Privateers and pirates found boarding even more necessary, as both depended entirely on capturing merchant vessels for their livelihood, under the wageless system of "no purchase, no pay."

That he was the last of the Colonel's retainers, a wageless, loyal old dependent attending to the manifold tasks of a sole domestic, the negro never admitted even to himself.

One analyst, noting that many experts had referred to the sluggish economy of the early 1990's as the "jobless" recovery, said a more appropriate expression these days might be the "wageless" recovery.

The power of the Oyo empire, for example, according to historian Robin Law, rested on two forces: the wageless labor of war captives for agricultural production and the extraction of tribute from subject peoples.