4 ms·

Because nobody with money gave a shit about the global poor until they realized they could be used for cheap labour. The ability to collect the surplus value of

• tor11 6y ago
  cheap labour is better than no labour
• andrepd 6y ago
  > Because nobody with money gave a shit about the global poor until they realized they could be used for cheap labour. They did. It's called slavery. It's only when that finally became mostly unacceptable (remember there are still millions of enslaved persons worldwide), that they had to turn to paying them wages of a dollar a day (slavery with extra steps).
  • DC1350 6y ago
    The transition from slave ownership to slavery as a service is truly one of the most disruptive innovations of the last 200 years.
    • imtringued 6y ago
      Working for income is not slavery. You can always go join open source ecology and build your own civilization from scratch. Forced work in a prison could be considered slavery depending on the reason for the arrest and the financial motives of the owner of the prison.
      • andrepd 6y ago
        > Working for income is not slavery. You can always go join open source ecology and build your own civilization from scratch. No, you can't, because you need to eat tonight, not tomorrow or the week after or next quarter. And you need to pay bills, your house, etc. So the labour market is not in effect free.
  • imtringued 6y ago
    Slavery is not very capitalist. In fact, it's closer to corporate welfare than capitalism (aka socialism except for corporations). Involuntary labor hurts everyone. It's highly inefficient.
• deleted 6y ago
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