4 ms·

9-6 is slavery. Slaves never had the luxury of choosing their time.

inscionent 7y ago
In a capitalist system you are either an asset that can be leveraged or a liability.
ravenstine 7y ago
I wouldn't exactly call it slavery, but it's indentured servitude at the societal level. There's no company forcing anyone to work for them, and society technically doesn't force you to work, but if you want to be a part of society you're almost certainly going to be doing something you don't like from 9 to 5 and commuting for 2 hours. You can stay on the plantation and have your basic needs met if you willingly serve the system. I'm not making a value judgment by pointing this out, but that's the way it is.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  > but that's the way it is. And the way it's always been. And the way it will always be as long as humans are self-interested and in competition with each other for resources. Welcome to life (it's the same for all other species, btw)!
ssully 7y ago
This is an embarrassing comment that lacks any understanding of what slavery was actually like.
- darpa_escapee 7y ago
  Not really, it's a very old observation. For example, Cicero observed that "whoever gives his labor for money sells himself and puts himself in the rank of slaves" And there are many types of slavery that are not chattel slavery.
  - veggieburglar 7y ago
    So said Cicero, who was born into a wealthy family of property owners.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      So, people who both owned slaves and employed laborers, and were in a position to see the equivalence, but lacked the identity-group reasons either slaves or laborers would have to see an illusionary difference?
      - veggieburglar 7y ago
        I’m having trouble parsing the second part of your response. Would you mind rephrasing it? My point being that Cicero was free from a life of (physical) labor only because of the presence of these laborers/slaves. Property ownership enabled and paid for these intellectual or artistic pursuits.
        romwell 7y ago
        I think the parent's response is clear, and that they should not rephrase it. In fact, I'm having trouble rephrasing it (without having to explain what "group identity" is). Here it goes, nevertheless. People are social beings. We like to find "our" groups, and feel pride in being members of them. Examples of such groups: political parties, nationalities, religion, fans of a particular kind of music/artist/clothing style/tv show, hobby groups, etc). Because of that, we feel bad when our groups are conflated; we feel it erases a part of our identity. Waged workers in this example feel pride in being not slaves, however nominal the distinction is. This effect is even more pronounced because in a stratified society (which the Roman Empire was), as a waged worker, you could be confused for a slave, but not for a member of nobility. (We feel the most animosity when being taken to be a member of a group that resembles ours the most. Tell a Ukrainian that culturally, very little differentiates them from a Russian - and be prepared to be lectured on just how wrong you are.) So, waged workers, then and now, would have reasons to vehemently identify themselves as "not slaves", and thus they would be biased in assessing the differences, seeing all of them as significant. Ranks of nobility would have no such bias.
toasterlovin 7y ago
People who work 9-6 can choose not to. There are plenty of people in my neighborhood who have gone this route. It doesn't seem like a great tradeoff. People can also choose to work somewhere else. Life comes with no guarantees that it will be easy or pleasant. We all like to complain about this fact, but here we are, still alive, voting with our feet.

In a capitalist system you are either an asset that can be leveraged or a liability.

I wouldn't exactly call it slavery, but it's indentured servitude at the societal level. There's no company forcing anyone to work for them, and society technically doesn't force you to work, but if you want to be a part of society you're almost certainly going to be doing something you don't like from 9 to 5 and commuting for 2 hours. You can stay on the plantation and have your basic needs met if you willingly serve the system. I'm not making a value judgment by pointing this out, but that's the way it is.

toasterlovin 7y ago
> but that's the way it is. And the way it's always been. And the way it will always be as long as humans are self-interested and in competition with each other for resources. Welcome to life (it's the same for all other species, btw)!

ssully 7y ago

This is an embarrassing comment that lacks any understanding of what slavery was actually like.

darpa_escapee 7y ago
Not really, it's a very old observation. For example, Cicero observed that "whoever gives his labor for money sells himself and puts himself in the rank of slaves" And there are many types of slavery that are not chattel slavery.
- veggieburglar 7y ago
  So said Cicero, who was born into a wealthy family of property owners.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    So, people who both owned slaves and employed laborers, and were in a position to see the equivalence, but lacked the identity-group reasons either slaves or laborers would have to see an illusionary difference?
    - veggieburglar 7y ago
      I’m having trouble parsing the second part of your response. Would you mind rephrasing it? My point being that Cicero was free from a life of (physical) labor only because of the presence of these laborers/slaves. Property ownership enabled and paid for these intellectual or artistic pursuits.
      - romwell 7y ago
        I think the parent's response is clear, and that they should not rephrase it. In fact, I'm having trouble rephrasing it (without having to explain what "group identity" is). Here it goes, nevertheless. People are social beings. We like to find "our" groups, and feel pride in being members of them. Examples of such groups: political parties, nationalities, religion, fans of a particular kind of music/artist/clothing style/tv show, hobby groups, etc). Because of that, we feel bad when our groups are conflated; we feel it erases a part of our identity. Waged workers in this example feel pride in being not slaves, however nominal the distinction is. This effect is even more pronounced because in a stratified society (which the Roman Empire was), as a waged worker, you could be confused for a slave, but not for a member of nobility. (We feel the most animosity when being taken to be a member of a group that resembles ours the most. Tell a Ukrainian that culturally, very little differentiates them from a Russian - and be prepared to be lectured on just how wrong you are.) So, waged workers, then and now, would have reasons to vehemently identify themselves as "not slaves", and thus they would be biased in assessing the differences, seeing all of them as significant. Ranks of nobility would have no such bias.

toasterlovin 7y ago

People who work 9-6 can choose not to. There are plenty of people in my neighborhood who have gone this route. It doesn't seem like a great tradeoff. People can also choose to work somewhere else. Life comes with no guarantees that it will be easy or pleasant. We all like to complain about this fact, but here we are, still alive, voting with our feet.