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The "bring immigrants in and make them slaves in my business" thing pretty much requires that the slave-owner be from a culture which tolerates taking abusive a
by cjensen 10y ago
The "bring immigrants in and make them slaves in my business" thing pretty much requires that the slave-owner be from a culture which tolerates taking abusive advantage of workers. In the US, those stories have usually been about rich Saudis bringing in housekeepers, and very rarely have been about people from the subcontinent bringing in workers to their business.
200 years ago the US had a backwards culture which considered slavery reasonable. There were many parts of US culture at the time which were admirable, but nevertheless it was backwards. Backwards cultures can be fixed by changing a very small number of critical items.
It's not about Scotland, it's not about hating other cultures, it's about pockets of residual culture in the world that need fixing.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago> The "bring immigrants in and make them slaves in my business" thing pretty much requires that the slave-owner be from a culture which tolerates taking abusive advantage of workers. A culture that "tolerates taking abusive advantage of workers"? You mean, er, any country under capitalism?
- cjensen 10y agoThat would be the glib response I was afraid that line would provoke, but then I thought no one would go there. Slavery as told in the linked story is very different from the more limited abuses of capitalism in a modern country. Be better than that.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y agoWhat, so you think that slavery is only possible from non-white people, or something? Are you unaware of the history of the West, and of Western slavery in more recent times?
- pcrh 10y ago>200 years ago the US had a backwards culture which considered slavery reasonable. It really isn't 200 years ago that the US considered treating "others" so badly -- and by your own criteria, there are still many pockets of such backwardness present in the US today. For example, a vast proportion of California's agriculture is dependent on undocumented farm labor with no legal rights.
- nerdponx 10y agoAs a US citizen I would not be offended by calling any of that stuff backward. Because it is backward. There are a lot of people in my country who I don't know how they sleep at night.