The title is a bit reductionist, but labour in the sense of getting paid to perform tasks for a ruthless entity isn’t exactly the only way to organize work.

There were, for example, quite successful anarcho-syndicalist worker collectives in civil-war Spain. Of course Franco dismantled them and even the communists back then hated them, but for a time they were successful.

Now, whether this is the best, or even a functioning, approach I don’t know. But if you look at the state of the current system, it’s not exactly working either.

Just in terms of efficiency, it’s incredibly bad. Look at all the completely wasted work due to the sheer existence of the management class. That can’t be the best system.