4 ms·

Except that the term wage slavery is typically used in situations where the worker is either already in debt, or on the edge of debt. Obviously situations chan

Except that the term wage slavery is typically used in situations where the worker is either already in debt, or on the edge of debt. Obviously situations change depending on time, place, and the particular social conditions, but typically, when you use the term 'wage slavery', the implication is a situation where yes, technically the worker has the ability to quit their job whenever they want, but practically, they don't. There surely is a distinction between even those forms of wage slavery and out right chattel slavery (or whatever), but the distinction isn't nearly as great, nor really, from a human stand point, really all that different. This is especially true the more 'brutal' the wage slavery gets. Put it another way. Imagine you simply magically eliminated all forms of chattel slavery, but then immediately put all those magically freed ex-slaves in deep debt to their ex-owners (with heavy interest), and left them just as socially isolated as they are right now, and then gave them a chance to either take their chances and try to find a job somewhere else, or let them work off their debts to their ex-owners. Are they in a better position than they were before? Yes. Are they in anything remotely close to a good position? No.

yummyfajitas 12y ago
If you are describing various forms of debt bondage (as practiced in India and other such places), I agree, particularly when most debt bondage involves beating those who try to quit. This problem more or less does not exist in the west, with rare exceptions like sex trafficking from eastern Europe (or from rural areas here in India). Most people using the term "wage slavery" are not restricting it to such situations - they are instead using it to describe people who might need to reduce their consumption to globally rich levels (e.g., $20k/year in the US) if they quit their job. In fact, I've never heard anyone use the term "wage slavery" to describe real labor abuses such as what you hint at.
- chipsy 12y ago
  Illegal immigrants in Western countries can easily be led into situations that may be described as "debt bondage" or "wage slavery." They do not have legal recourses, yet are afforded a place as a "hidden" workforce of temps, day laborers, migrant workers, and sweatshop employees, with the threat of deportation used to ensure dependence. Guest workers also tend to receive discriminatory treatment, even though they have a legal status. The Bracero program in the United States was critiqued along these lines, and the situation today has not improved in a real sense, as illegal immigrants continue to be used in similar ways for similar work. These situations share a common thread with the original article in that class is created through legal status, and subsequently magnified by abuses. Enslaved workers are blocked from using resources that could get them out of their situation.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- mzr 12y ago
  There are examples in these comments. This quote is apt: “This is what happens when we don’t pay attention.”
  - Retra 12y ago
    How much attention do you have to pay?
- deleted 12y ago
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- deleted 12y ago
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- briantakita 12y ago
  You seem to have a dualistic view on this. Your definition of "bad" is a salt field slave being beaten or debt bondage and "not bad" is anything "better" than that. It's a low bar to set. I agree, salt field slaves are worse off than McDonalds slaves; McDonalds slaves have the "freedom" to work for Burger King after all. There's also a slippery slope. In many 3rd world countries, people have the "freedom" to leave their farms to work in factories with poor conditions. I define the word "slave" as someone who has freedom taken away by another person or a system. Some people are in more slavery than others. The salt field workers have very little freedom. The McDonalds workers have a little more freedom, but you or I would not want to be one. I notice that you are a wealthy white male financial trader. It must be nice to be in a position where you have such freedom. Please have compassion for people with significantly less freedom than you, even if you don't see them as slaves. People are more than our abstractions. Many people work hard: You know where it ends Yo, it usually depends On where you start - Everlast http://genius.com/Everlast-what-its-like-lyrics/ http://genius.com/Everlast-what-its-like-lyrics/ --- There are also more unpaid slaves today than any other time in history. https://www.freetheslaves.net/page.aspx?pid=301 https://www.freetheslaves.net/page.aspx?pid=301
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    I merely said that by using the word slave to describe voluntary employment, you desensitize people to it. Without reading the article, I cant tell if the article is about forced labor or just some activist whining about how bad their mcjob is. FYI I live in one of those third world countries. I still reserve the word slave for people who are not permitted to quit.
    - briantakita 12y ago
      > I merely said that by using the word slave to describe voluntary employment, you desensitize people to it. I feel the opposite. We can look at these horrible conditions and say, "thank goodness it doesn't happen here in America" and "at least we aren't that bad". Our sense of responsibility is wiped clean because "we are better than them". > FYI I live in one of those third world countries. I still reserve the word slave for people who are not permitted to quit. Treating slavery as a rare anomaly encourages abuses that aren't considered "slavery". We then complain that people are "whining"; they should be grateful because they aren't "slaves". Disrespecting the "complainers" results in the "complainers" becoming marginalized and censored. Some racial minorities have a long history of being marginalized and censored. Just because black people are no longer unpaid slaves does not wipe the slate clean and make everything ok. The dichotomy is even stronger in India, so maybe that desensitizes the nuances of income inequality in 1st world countries. However, I don't know of too many who would want to live in poverty working in a McJob. There's also a malaise of people who work in relatively high paying jobs they don't enjoy. This addiction to money & convenience motivates people to do strange things and to view others & the planet in an unhealthy way.
baddox 12y ago
"Wage slavery," every time I have seen it used, is used to describe any situation where someone trades their own labor for some payment other than the complete product of that labor.
zo1 12y ago
"Put it another way. Imagine you simply magically eliminated all forms of chattel slavery, but then immediately put all those magically freed ex-slaves in deep debt to their ex-owners (with heavy interest), and left them just as socially isolated as they are right now, and then gave them a chance to either take their chances and try to find a job somewhere else, or let them work off their debts to their ex-owners. Are they in a better position than they were before? Yes. Are they in anything remotely close to a good position? No. " I don't think you understand the difference between voluntarily entering debt, and being forced into a situation against your will. Whether they are in a "good position" or not is irrelevant so long as they weren't forced into it. We all make stupid mistakes, and we have to live with them. Sometimes those mistakes are huge, and we will spend the rest of our lives "repaying" or fixing the damage. Though, it's different with the mentally handicapped. They're not able to make informed decisions for themselves, and could quite easily (and voluntarily) get into huge debt. That is why they need to be protected by their family, which we are sorely neglecting by increasingly injecting the state as a surrogate parental figure when the parents(or family) are available and it is not necessary.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Wage slavery does not imply free choice. Here's an article about people who had their arms hacked off with axes when they tried to leave their bonded labour. http://bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27486450 http://bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27486450
  - zo1 12y ago
    Doesn't sound like they agreed to or chose to have their hands chopped off, though. They were tricked, kidnapped and held for ransom from a family too poor to pay anything. So I don't see what you're getting at? Wikipedia has a good write up about wage-slavery, if you're curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery
    - DanBC 12y ago
      You seem to be saying that people who voluntarily enter into bonded slavery need to take responsibility for the choice they made. You appeared in your comment to suggest that bonded labour is not actual slavery - but it is. http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/bonded_labour/ http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/bonded_labo... People do not freely enter into arrangements to become wage slaves. You said they did.

yummyfajitas 12y ago

If you are describing various forms of debt bondage (as practiced in India and other such places), I agree, particularly when most debt bondage involves beating those who try to quit. This problem more or less does not exist in the west, with rare exceptions like sex trafficking from eastern Europe (or from rural areas here in India). Most people using the term "wage slavery" are not restricting it to such situations - they are instead using it to describe people who might need to reduce their consumption to globally rich levels (e.g., $20k/year in the US) if they quit their job. In fact, I've never heard anyone use the term "wage slavery" to describe real labor abuses such as what you hint at.

chipsy 12y ago
Illegal immigrants in Western countries can easily be led into situations that may be described as "debt bondage" or "wage slavery." They do not have legal recourses, yet are afforded a place as a "hidden" workforce of temps, day laborers, migrant workers, and sweatshop employees, with the threat of deportation used to ensure dependence. Guest workers also tend to receive discriminatory treatment, even though they have a legal status. The Bracero program in the United States was critiqued along these lines, and the situation today has not improved in a real sense, as illegal immigrants continue to be used in similar ways for similar work. These situations share a common thread with the original article in that class is created through legal status, and subsequently magnified by abuses. Enslaved workers are blocked from using resources that could get them out of their situation.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
mzr 12y ago
There are examples in these comments. This quote is apt: “This is what happens when we don’t pay attention.”
- Retra 12y ago
  How much attention do you have to pay?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
briantakita 12y ago
You seem to have a dualistic view on this. Your definition of "bad" is a salt field slave being beaten or debt bondage and "not bad" is anything "better" than that. It's a low bar to set. I agree, salt field slaves are worse off than McDonalds slaves; McDonalds slaves have the "freedom" to work for Burger King after all. There's also a slippery slope. In many 3rd world countries, people have the "freedom" to leave their farms to work in factories with poor conditions. I define the word "slave" as someone who has freedom taken away by another person or a system. Some people are in more slavery than others. The salt field workers have very little freedom. The McDonalds workers have a little more freedom, but you or I would not want to be one. I notice that you are a wealthy white male financial trader. It must be nice to be in a position where you have such freedom. Please have compassion for people with significantly less freedom than you, even if you don't see them as slaves. People are more than our abstractions. Many people work hard: You know where it ends Yo, it usually depends On where you start - Everlast http://genius.com/Everlast-what-its-like-lyrics/ http://genius.com/Everlast-what-its-like-lyrics/ --- There are also more unpaid slaves today than any other time in history. https://www.freetheslaves.net/page.aspx?pid=301 https://www.freetheslaves.net/page.aspx?pid=301
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  I merely said that by using the word slave to describe voluntary employment, you desensitize people to it. Without reading the article, I cant tell if the article is about forced labor or just some activist whining about how bad their mcjob is. FYI I live in one of those third world countries. I still reserve the word slave for people who are not permitted to quit.
  - briantakita 12y ago
    > I merely said that by using the word slave to describe voluntary employment, you desensitize people to it. I feel the opposite. We can look at these horrible conditions and say, "thank goodness it doesn't happen here in America" and "at least we aren't that bad". Our sense of responsibility is wiped clean because "we are better than them". > FYI I live in one of those third world countries. I still reserve the word slave for people who are not permitted to quit. Treating slavery as a rare anomaly encourages abuses that aren't considered "slavery". We then complain that people are "whining"; they should be grateful because they aren't "slaves". Disrespecting the "complainers" results in the "complainers" becoming marginalized and censored. Some racial minorities have a long history of being marginalized and censored. Just because black people are no longer unpaid slaves does not wipe the slate clean and make everything ok. The dichotomy is even stronger in India, so maybe that desensitizes the nuances of income inequality in 1st world countries. However, I don't know of too many who would want to live in poverty working in a McJob. There's also a malaise of people who work in relatively high paying jobs they don't enjoy. This addiction to money & convenience motivates people to do strange things and to view others & the planet in an unhealthy way.

baddox 12y ago

"Wage slavery," every time I have seen it used, is used to describe any situation where someone trades their own labor for some payment other than the complete product of that labor.

zo1 12y ago

"Put it another way. Imagine you simply magically eliminated all forms of chattel slavery, but then immediately put all those magically freed ex-slaves in deep debt to their ex-owners (with heavy interest), and left them just as socially isolated as they are right now, and then gave them a chance to either take their chances and try to find a job somewhere else, or let them work off their debts to their ex-owners. Are they in a better position than they were before? Yes. Are they in anything remotely close to a good position? No. " I don't think you understand the difference between voluntarily entering debt, and being forced into a situation against your will. Whether they are in a "good position" or not is irrelevant so long as they weren't forced into it. We all make stupid mistakes, and we have to live with them. Sometimes those mistakes are huge, and we will spend the rest of our lives "repaying" or fixing the damage. Though, it's different with the mentally handicapped. They're not able to make informed decisions for themselves, and could quite easily (and voluntarily) get into huge debt. That is why they need to be protected by their family, which we are sorely neglecting by increasingly injecting the state as a surrogate parental figure when the parents(or family) are available and it is not necessary.

DanBC 12y ago
Wage slavery does not imply free choice. Here's an article about people who had their arms hacked off with axes when they tried to leave their bonded labour. http://bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27486450 http://bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27486450
- zo1 12y ago
  Doesn't sound like they agreed to or chose to have their hands chopped off, though. They were tricked, kidnapped and held for ransom from a family too poor to pay anything. So I don't see what you're getting at? Wikipedia has a good write up about wage-slavery, if you're curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery
  - DanBC 12y ago
    You seem to be saying that people who voluntarily enter into bonded slavery need to take responsibility for the choice they made. You appeared in your comment to suggest that bonded labour is not actual slavery - but it is. http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/bonded_labour/ http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/bonded_labo... People do not freely enter into arrangements to become wage slaves. You said they did.