The "Protestant Work Ethic" of the 19th century demanded that prisoners work for the sake of their own 'moral development'. Turns out it was a really great excuse to turn prison wardens into labor contractors.
this post was submitted on 10 May 2024
549 points (98.2% liked)
Political Memes
5492 readers
2619 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
working on the chain gang
"Huh, I wonder why these Good Ol' Boys put so many former slaves on this chain gang? It must be a coincidence. Good thing this doesn't resemble anything unfortunate!"
Let's dress them up like zebras so that people can't tell if they are black slaves with white stripes or white slaves with black stripes!
I feel like that has to be a really old quote or phrase
Verily, let us garb them akin to zebras, so as to confound the discernment of whether they be black thralls with white stripes or white thralls with black stripes!
I mean tbf there are things you can have prisoners do that seem to help develop them in the prison, working with animals is the one I remember most recently, but in the Nordics they actually have these guys chop down the timber they use for the community stove and the woodshop.
Maybe we just gotta ask if the job is analogous to anything that a kid in grade school would have willingly signed up for.
Here in the United States they actually produce products that are sold to the general public, for profit, for like $0.13 an hour.
But that’s ok because you know, a dimebag or loose cigarettes or whatever
When a prison rather resembles a merry commune and the free outside world is a capitalist hell hole...
except as a punishment for crime
The United States has the largest known prison population in the world, it has 5% of the world’s population, and 20% of the world’s incarcerated persons. China, with four times more inhabitants, has fewer persons in prison.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
China, with four times more inhabitants, has fewer persons in prison.
China, being well-known for its honesty and upstanding record-keeping. That's why they punished Al-Jazeera English for investigating their prison system, and why nothing at all is going on in Xinjiang.
Welll, there's also 1.8 million Uyghurs being reeductated, which is more than the 1.2 million in the prison system. So, one number is bigger than another and doesn't even count the Chinese prison system.
So nice of them to educate them twice 😊
Guess what happens when you introduce a third party that benefits from higher incarceration numbers…
Proceed directly to step 4.
Except…for wage slavery?
except as a punishment for crime
but yeah that too
I just realized, does that make the draft unconstitutional? It's literally state coerced labor without even the pretense of a bullshit charge.
Arver v. United States, 245 U.S. 366 (1918), also known as the Selective Draft Law Cases, was a United States Supreme Court decision which upheld the Selective Service Act of 1917, and more generally, upheld conscription in the United States. The Supreme Court upheld that conscription did not violate the Thirteenth Amendment's prohibition of involuntary servitude, or the First Amendment's protection of freedom of conscience.
TLDR, not according to the Supreme Court, though you haven’t been the first to perhaps disagree.
That ruling is bullshit
As reasoning for its decision, laws of the following governments of sovereign states were given as listed in The Statesman's Yearbook for 1917 as enforcing military service
~~The justices were literaly looking for any reason to keep the draft (for an unwinnable war that the pentagon lied about for years)~~
And yes, the draft is by definition servitude/slavery and is illegal under the 13th.
1917 is just a few decades too early for the Pentagon to be involved. Not that the government wasn't fucking lying anyway.
Oops
Technically it isn't, because you're left with option or conscientious objecting.
what was the logic of allowing ANY form of slavery at all?
Logically, slavery as punishment for crime is actually pretty reasonable and theoretically good. The criminal isn't just taken care of by the state, thus costing the people even more, instead, they actually have to pay for their crime by working it off.
But reality intrudes upon this theoretical situation. Since someone benefits from the criminal's work, there's now incentive to imprison as many people as possible. It creates perverse incentives that cannot possibly be avoided.
But almost as bad a perverse incentive is the for profit prison system, even if they aren't allowed to force prisoner labor. Because for profit prisons again have the incentive to imprison as many people as possible since that makes them more money; anything that reduces incarceration rate means less money for them.
Of course, we have both of these going for us. For profit prisons that make more money off the state the more prisoners they have, and the permission to force labor from them since the Constitution specifically allows it, thus letting the prisons make money twice off each prisoner. Yay!
Yeah even theoretically it's a bad idea. You can't revoke the fundamental rights of people, even criminals, or the fundamental rights are not fundamental anymore, thus endangered for everyone, not just criminals.
In this context? Probably so that prisons pay for themselves. Or the loophole was intentional – it seems rather obvious that Southern states could pass arbitrary laws and enforce them willy-nilly, targeting minorities or whoever fell out of favor of the ruling class.
that's the overview answer, mabe better put, how did the justify this to the lawmakers?
how did the justify this to the lawmakers?
In the 19th century, it was widely believed that people were criminals because of moral deficiency, and that hard labor would have a positive effect in reforming them into good, upstanding members of society.
This is not really connected to reality in any way, but fits with the popular protestant theology of the time.
I am not even a US citizen and I'm making guesses based on my limited knowledge of its history. You'll have to ask someone else.
Article 1. [All persons born free; their natural rights; slavery and indentured servitude prohibited]
That all persons are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent, and unalienable rights, amongst which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety; therefore slavery and indentured servitude in any form are prohibited.
Article 1 of the Vermont Constitution of 1777. Vermont is awesome.
Also, article 3 specifically establishes freedom from religion:
Article 3. [Freedom in religion; right and duty of religious worship]
That all persons have a natural and unalienable right, to worship Almighty God, according to the dictates of their own consciences and understandings, as in their opinion shall be regulated by the word of God; and that no person ought to, or of right can be compelled to attend any religious worship, or erect or support any place of worship, or maintain any minister, contrary to the dictates of conscience, nor can any person be justly deprived or abridged of any civil right as a citizen, on account of religious sentiments, or peculia[r] mode of religious worship; and that no authority can, or ought to be vested in, or assumed by, any power whatever, that shall in any case interfere with, or in any manner control the rights of conscience, in the free exercise of religious worship. Nevertheless, every sect or denomination of christians ought to observe the sabbath or Lord’s day, and keep up some sort of religious worship, which to them shall seem most agreeable to the revealed will of God.
