4 ms·

In my opinion, this is an uncreative misuse of the term "slavery". Words have meanings, and slavery doesn't mean "someone with a shitty job", it means "someone

In my opinion, this is an uncreative misuse of the term "slavery". Words have meanings, and slavery doesn't mean "someone with a shitty job", it means "someone who is fully owned by someone else". I recognize that you're just trying to further a leftist "boo companies" narrative, but even if your employer treats you badly and you're hard pressed to imagine an alternative job, your employer does not own you and you are more free in your choices than any slave has ever been. I recognize that there are jobs that are modern slavery (eg banana plantations), but I don't think that's the kinds of jobs this threat is about. The context is tech employees, or even amazon warehouse workers etc, and even when those are bad, it's not slavery.

Fricken 5y ago
We don't fully own people anymore, we just lease them for a while. That way ensuring they are provided the necessities of life becomes some else's problem. Less liability.
- SyzygistSix 5y ago
  The Yes Men pointed this out explicitly in their presentation to the WTO on Leisure Wear for Managers of the Future. The golden penis suit was just the cherry on top. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEuzVMwsK7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEuzVMwsK7o
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  So you prefer owning people? Or you just object to work? It's not clear what you are advocating for. We live in a world where people need three square meals a day, they want heating and transportation and energy, and other people have to work every day to provide those services. It seems a bit entitled to be moaning about the fact that one must work to survive in life -- that's kind of how this whole life thing works.
  - SyzygistSix 5y ago
    The important thing is not whether something is labeled slavery but rather looking at the dynamic where someone coerces another to spend their time working for someone else. Labeling the dynamic based on the amount of time and degree of suffering is counterproductive. I think most of us can agree that reducing how much that dynamic is in play in the world is ideally a goal for any civilized society. And that the current amount that people are forced to work for the benefit of others is far more than they need to for their own well-being and the wellbeing of society. The amount of labor many, many people are coerced to perform is used as a control mechanism as often as it is for productivity, and in some countries, its use as a mechanism of control rivals productivity as its primary purpose.
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      The problem is when you start classifying voluntary exchange as coercive, then language loses meaning and you can start reaching really dysfunctional and foolish conclusions. So no, needing to provide a good that someone is willing to pay for in exchange for getting a good that you want to pay for is not "coercive". It is not slavery. It is a recognition of the fact that humans constantly need support from others. We are dependent on each other. Animals need to hunt every day. That's not coercion, its dependency on the environment. Humans are dependent on each other. That means we have to do stuff we may not feel like doing, but that others are willing to pay us to do. But the only reason you need to work is to get money, and the only reason you need money is to buy a good or service provided by someone else. If you start calling that "slavery" or "coercion", then you are distorting the language, and the only reason to play language games like this is to deceive, not to get to the truth of the matter or make any meaningful, practical, improvement. So if you feel that, for example, modern industrial economies are too bureaucratic and have too many paperwork jobs, or if you feel inflation is unfair, or that wages are too low, then just discuss those issues. Don't twist the language to try to call needing to work "slavery" - which is a highly charged term - in order to hope that this type of rhetoric will get you over the finish line. The questions of things like wages and pensions and working standards are too important to be subject to this type of polarizing linguistic obfuscation.
      - 5y ago
matheusmoreira 5y ago
I'm not trying to further a narrative, I'm stating my opinion. The fact we're more free today doesn't matter, we're still compelled to work if we wish to avoid misery. Your employer regulates your actions, your speech. If you aren't financially independent and can't afford to quit your job, your employer has so much leverage over you that they do pretty much own you. Worst part is when capitalism finally automates itself into irrelevance we won't get a post scarcity society, we'll get some cyberpunk dystopia with corporations inventing artificial economies for the sake of maintaining the status quo of continuous consumption.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
  Slavery is so much more than employers having leverage. To be clear I also don’t like or care for the current hyper consumption in our capitalist society, but this coercive behavior isn’t slavery and we should limit the term to people that are currently under suffer under human trafficking.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    Well, I just don't see the distinction. Workers will also travel to places they don't want to be in. I just looked these ideas up and it turns out they're centuries old. I'm far from the first person to notice this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery
    - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
      Wage slavery is much different and I do t have an issue with that term- its well established to describe a specific phenomenon of coercive relationship with the employer. I have an issue broadly with describing it as slavery itself, given slavery in the classical sell-your-children, force-people-to-sex, trap-people-in-your-house-for-unpaid-housekeeping sense still exists and needs addressing.
- burntoutfire 5y ago
  > The fact we're more free today doesn't matter, we're still compelled to work if we wish to avoid misery. This is part of the human condition. Goods don't magically appear out of thin air (at least not yet) - they're created by directed action, i.e. - work. By your definition, every human that exists and have ever existed is/was a slave.
SyzygistSix 5y ago
Slavery has many types and as the Yes Men pointed out in their leisure wear for the future managerial class, one of the most efficient forms of slavery is wage slavery. There are many other forms of slavery that differ from chattel slavery and while I prefer better conditions of my enslavement, being forced to work for others in order to eat and live is still slavery. The conditions which people must navigate in the modern world to survive are not natural and are purposefully set up in order to force people to work for the benefit of others in order to survive. There are many good arguments that wage slavery is still slavery and they are not all a leftist take on things. But the important thing is not whether something is labeled slavery but rather looking at the dynamic where someone coerces another to spend their time working for someone else. Labeling the dynamic based on the amount of time and degree of suffering is counterproductive. I think most of us can agree that reducing how much that dynamic is in play in the world is ideally a goal for any civilized society. And that the current amount that people are forced to work for the benefit of others is far more than they need to for their own well-being and the wellbeing of society. The amount of labor many, many people are coerced to perform is used as a control mechanism as often as it is for productivity, and in some countries, its use as a mechanism of control rivals productivity as its primary purpose.

Fricken 5y ago

We don't fully own people anymore, we just lease them for a while. That way ensuring they are provided the necessities of life becomes some else's problem. Less liability.

SyzygistSix 5y ago
The Yes Men pointed this out explicitly in their presentation to the WTO on Leisure Wear for Managers of the Future. The golden penis suit was just the cherry on top. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEuzVMwsK7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEuzVMwsK7o
rsj_hn 5y ago
So you prefer owning people? Or you just object to work? It's not clear what you are advocating for. We live in a world where people need three square meals a day, they want heating and transportation and energy, and other people have to work every day to provide those services. It seems a bit entitled to be moaning about the fact that one must work to survive in life -- that's kind of how this whole life thing works.
- SyzygistSix 5y ago
  The important thing is not whether something is labeled slavery but rather looking at the dynamic where someone coerces another to spend their time working for someone else. Labeling the dynamic based on the amount of time and degree of suffering is counterproductive. I think most of us can agree that reducing how much that dynamic is in play in the world is ideally a goal for any civilized society. And that the current amount that people are forced to work for the benefit of others is far more than they need to for their own well-being and the wellbeing of society. The amount of labor many, many people are coerced to perform is used as a control mechanism as often as it is for productivity, and in some countries, its use as a mechanism of control rivals productivity as its primary purpose.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    The problem is when you start classifying voluntary exchange as coercive, then language loses meaning and you can start reaching really dysfunctional and foolish conclusions. So no, needing to provide a good that someone is willing to pay for in exchange for getting a good that you want to pay for is not "coercive". It is not slavery. It is a recognition of the fact that humans constantly need support from others. We are dependent on each other. Animals need to hunt every day. That's not coercion, its dependency on the environment. Humans are dependent on each other. That means we have to do stuff we may not feel like doing, but that others are willing to pay us to do. But the only reason you need to work is to get money, and the only reason you need money is to buy a good or service provided by someone else. If you start calling that "slavery" or "coercion", then you are distorting the language, and the only reason to play language games like this is to deceive, not to get to the truth of the matter or make any meaningful, practical, improvement. So if you feel that, for example, modern industrial economies are too bureaucratic and have too many paperwork jobs, or if you feel inflation is unfair, or that wages are too low, then just discuss those issues. Don't twist the language to try to call needing to work "slavery" - which is a highly charged term - in order to hope that this type of rhetoric will get you over the finish line. The questions of things like wages and pensions and working standards are too important to be subject to this type of polarizing linguistic obfuscation.
    - 5y ago

matheusmoreira 5y ago

I'm not trying to further a narrative, I'm stating my opinion. The fact we're more free today doesn't matter, we're still compelled to work if we wish to avoid misery. Your employer regulates your actions, your speech. If you aren't financially independent and can't afford to quit your job, your employer has so much leverage over you that they do pretty much own you. Worst part is when capitalism finally automates itself into irrelevance we won't get a post scarcity society, we'll get some cyberpunk dystopia with corporations inventing artificial economies for the sake of maintaining the status quo of continuous consumption.

SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
Slavery is so much more than employers having leverage. To be clear I also don’t like or care for the current hyper consumption in our capitalist society, but this coercive behavior isn’t slavery and we should limit the term to people that are currently under suffer under human trafficking.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Well, I just don't see the distinction. Workers will also travel to places they don't want to be in. I just looked these ideas up and it turns out they're centuries old. I'm far from the first person to notice this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery
  - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
    Wage slavery is much different and I do t have an issue with that term- its well established to describe a specific phenomenon of coercive relationship with the employer. I have an issue broadly with describing it as slavery itself, given slavery in the classical sell-your-children, force-people-to-sex, trap-people-in-your-house-for-unpaid-housekeeping sense still exists and needs addressing.
burntoutfire 5y ago
> The fact we're more free today doesn't matter, we're still compelled to work if we wish to avoid misery. This is part of the human condition. Goods don't magically appear out of thin air (at least not yet) - they're created by directed action, i.e. - work. By your definition, every human that exists and have ever existed is/was a slave.

SyzygistSix 5y ago

Slavery has many types and as the Yes Men pointed out in their leisure wear for the future managerial class, one of the most efficient forms of slavery is wage slavery. There are many other forms of slavery that differ from chattel slavery and while I prefer better conditions of my enslavement, being forced to work for others in order to eat and live is still slavery. The conditions which people must navigate in the modern world to survive are not natural and are purposefully set up in order to force people to work for the benefit of others in order to survive. There are many good arguments that wage slavery is still slavery and they are not all a leftist take on things. But the important thing is not whether something is labeled slavery but rather looking at the dynamic where someone coerces another to spend their time working for someone else. Labeling the dynamic based on the amount of time and degree of suffering is counterproductive. I think most of us can agree that reducing how much that dynamic is in play in the world is ideally a goal for any civilized society. And that the current amount that people are forced to work for the benefit of others is far more than they need to for their own well-being and the wellbeing of society. The amount of labor many, many people are coerced to perform is used as a control mechanism as often as it is for productivity, and in some countries, its use as a mechanism of control rivals productivity as its primary purpose.