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The -earners, people paid for Piece Work , or Self-employed people, are paid either in goods and/or services, or a form of limited direct credit, Tokens Or Scrip , which may only be used at a Company Store , owned by their employers and sometimes charging inflated prices. These systems have usually only been used within small and geographically or culturally-isolated rural areas, especially Farming , Fishing , Mining , Logging and Plantation communities, especially when these are Company Town s. Such systems were common in Early Modern History , and may still be found in the Least Developed Countries . Their presence is rarely heard about by the general public, because they are usually illegal in Developed Countries . Truck systems and company stores are sometimes identified with Debt Bondage , although the latter works through advances on wages; by contrast, truck systems control Consumption of essential items, such as food and accommodation. Often, the only alternative to accepting a truck system is working somewhere else. It should be noted, however, that in some limited historical circumstances, such as Settler Colonies , the use of truck wages — a form of Payment In Kind — may be convenient simply because of a poor or unreliable supply of Cash and goods. In such unusual cases, payment may be in large quantities of both tradeable and/or desirable goods. In the developed world, most truck systems died out in the early 20th Century , as government grew and workers and Trade Union s became better organized and more powerful. In some countries, truck systems have been formally outlawed under a Truck Act . One kind of truck system was immortalized in the chorus of the song " Sixteen Tons ", written by Merle Travis in 1947 : You load sixteen tons, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in Debt . Saint Peter , don't you call me, 'cause I can't go; I owe my Soul to the company store. REFERENCES
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