![](bg3.png)
overcome these difficulties, a compulsory labor
system is implemented, and only a small portion of
the work is completed by wage labor. The
establishment of sugar cane processing factories and
the transport of plants from fields to factories can no
longer be carried out by forced labor, because of
compulsory workloads are already burdensome.
Kartodirdjo (1987) asserted that if the “gugur
gunung” or mutual cooperation of road construction
work was built, then the planting and processing was
done by compulsory labor, thus making it impossible
for them to carry out transportation and processing
work at the factory. On such circumstances, the wage
labor is known, even with relatively small wage rates.
In subsequent years, the production is increasing and
the demand for wage labor is higher. The composition
of the compulsory labor begins to displaced by the
position of the wage labor who is working with a
mutually agreed wage system. The number of
compulsory labor or forced work gradually
diminished, and was finally banned along with the
gradual implementation of the Cultivation System at
the pressure of the Humanist group in the
Netherlands. According to Burger (1954), the
abolition of Cultivation System became the beginning
of the de-feudalization process in Javanese the social
life of Javanese society, and after 1870 there was a
condition in which people were dragged into the
capitalist mode of production by the power
mechanism over labor and land.
If Cultivation System has utilized the traditional
or feudal system, and it is strongly disliked by
liberals, then to build a new political economic
policy, it is necessary to establish a system that gives
constitutional authority to private entrepreneurs to
develop their investment in Indonesia. The growing
power of Dutch private entrepreneurs and
industrialization led to the growth of financial
capitalism that focused on the necessity of the
colonial state as an investment region. So since 1870,
the need for capital investment to seek distribution in
Indonesia directed to plantation companies. For these
specifics of interest the Agrarian Law was issued in
1870 (Kartodirdjo and Surjo, 1991:80).
The enactment of the Agrarian Law 1870 means
that land liberalization as the main factor of
production and the policy has an impact on other
equally important factors of production namely labor.
The private plantation system has encouraged the
increasing demand for labor and land, as well as an
increase in the need for money so that indirectly
began to develop habits in society providing
compensation for any work in the form of money.
Thus, according to Heilbroner (1994:6), the condition
becomes an indicator of optimizing the mobilization
of labor as a dynamiter factor in the forming of market
society, in other words, the emergence of free wage
labor, according to Sartono (1987) is a logical
consequence of the forming process of market
society. The complete abolition of compulsory labor
after 1882, there is no alternative for plantation
entrepreneurs to look for wage labor in the free labor
market.
At first, labor issue is not formally regulated
because there is a presumption that in Java with
higher population density than other regions in
Indonesia, the assurance of labor availability will be
fulfilled by itself. A labor policy since 1830-1870
contained in the rules of implementing Cultivation
System which is often identified with the exploitation
of labor in Java (Mubyarto,1992:107). The
government policy on labor after 1870 is more an
anticipation of various issues that arise from capital
penetration of private plantation entrepreneurs. In
1872 the government reintroduced the Police
Punishment Regulations that impose sanctions on
termination of labor contracts (Kartodirdjo, 87: 332).
Another rule was issued in 1880 known as “Koeli
Ordonantie”, which was followed by gradual changes
in 1889, 1911 and 1915 (Tauchid, 1952:93).
The emergence of free wage labor in Java actually
began to grow since the implementation of
Cultivation System. This circumstance is more due to
the government's inability to manage the
transportation and production sector in sugar
factories. And to overcome these issues, the
government has no choice but to employ the wage
labor provision (Breman, 1983). So as with the
increase in export production, that would also
increase the need for wage labor until the end of
Cultivation System implementation. Likewise, the
needs of private plantations in Java and in the newly
opened East Sumatra also experienced difficulties in
the provision of the work force, and for that reason,
they recruited wage labor which largely from Java
(Day,1972).
The free labor group that worked with wage
system in Java in the 19th - century, in sociologically-
historically can not be separated from the pattern of
social life of the society at that time. The reason to
become free wage labor is certainly not a
generalizable reason, because of the social conditions
of society that also different. However, it can
generally be categorized into wage labor groups as
forced by circumstances, and volunteer wage labor
groups.
The free labor group that forced by circumstances,
come from landowners who are inadequate because
ICSE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education
266