Menial Slavery In Our Own Time

[Flannel Jesus]

it doesn't depend on those things at all. if i drag you away from your home and force you to work for me, it's slavery, EVEN IF I PAY YOU A MILLION DOLLARS. if you come to my office and apply to work for me of your own volition without any coercion on my part or the part of anybody collaborating with me, it's not slavery, EVEN IF I PAY YOU 2 CENTS. it doesn't depend on how much you get at all. all it depends on is if I use or asked/authorized someone else to use force or coercion to make you work for me. that's it. that's the only criteria. not how much money is involved, not who you're working for, not the kind of work you're doing, nothing else.

[SIATD v2]

when one's life is devoted, out of necessity, to drudgery and menial work for low wages that are not sufficient to provide them with any opportunity for advancement or improvment of their condition, they are a slave.

No, they are underpaid and overworked. They still own their own labour. A slave does not.

what does that mean, they "own" their labor? their work is being taken from them.

The product of their labour is taken from them. Their labour itself (their time and energy and use of their body) still belongs to them.

So working at Wal Mart and living in your parents basement is nowhere near as bad as seeing your village destroyed, your sister and mother raped, you and your father and brothers rounded up and imprisoned on a ship, taken across the Atlantic, during which time your father and several of your brothers are beaten to death or starve and are thrown overboard, only to arrive in the 'land of freedom' where you spend the rest of your days picking cotton for some rich white motherfucker. Nowhere near as bad.

yeah, that would suck, but it's beside the point. what you describe is not a prerequisite for slavery.

It would more than 'suck', and sure this isn't the story of all slaves. I was just using it to highlight certain differences between being a slave and working a shit, humiliating job at Wal Mart. A slave is simply someone who does not own their own labour, i.e. their own productive capacity. A capitalist worker owns their own labour, but does not own the products of their labour. Quite different.

[uglypeoplefucking]

it doesn't depend on those things at all. if i drag you away from your home and force you to work for me, it's slavery, EVEN IF I PAY YOU A MILLION DOLLARS. if you come to my office and apply to work for me of your own volition without any coercion on my part or the part of anybody collaborating with me, it's not slavery, EVEN IF I PAY YOU 2 CENTS. it doesn't depend on how much you get at all. all it depends on is if I use or asked/authorized someone else to use force or coercion to make you work for me. that's it. that's the only criteria. not how much money is involved, not who you're working for, not the kind of work you're doing, nothing else.

i see. i thought what you objected to in my use of the term slavery was that conditions for menial laborers aren't bad enough to deserve the term. but you are referring to a definition that i guess requires labor to be physically coerced by another person. fair enough, but when i call someone a wage slave it's a different way of using the term. i use it to connote the overall shitiness of certain kinds of work and wages, and to indicate the lack of choice most menial laborers have about how they spend their lives, not to imply that people are literally working in chains at gunpoint. i think most people get the difference between a slave in the deep south of the USA 100 years ago and what i'm referring to when i call someone a wage slave.

in any case, i still think you overestimate the amount of choice most menial laborers actually have surrounding their jobs. sure people generally seek out employment, just like they seek out any other necessity, but that doesn't mean that someone pulling levers in the toothpaste factory has much say in what they are doing. they need to survive somehow, presumably without killing or stealing or whatever. it's not like someone who ends up doing that their whole life really had a whole lot of other options.

[uglypeoplefucking]

The product of their labour is taken from them. Their labour itself (their time and energy and use of their body) still belongs to them.

as i see it, their labor belongs to the employer, who has purchased it from them.

It would more than 'suck', and sure this isn't the story of all slaves. I was just using it to highlight certain differences between being a slave and working a shit, humiliating job at Wal Mart. A slave is simply someone who does not own their own labour, i.e. their own productive capacity. A capitalist worker owns their own labour, but does not own the products of their labour. Quite different.

deliberate understatement on my part, indeed it would more than suck, and of course there is a difference between what i refer to as a wage slave and what you are talking about, but i don't think that means there's anything wrong with the term persay.

[Moreno]

The closest thing to legal slavery in the US is being in the armed forces. Once you are in you do not control most of your actions and can be ordered around, etc. You can be moved anywhere on earth and told to do pretty much anything.

Notice who 'lines up' to become this kind of slave: the poor.

Now of course some of the poor do this for other reasons, and members of other classes become this kind of slave for other reasons also.

But it is not a coincidence that it is a poor person's military.

FJ wondered what slavery people line up for: well here's one.

and the reason: to avoid another kind of slavery if possible. Working poverty.

[uglypeoplefucking]

The closest thing to legal slavery in the US is being in the armed forces. Once you are in you do not control most of your actions and can be ordered around, etc. You can be moved anywhere on earth and told to do pretty much anything.

Notice who 'lines up' to become this kind of slave: the poor.

Now of course some of the poor do this for other reasons, and members of other classes become this kind of slave for other reasons also.

But it is not a coincidence that it is a poor person's military.

FJ wondered what slavery people line up for: well here's one.

and the reason: to avoid another kind of slavery if possible. Working poverty.

it's true. but what do you say to the argument that working poverty is not something that someone else physically coerces you into, and therefore isn't slavery?

[Moreno]

it's true. but what do you say to the argument that working poverty is not something that someone else physically coerces you into, and therefore isn't slavery?

I think it is a naive understanding of coercion. There is a threat of physical consequences. I don't think it matters for the slave that there is no person standing there with a whip as long as there is an effective whip that will work and will find them if they decide not to take a menial job.

[uglypeoplefucking]

yes, but to play devil's advocate, i think the issue with that understanding of coercion is that it is not another PERSON who has put the whip in place, it's more just contingencies of fate, if you see what i mean . . .

[FilmSnob]

yes, but to play devil's advocate, i think the issue with that understanding of coercion is that it is not another PERSON who has put the whip in place, it's more just contingencies of fate, if you see what i mean . . .

[Moreno]

yes, but to play devil's advocate, i think the issue with that understanding of coercion is that it is not another PERSON who has put the whip in place, it's more just contingencies of fate, if you see what i mean . . .

'contingincies of fate' made money on the latest financial crisis.

at some point we told poorer people...there is no tribe, there is no community, you are on your own.....

except when we need an army, for example, then suddenly we are a we again.

[Moreno]

yes, but to play devil's advocate, i think the issue with that understanding of coercion is that it is not another PERSON who has put the whip in place, it's more just contingencies of fate, if you see what i mean . . .

yup.

[James L Walker]

There is no difference between wage and chattel slavery.

There is no difference between selling and renting yourself.

You are selling your time and your time equals your life.

Wage labor= human rental= hired slaves.

What is voluntary about wage menial labor?

[FilmSnob]

There is no difference between wage and chattel slavery.

There is no difference between selling and renting yourself.

You are selling your time and your time equals your life.

Wage labor= human rental= hired slaves.

What is voluntary about wage menial labor?

Hired slaves... It is telling about the current state of mind control that this concept seems new.

[James L Walker]

There is no difference between wage and chattel slavery.

There is no difference between selling and renting yourself.

You are selling your time and your time equals your life.

Wage labor= human rental= hired slaves.

What is voluntary about wage menial labor?

Hired slaves... It is telling about the current state of mind control that this concept seems new.

Yes, it is.

[James L Walker]

I have a couple of things for people to ponder here.

What are the differences between serfdom and slavery? Upon further study one finds there is very little difference.

Why does it appear mass homelessness is purely a modern or post industrial phenomena?

I cannot think of any historical era where mass homelessness has existed in such massive numbers.

What is the relationship of modernity, post industrialism, homelessness, and modern menial wage slavery? I think it has to do with technological structural unemployment where whole entire generations of people's lives are being made obsolete.

[Moreno]

I have a couple of things for people to ponder here.

What are the differences between serfdom and slavery? Upon further study one finds there is very little difference.

Why does it appear mass homelessness is purely a modern or post industrial phenomena?

I cannot think of any historical era where mass homelessness has existed in massive numbers.

What is the relationship of modernity, post industrialism, homelessness, and modern menial wage slavery?

Indentured service/servitude in the US is something that is rarely mentioned in history texts, just to add another version to serf and slave.

It is cheaper to not own the slaves.

It is very clever to shift back and forth from - I have nothing to do with you, I who own the land - to they attacked us, WE are at war. Or, you can't do that, WE have laws against that. Community is used against the individual after we stopped having it for the individual. And that is truly fucked.

And the commons was privitized and is now owned by the elite.

They will not stop until they have get royalities when you pee.

[James L Walker]

I have a couple of things for people to ponder here.

What are the differences between serfdom and slavery? Upon further study one finds there is very little difference.

Why does it appear mass homelessness is purely a modern or post industrial phenomena?

I cannot think of any historical era where mass homelessness has existed in massive numbers.

What is the relationship of modernity, post industrialism, homelessness, and modern menial wage slavery?

Indentured service/servitude in the US is something that is rarely mentioned in history texts, just to add another version to serf and slave.

It is cheaper to not own the slaves.

It is very clever to shift back and forth from - I have nothing to do with you, I who own the land - to they attacked us, WE are at war. Or, you can't do that, WE have laws against that. Community is used against the individual after we stopped having it for the individual. And that is truly fucked.

And the commons was privitized and is now owned by the elite.

They will not stop until they have get royalities when you pee.

Agreed. This then comes with other terminologies such as economic slavery or debt slaves.

It is amazing that people deny these facets of society.

[SIATD v2]

What are the differences between serfdom and slavery? Upon further study one finds there is very little difference.

And yet, on even further study one finds that there is a great difference.

And then, when someone takes the name of 'further study' without actually presenting a damn thing constituting 'further study' to try to make out that there is very little difference, that person concludes that there is very little difference.

[James L Walker]

What are the differences between serfdom and slavery? Upon further study one finds there is very little difference.

And yet, on even further study one finds that there is a great difference.

And then, when someone takes the name of 'further study' without actually presenting a damn thing constituting 'further study' to try to make out that there is very little difference, that person concludes that there is very little difference.

Define the difference in detail.

[Duality]

You are selling your time and your time equals your life.

Trade in your hours for a handful of dimes

[FilmSnob]

You're not trading your life for money, you're trading your life for as ok of a cell as you can get in the massive prison that is a country.

[James L Walker]

Today's definition upon further reading is Economic Slavery.

A condition that a person finds themselves in when the totality of their wages only allows them to pay the interest payments on their accumulated debt.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_Economic_Slavery

[Duality]

as ok of a cell as you can get in the massive prison that is a country.

I thought it was called Will to power

[Duality]

[James L Walker]

I can't afford any health care for it is all too expensive. I either have no health insurance or what I have covers very little where I am still stuck with the bill that I cannot afford. Maybe it's cheaper to just get sick or die.............

Says the menial slaves everywhere in the modern era that falls ill.

Of course would we expect anything less for individuals that are treated very little better than that of domesticated cattle?



Such is the lives of the disposable members of society. Let them get sick and die or let them become even indebted more as working slaves.