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Slavery was abolished, so the rich are now trying to make economic oppression the equivalent of slavery.
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this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
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- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
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- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
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Progressive history nerd with an "aKshUlLy" for you to consider:
Slavery was never abolished, it was moved. There are more slaves in the world today than ever before and the US (among others) is funding it. Our stores are full of goods made by slaves. It's worse now than when slaves were just farmhands because those old high paying factory jobs were still a boon for the domestic worker. Those are slave jobs overseas now. A foundational economic pillar of stable, unionized labour was removed and never replaced.
So certainly, stagnant wages and everything is costing more and giving us less. Our current spiraling situation for workers at home is deplorable and getting worse, a true dystopia. But slavery is another kettle of fish. There's a scene in Roots, the miniseries from the 70s about slavery. When we get to the aftermath of the civil war in the south, a governor told the nervous former slave owners that like peter rabbit trying to get into the garden, when the farmer puts up an obstacle, you just find a way around it. For a time, that meant chattle slaves simply become indentured slaves, working to pay off costs they can never quite catch up on. Once that was abolished, we just laundered our slavery through international borders. Out of sight out of mind for the average American. It's the same people doing the same thing, it's just a shell game. The oppression of the working class is intersectional as fuck with slavery, has the same root cause, and evolved along side slavery, but the human suffering experienced by actual slaves is much worse than the typical underpaid worker, so for me, I don't think it's quite the same thing. But this is just symantics.
Responses from historians will rarely make you feel better, but will help you understand the complexities that people without that specialization often overlook.
Knowledge is its own reward.
Automation means that proportionally fewer slaves can provide more. That "denies the slave's existence as a human being" bit is rather vague. Are you saying modern slavery is not denying the slave's existence as a human being? What does that mean?
The way they're viewed really isn't the problem. Someone being imprisoned and forced to work really isn't affected by the man with the whips opinions of them, because of they slave away they don't get whipped. They're existence has been stripped too bare for such distinction to make a difference. Slavery is like war and war never changes.
How is that different from current slaves? Attitude of the general population? Doesn't seem to make much practical difference.
Again, that makes little to no practical difference to the slave, they're getting abused just the same.
Point to the time where prisoners in the U.S. were stacked up on boats and shipped across the Atlantic for months at a time.
You don't see prisoners treated like cargo here. Don't get me wrong, they aren't treated well, but there are certain factors here that I don't think you're considering.