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Various aspects of slavery and human trafficking, for all intents and purposes, never entirely disappeared when you think about it. Society abstracted some of t

Various aspects of slavery and human trafficking, for all intents and purposes, never entirely disappeared when you think about it. Society abstracted some of these things away in free markets through labor and monetary exchanges for labor. Some of the very obvious differences between pure historic slavery and what we have now is that human rights are significantly better across the board and individuals have some degree of autonomy to decide what aspects of their self and time to sell and whom to vs previous time periods where those things were just taken from individuals. So long as we're able to give labor that degree of autonomy (e.g. autonomy enabled by the ability to provide necessities for themselves and their family like basic food, housing, and so on) then I think we have a reasonable compromise. Vast wealth disparity (leading to monopolistic behavior on the employment side), lack of competing opportunities to sell your time/skills, and markets trending and stabilizing to states that are not labor-friendly undermine this. This continuously peels away the abstractions we have to create autonomy for individuals and moves the needle back towards owning people like slaves, holding them on a leash indirectly through monetary mediums of exchange (i.e. currency) and so on. If I need money and food and shelter and the only real viable route to attain this reasonably is to sell myself or allow myself to be sold on abusive markets that may want more than say just my maid services (perhaps 'maids with benefits' situations, i.e. disguised prostitution) then that's what's ultimately going to happen. We may claim the people have autonomy but we've just created complex systems around their autonomy that give the appearance of choice. People need viable and reasonable choices, not just a set of options where only one is reasonable for a stable and happy life unless we want to slowly erode back to systems like indentured servitude and beyond. The article explicitly calls out Filipino maids as the highest selling and having been to the Philippines and now being part of Filipino family, I understand why. The country is very poor overall and the culture exports labor to import wealth due to the lack of local opportunity. Sure they can study anything and go anywhere in the world but it turns out, many go to certain middle eastern countries and pursue maid careers because it's their only real viable option. Some of the more lucky Filipinos study in school and are able to get degrees in healthcare or hotel services and work abroad in countries with better protections. Even then, they're held on a leash and abused through visa programs like in the US where they're paid a fraction of the rates their US native counterparts earn and lack mobility to transition positions readily to negotiate competitive wages, so they lose rights to employers and work in undesirable locations, under market rates, and often the under the worst sort of contract situations. It's not like this story of maids in Saudi Arabia where conditions are even worse but it shows how we need to maintain autonomy for everyone. Aside from the being most humane thing to do, out of sheer self-interest, if you sell your labor for time in any fashion, these infringements on rights slowly peel away your rights as well. You may not see it in your lifetime but we should push for better labor rights across the globe to prevent stepping back to past atrocities we've seen in slavery systems.

johnchristopher 4y ago
> Various aspects of slavery and human trafficking, for all intents and purposes, never entirely disappeared when you think about it. Society abstracted some of these things away in free markets through labor and monetary exchanges for labor. Anecdote time, slightly related ! Be me, in wealthy western Europe. Walking a Sunday trail, hundreds of people. Taking a break on the side of the trail, looking at a community garden and reading the plaque about which vegetables is being grown, by who: local public "help" centres (read: a public social support program, state-funded, it's a pillar of our society, to help people find jobs and get back on track). The plaque reads that when vegetables are ripe people are free to pick it up (just don't take everything). Was having a nice chat with a random lady up to that point, most likely a bit leftist, nice, then she drops that line "Well, it's free, it's fine, after all it's all being paid for with our money". On the way back I kept thinking about that and came to the conclusion that slavery could easily come back in less than half a generation. And I am not talking about how work is structured or how our society regulates work and employment and how it's an abstraction. We are always half a generation away from losing our social advancements (English correct wording escapes me at the moment). Edit: for once I caught the comments before losing the ability to edit so I'll reply here. > I can't help but to think some meaning was lost in what you are intending to say. What is "it" that the woman was talking about? Is "it" picking the a ripe vegetable from the garden, like the sign says you can? It's that "it". But the most important thing is in the second part "it's being paid for with our money". The goal of that community garden is not really to feed anyone but to get some people back on track through a regular schedule, group activity and supervised work. Social services are not supposed to produce vegetables or anything that anyone should pay for, a bit like the US prisons that have become free/cheap labor. It's hijacking the original goal. From this I could easily picture a world where people without jobs are forced to get through that system and become free workers tasked to grow vegetables or clean the streets (and it's something that happened in the Netherlands: a public worker whose job was cleaning the street lost his job then got through a back-to-work program in which he was tasked with the same job but for no salary (he was paid - much less - through social support). > Is "it" the government paying folks to plant and tend the garden for the benefit of the public? That's how it was framed in her mind but that's not the reason why there are free vegetables there at that place and time. She's not supposed to get vegetables for free because it's paid with her taxes, she gets them for free because those vegetables are not grown to be sold or make a profit. > I don't understand this anecdote. What was objectionable about what the woman said (if anything). I'm a leftist and I think its important to recognize that value does not come from nothing, but is the result, one way or another, of labor, which is all she seems to be acknowledging. She normalized having people working without a salary and not being fairly compensated (or being compensated by whatever price the market set). Plus, people working that garden somehow don't have a choice in choosing that job (growing up vegetables) because it wasn't a job, it was part of a reinsertion program. The fact she pays taxes to finance such programs shouldn't mean we get free labor. That's where she crossed into indentured work. I'd like to add something else: there are community gardens a few blocks away from where I live. But there's a waiting list to get on it, it's real garden but more for hobbyists and retired people. It's all financed by city taxes through a "green/food/health" kind of program. But the gates to the garden are closed and the fences are high and fact is it can only be used by retired people who lobbied to get some parcels in the first place. There are no free vegetables from those gardens.

johnchristopher 4y ago

> Various aspects of slavery and human trafficking, for all intents and purposes, never entirely disappeared when you think about it. Society abstracted some of these things away in free markets through labor and monetary exchanges for labor. Anecdote time, slightly related ! Be me, in wealthy western Europe. Walking a Sunday trail, hundreds of people. Taking a break on the side of the trail, looking at a community garden and reading the plaque about which vegetables is being grown, by who: local public "help" centres (read: a public social support program, state-funded, it's a pillar of our society, to help people find jobs and get back on track). The plaque reads that when vegetables are ripe people are free to pick it up (just don't take everything). Was having a nice chat with a random lady up to that point, most likely a bit leftist, nice, then she drops that line "Well, it's free, it's fine, after all it's all being paid for with our money". On the way back I kept thinking about that and came to the conclusion that slavery could easily come back in less than half a generation. And I am not talking about how work is structured or how our society regulates work and employment and how it's an abstraction. We are always half a generation away from losing our social advancements (English correct wording escapes me at the moment). Edit: for once I caught the comments before losing the ability to edit so I'll reply here. > I can't help but to think some meaning was lost in what you are intending to say. What is "it" that the woman was talking about? Is "it" picking the a ripe vegetable from the garden, like the sign says you can? It's that "it". But the most important thing is in the second part "it's being paid for with our money". The goal of that community garden is not really to feed anyone but to get some people back on track through a regular schedule, group activity and supervised work. Social services are not supposed to produce vegetables or anything that anyone should pay for, a bit like the US prisons that have become free/cheap labor. It's hijacking the original goal. From this I could easily picture a world where people without jobs are forced to get through that system and become free workers tasked to grow vegetables or clean the streets (and it's something that happened in the Netherlands: a public worker whose job was cleaning the street lost his job then got through a back-to-work program in which he was tasked with the same job but for no salary (he was paid - much less - through social support). > Is "it" the government paying folks to plant and tend the garden for the benefit of the public? That's how it was framed in her mind but that's not the reason why there are free vegetables there at that place and time. She's not supposed to get vegetables for free because it's paid with her taxes, she gets them for free because those vegetables are not grown to be sold or make a profit. > I don't understand this anecdote. What was objectionable about what the woman said (if anything). I'm a leftist and I think its important to recognize that value does not come from nothing, but is the result, one way or another, of labor, which is all she seems to be acknowledging. She normalized having people working without a salary and not being fairly compensated (or being compensated by whatever price the market set). Plus, people working that garden somehow don't have a choice in choosing that job (growing up vegetables) because it wasn't a job, it was part of a reinsertion program. The fact she pays taxes to finance such programs shouldn't mean we get free labor. That's where she crossed into indentured work. I'd like to add something else: there are community gardens a few blocks away from where I live. But there's a waiting list to get on it, it's real garden but more for hobbyists and retired people. It's all financed by city taxes through a "green/food/health" kind of program. But the gates to the garden are closed and the fences are high and fact is it can only be used by retired people who lobbied to get some parcels in the first place. There are no free vegetables from those gardens.