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TL;DR: A scummy company that charges people money for training and equipment, and has people pay off this debt along with interest. This is a shitty situation,

TL;DR: A scummy company that charges people money for training and equipment, and has people pay off this debt along with interest. This is a shitty situation, and it should be illegal. But calling this slavery and throwing up a picture of galley rowing slaves is grossly inappropriate. People are not turned into property. This is coercion through debt. Also galleys rowers were a skilled or at least semi skilled occupation, a task rarely given to slaves and at least in the ancient world navies it commanded higher pay than infantry.

tdeck 6y ago
> People are not turned into property. This is coercion through debt. It turns out there's a term for when people are coerced to work through debt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage > Currently, debt bondage is the most common method of enslavement with an estimated 8.1 million people bonded to labour illegally as cited by the International Labour Organization in 2005. Debt bondage has been described by the United Nations as a form of "modern day slavery" and the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery seeks to abolish the practice.
- manfredo 6y ago
  From your link: >The services required to repay the debt may be undefined, and the services' duration may be undefined, thus allowing the person supposedly owed the debt to demand services indefinitely.[2] Debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation. Debt bondage is when people are enslaved on the pretext of debt. These people do not have the freedom leave their jobs, and this deprivation of liberty is enforced by society. This is not the case with these jobs. "You have to pay to quit" is not correct, people can quit any time even if they don't have any money. What they mean is that people when they quit have to pay back the cost of equipment ans training, and if they can't pay it becomes a debt. This kind of scheme is common in trucking. A company gives training and a truck in exchange for working for the trucking company. But then they charge an interest and a truck rental fee, and the driver ultimately can't make enough money to pay off the loan [1]. The result is that the driver ends up filing for bankruptcy. This is a predatory loan wrapped up in an employment opportunity. It is at best highly sensational to equate this with the slavery detailed in your wikipedia link. Let alone to invoke the Holocaust: > The whole family goes into lockdown like Anne Frank in the attic as soon as Mom dials into her terrible job. 1. https://www.npr.org/2020/08/10/901110994/big-rigged https://www.npr.org/2020/08/10/901110994/big-rigged
- lldbg 6y ago
  A prime minister of Sweden stated that "He, who is in debt, is not free". Sometimes nuances makes communicating concepts less efficient, and debt bondage is one such case.
s1artibartfast 6y ago
Agreed, And the whole chicken farmer tangent only served to undermine the argument only served as a red herring for me. Should every small business with one customer be forced to merge?
Proven 6y ago
Doctorow is a hopeless socialist who has lost it even in areas I once thought he had a clue about. That behavior shouldn't be made illegal - it is already illegal (if what the outsouring company has been doing is illegal). As for their contractors: before you sign a contract that makes you buy something, or take a loan, or generally anything you do not understand, spend 15 minutes checking what it is about and if you still don't understand your obligations, do not sign. Get another gig, or just stay unemployed if you think the risk is not worth it. If you get screwed, seek other people who got screwed and figure out if you can sue the person or organization who scammed you. But don't blame capitalism - blame yourself or busybodies like Doctorow who helped make the regulations so complex. In a free market economy you'd get a simple one page contract you can understand. In fake capitalism you get 10 pages of fineprint.
pjmlp 6y ago
I see it otherwise. > A rare option was "self-purchase" (the term itself revealing the base illogic of slavery). In 1839 almost half (42%) of the free blacks in Cincinnati, Ohio, had bought their freedom1 and were striving to create new lives while searching for and purchasing their own relatives. https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai/emancipation/text1/text1read.htm https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai/emancipation/t...
DerekL 6y ago
The title on HN uses the word slavery. The actual tweets do not.

tdeck 6y ago

> People are not turned into property. This is coercion through debt. It turns out there's a term for when people are coerced to work through debt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage > Currently, debt bondage is the most common method of enslavement with an estimated 8.1 million people bonded to labour illegally as cited by the International Labour Organization in 2005. Debt bondage has been described by the United Nations as a form of "modern day slavery" and the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery seeks to abolish the practice.

manfredo 6y ago
From your link: >The services required to repay the debt may be undefined, and the services' duration may be undefined, thus allowing the person supposedly owed the debt to demand services indefinitely.[2] Debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation. Debt bondage is when people are enslaved on the pretext of debt. These people do not have the freedom leave their jobs, and this deprivation of liberty is enforced by society. This is not the case with these jobs. "You have to pay to quit" is not correct, people can quit any time even if they don't have any money. What they mean is that people when they quit have to pay back the cost of equipment ans training, and if they can't pay it becomes a debt. This kind of scheme is common in trucking. A company gives training and a truck in exchange for working for the trucking company. But then they charge an interest and a truck rental fee, and the driver ultimately can't make enough money to pay off the loan [1]. The result is that the driver ends up filing for bankruptcy. This is a predatory loan wrapped up in an employment opportunity. It is at best highly sensational to equate this with the slavery detailed in your wikipedia link. Let alone to invoke the Holocaust: > The whole family goes into lockdown like Anne Frank in the attic as soon as Mom dials into her terrible job. 1. https://www.npr.org/2020/08/10/901110994/big-rigged https://www.npr.org/2020/08/10/901110994/big-rigged
lldbg 6y ago
A prime minister of Sweden stated that "He, who is in debt, is not free". Sometimes nuances makes communicating concepts less efficient, and debt bondage is one such case.

s1artibartfast 6y ago

Agreed, And the whole chicken farmer tangent only served to undermine the argument only served as a red herring for me. Should every small business with one customer be forced to merge?

Proven 6y ago

Doctorow is a hopeless socialist who has lost it even in areas I once thought he had a clue about. That behavior shouldn't be made illegal - it is already illegal (if what the outsouring company has been doing is illegal). As for their contractors: before you sign a contract that makes you buy something, or take a loan, or generally anything you do not understand, spend 15 minutes checking what it is about and if you still don't understand your obligations, do not sign. Get another gig, or just stay unemployed if you think the risk is not worth it. If you get screwed, seek other people who got screwed and figure out if you can sue the person or organization who scammed you. But don't blame capitalism - blame yourself or busybodies like Doctorow who helped make the regulations so complex. In a free market economy you'd get a simple one page contract you can understand. In fake capitalism you get 10 pages of fineprint.

pjmlp 6y ago

I see it otherwise. > A rare option was "self-purchase" (the term itself revealing the base illogic of slavery). In 1839 almost half (42%) of the free blacks in Cincinnati, Ohio, had bought their freedom1 and were striving to create new lives while searching for and purchasing their own relatives. https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai/emancipation/text1/text1read.htm https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai/emancipation/t...

DerekL 6y ago

The title on HN uses the word slavery. The actual tweets do not.