Editing Forced labour (section)

===Truck system===
{{main|Truck system}}
A truck system, in the specific sense in which the term is used by [[Labor history (discipline)|labour historians]], refers to an unpopular or even exploitative form of payment associated with small, isolated and/or rural communities, in which workers or [[self-employed]] small producers are paid in either: goods, a form of payment known as [[truck system|truck wages]], or tokens, [[scrip|private currency]] ("scrip") or direct credit, to be used at a '''company store''', owned by their employers. A specific kind of truck system, in which credit advances are made against future work, is known in the U.S. as [[debt bondage]].

Many scholars have suggested that employers use such systems to exploit workers and/or indebt them. This could occur, for example, if employers were able to pay workers with goods which had a market value below the level of [[subsistence]], or by selling items to workers at inflated prices. Others argue that truck wages were a convenient way for isolated communities, such as during the early colonial settlement of North America, to operate when official currency was scarce.<ref>{{Citation |last=Ommer |first=Rosemary E. |title=truck system |date=2004 |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195415599.001.0001/acref-9780195415599-e-1568 |work=The Oxford Companion to Canadian History |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en |doi=10.1093/acref/9780195415599.001.0001 |isbn=978-0-19-541559-9 |access-date=2022-06-10|url-access=subscription }}.</ref>

By the early 20th century, truck systems were widely seen, in [[industrialised]] countries, as exploitative; perhaps the most well-known example of this view was a 1947 U.S. hit song "[[Sixteen Tons]]". Many countries have [[Truck Act]] legislation that outlaws truck systems and requires payment in cash.