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To me, the only difference between this woman's work environment and slavery, seems the lack of chains.
by raarts 11y ago
To me, the only difference between this woman's work environment and slavery, seems the lack of chains.
- b6 11y agoPlease clarify for me. You're saying working at Yelp in 2016 is similar to life, e.g., as a rower on a slave ship?
- loktarogar 11y agoIf you think the only slavery is the kind with heavy manual labor, you're minimising the hardships that many slaves have gone through. All slavery is bad. Some is worse.
- fareesh 11y agoI believe the comment is an obvious hyperbole to convey the author's contempt for Yelp. I could be wrong.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- raarts 11y agoNo, I did not mean the harsh physical conditions, I mean the lack of control over your own life. This employer seemed to 'own' her much more than I would consider reasonable. It's not legal ownership, but the outcome seems practically the same.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- diskcat 11y agoAnd of course the fundamental fact that she chose to work here and that a slave did not have a choice, except to not obey his master and be beaten or murdered.
- sgift 11y agoA slave could have chosen not to work and would have been beaten. She could have chosen not to work and wouldn't have been able to feed herself and her children. To me this looks like a situation which is at least related. Not exactly the same, but not completely different.
- shultays 11y agoA slave can't chose to work somewhere else though. She could chose to work somewhere else with cheaper conditions.
- mercer 11y agoA slave can escape though. It's all a matter of degrees, and where one draws the line between 'slavery' and 'freedom' depends entirely on one's world view. Personally I believe the crucial element is the psychology of a human being, and I believe that by that measure, 'true' freedom is much rarer than we think. On the level of societies, I think a world where everyone would have too much freedom might actually not lead to optimal individual or collective happiness, and I think finding the balance is incredibly complicated. All that said, I think the relative lack of security and freedom for many people in the US is a travesty and not fitting for a country that puts freedom front and center.