM.] The economic system under which wage-earners live.
1883. Nottingham Evening Post, 15 Sept., 4/3. Mr. Lyons then asserted that, in the place of what he called ‘wagedom,’ there should be one great partnership in trade.
1885. Daily Chron., 7 Sept. (Cassell), By the substitution of industrial partnership in place of wagedom.
1886. W. Donisthorpe, Basis Individualism, in Westm. Rev., LXX. (N.S.), 136. Such is the modern system of wagedom. The wage-receiver gets just enough to keep himself alive for the use of his employers, plus that which is barely sufficient to rear up children, to take his place when he is worn out.
1910. Dubl. Rev., Oct., 375. The positive translation of wagedom into partnership.
