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We’ve been accepting of slave labor for decades now. Your clothes and electronics are built on virtual slave wages, for decades.

eloisius 7y ago
"Slave wages" is hyperbole when compared to actual forced slave labor. I agree that it's tragic that lack of opportunity allows for foreign enterprises to pay extremely low wages, but it's a far cry from falsely imprisoning people and forcing them to work.
- runawaybottle 7y ago
  I tried to throw the word ‘virtual’ in there. This stuff can always be boiled down to semantics. Anyway, possibly relevant Onion article on the semantics of it: https://www.theonion.com/jeff-bezos-tables-latest-breakthrough-cost-cutting-idea-1824144898 https://www.theonion.com/jeff-bezos-tables-latest-breakthrou...
  - eloisius 7y ago
    I know you threw in the word 'virtual,' but that's just a way to weasel out of actually having said that we've been accustomed to slave wages for a long time, while still trying to make an emotional equivocation between captive, forced, slave labor, and paltry factory wages.
    - runawaybottle 7y ago
      Okay, so here is a question for you. What would virtual slave wages look like if it actually existed in this world (I’ll operate on the supposed fact it doesn’t exist)? And to follow up, what would a society reliant on that labor be like?
      - Consultant32452 7y ago
        Not OP, but I just wanted to put in my $0.02 regarding the importance of understanding that the enslavement spectrum is orthogonal to the poverty spectrum. You can be a rich slave or a poor slave. Slavery is about freedom. Freedom even to choose a slightly poorer subsistence life compared to a crappy factory is still a freedom. Just to give the conceptual example of a relatively rich slave, a worker in a fully centrally planned communist/socialist state is a slave to the state, even though such a worker might have a clean/safe place to live and modern luxuries. They don't have the freedom to choose their job, negotiate wages, choose where they live, etc.
        runawaybottle 7y ago
        And I’ll add, to be poetic about it, we Westerners are slaves to this supply chain. Of course, I can just choose not to buy that 10 dollar t-shirt from H&M, but it’s mostly hard in our economy. We can’t even vote with our wallet because everything is literally made there. Decades of compliance with this system. The comedy of it all is that got to actual slavery in these Uyghur camps.
        echelon 7y ago
        We're fighting it now. With every new bit of leaked evidence about the plight of the Uighurs, conversations are sparked. The electorate isn't happy about the CCP. Change isn't as fast as I'd like, but it is happening. Coronavirus is a reckoning for our supply chain as well.
jariel 7y ago
No, have a look [1] Wages have been massively improving, precisely because of said business operations. 'Buying stuff' from China doesn't make them poorer, it makes them richer. Holding people in concentration camps is a different kind of activity. [1] https://tradingeconomics.com/china/wages https://tradingeconomics.com/china/wages
- runawaybottle 7y ago
  I’d argue that the ability to go from one paradigm to the next indicates a scalable pattern. So for example, a country with real human rights and labor laws wouldn’t shift into this paradigm until it went through all the steps. China is one step removed from slave labor. I have no data to back this up other than I think they have giant factories that make stuff for a couple cents on the hour.
olliej 7y ago
Yes the wages are low - but you have to compare the wage to cost of living vs just the currency transaction. Also it is wholly incorrect to equate low wages with forced and unpaid labor. Similarly, disregarding the whole concentration camp, torture, and murder as being a meaningless distinction is immoral.
lobotryas 7y ago
Slave wages? How do you figure? Are you comparing eg Foxconn wages to wages of Western workers in Western factories? If so then that’s a ridiculous comparison to make because COL and culture are so different.
onetimemanytime 7y ago
Slave wages...sometimes is that or no job at all. BILLIONS of people live on $1-$2 a day, obviously any salary will be less than $65K plus benefits.
- runawaybottle 7y ago
  Work at a slave factory and stay alive or die in a prison camp. We can keep boiling this down all the way if we need to.
  - onetimemanytime 7y ago
    I wasn't talking about actual forced Chinese prison labor, was talking about low wages ("slave wages") in poor countries.

eloisius 7y ago

"Slave wages" is hyperbole when compared to actual forced slave labor. I agree that it's tragic that lack of opportunity allows for foreign enterprises to pay extremely low wages, but it's a far cry from falsely imprisoning people and forcing them to work.

runawaybottle 7y ago
I tried to throw the word ‘virtual’ in there. This stuff can always be boiled down to semantics. Anyway, possibly relevant Onion article on the semantics of it: https://www.theonion.com/jeff-bezos-tables-latest-breakthrough-cost-cutting-idea-1824144898 https://www.theonion.com/jeff-bezos-tables-latest-breakthrou...
- eloisius 7y ago
  I know you threw in the word 'virtual,' but that's just a way to weasel out of actually having said that we've been accustomed to slave wages for a long time, while still trying to make an emotional equivocation between captive, forced, slave labor, and paltry factory wages.
  - runawaybottle 7y ago
    Okay, so here is a question for you. What would virtual slave wages look like if it actually existed in this world (I’ll operate on the supposed fact it doesn’t exist)? And to follow up, what would a society reliant on that labor be like?
    - Consultant32452 7y ago
      Not OP, but I just wanted to put in my $0.02 regarding the importance of understanding that the enslavement spectrum is orthogonal to the poverty spectrum. You can be a rich slave or a poor slave. Slavery is about freedom. Freedom even to choose a slightly poorer subsistence life compared to a crappy factory is still a freedom. Just to give the conceptual example of a relatively rich slave, a worker in a fully centrally planned communist/socialist state is a slave to the state, even though such a worker might have a clean/safe place to live and modern luxuries. They don't have the freedom to choose their job, negotiate wages, choose where they live, etc.
      - runawaybottle 7y ago
        And I’ll add, to be poetic about it, we Westerners are slaves to this supply chain. Of course, I can just choose not to buy that 10 dollar t-shirt from H&M, but it’s mostly hard in our economy. We can’t even vote with our wallet because everything is literally made there. Decades of compliance with this system. The comedy of it all is that got to actual slavery in these Uyghur camps.
        echelon 7y ago
        We're fighting it now. With every new bit of leaked evidence about the plight of the Uighurs, conversations are sparked. The electorate isn't happy about the CCP. Change isn't as fast as I'd like, but it is happening. Coronavirus is a reckoning for our supply chain as well.

jariel 7y ago

No, have a look [1] Wages have been massively improving, precisely because of said business operations. 'Buying stuff' from China doesn't make them poorer, it makes them richer. Holding people in concentration camps is a different kind of activity. [1] https://tradingeconomics.com/china/wages https://tradingeconomics.com/china/wages

runawaybottle 7y ago
I’d argue that the ability to go from one paradigm to the next indicates a scalable pattern. So for example, a country with real human rights and labor laws wouldn’t shift into this paradigm until it went through all the steps. China is one step removed from slave labor. I have no data to back this up other than I think they have giant factories that make stuff for a couple cents on the hour.

olliej 7y ago

Yes the wages are low - but you have to compare the wage to cost of living vs just the currency transaction. Also it is wholly incorrect to equate low wages with forced and unpaid labor. Similarly, disregarding the whole concentration camp, torture, and murder as being a meaningless distinction is immoral.

lobotryas 7y ago

Slave wages? How do you figure? Are you comparing eg Foxconn wages to wages of Western workers in Western factories? If so then that’s a ridiculous comparison to make because COL and culture are so different.

onetimemanytime 7y ago

Slave wages...sometimes is that or no job at all. BILLIONS of people live on $1-$2 a day, obviously any salary will be less than $65K plus benefits.

runawaybottle 7y ago
Work at a slave factory and stay alive or die in a prison camp. We can keep boiling this down all the way if we need to.
- onetimemanytime 7y ago
  I wasn't talking about actual forced Chinese prison labor, was talking about low wages ("slave wages") in poor countries.