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By "an activist group" I mean people who confuse work with slavery. People in prison eat what they're given, sleep when they're told, have (almost) no personal
by AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
By "an activist group" I mean people who confuse work with slavery.
People in prison eat what they're given, sleep when they're told, have (almost) no personal property and are at mercy of the administration on many other issues.
Work is one of the greatest things a human being can do. Working doesn't make an otherwise free person a slave.
- minikites 8y ago>Work is one of the greatest things a human being can do. Would you say that "work sets you free"?
- AlexTWithBeard 8y agoWell, we all know that Godwin's law works. I just didn't expect it to kick in so early in the discussion.
- lovich 8y agoMost people wouldn't consider someone to suggest slavery as the solution this early in the discussion either. Godwin's law doesn't work when you are suggesting the same actions Nazis actually took. You are like the bad guy from Thor Ragnarok. "I don't like to call them slaves, they're prisoners with jobs"
- dang 8y agoPlease don't do this here.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> By "an activist group" I mean people who confuse work with slavery. You mean, people who confuse forced work with slavery.
- AlexTWithBeard 8y agoI think that depends on definition of "forced". If I stop working, I'll get kicked out of my house and will probably die of hunger. Does it mean I am forced to work?
- danharaj 8y agoA lot of people hold that position
- minikites 8y agoYes, you are forced to work and that's one of the main arguments in favor of a basic income.
- AlexTWithBeard 8y agoI personally find the idea of basic income very interesting (I'm not yet confident it will work in real life though), but that's probably an off-topic for this thread. Back to your point though: isn't it ironical then that pretty much the only place where a person is not "forced" to work is prison? How's that ever fair?
- wtdata 8y agoWhich is shifting the "I am forced to work for my own" to "someone is forced to work for me".
- spwmoni 8y agoHave you never heard of the concept of "wage slavery"?
- dragonwriter 8y agoWhile the question of whether capitalism is slavery is perhaps interesting (and quite a large number of people have answered that question in the affirmative), the system where you are committed, without free consent even as that is constructed within a capitalist framework, to an arrangement where a private party rents out exclusive control of you and your labor for a period of time from the government, and compels you to labor for the benefit of that private party is very different from the “you must find a willing party to give you food, and most of them are only willing to do so for money, and most people are not willing to give you money without some exchange of value” feature of capitalism, in ways which make it fit a much less controversial understanding of slavery than any that include capitalism as a whole.
- monocasa 8y agoThe legality of forced work of prisoners is due to an exemption in the 13th amendment. > Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Prison labor is literally slavery.