Religion and Politics

So to clarify : you don’t mean ‘Jews’ , you mean Ashkenazi Jews. And you don’t mean 'slaves" or “Slavs”, you mean anybody who does the menial labor in a society.

And you’re saying that one group benefits because another group takes on menial work … which frees up the former group to better themselves.

And then what? This can be taken to the point of justifying or rationalizing slavery?

Wasn’t KT making an ethical statement about slavery?

Wage-slavery isn’t actually slavery.

An employee has significantly more control over his life than a slave.

Yes, I suppose so.

Yes exactly.

Well yeah, that’s where I was heading. Not that I necessarily agree with it, but the capitalists do and they make good arguments for the benefits of profit (which is stolen productivity).

I don’t know.

You’re arguing the degree of slavery and degree of control. As long as you’re compelled to do some work that you don’t want to do, then you’re a slave to it, right? Nevermind that said work benefits the employer just like slavery benefits the master.

The master used to house his slaves and provide medical care, food, whatnot and now the employer simply issues money so that the slaves can care for themselves. The point remains that it’s the job of the employee to make the employer money.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXNrVaJJfHA[/youtube]

Transcript

so to keep the game going he has to
39:03
replace the tools and equipment and he
39:05
has to pay the workers, but he has to pay
39:09
the workers… here we go folks:
39:11
less than the value added by the workers
39:14
when they work. Or to use the technical
39:17
term economists like: he has to rip the
39:20
workers off, he has to steal from them
39:25
part of what their labor added. You know
39:29
what the lesson here is for those of you
39:32
who imagined that when you graduate from
39:34
here you will get a job, in fact, the only
39:37
job you will accept is
39:38
one that pays you what you’re worth. Ah
39:42
never gonna happen! The condition of your
39:46
employment is that you produce more by
39:50
your labor than you get paid
39:52
welcome to the capitalist system that’s
39:57
how it works

Those are strictly your opinions about what capitalists think and how one ought to characterize profit.

One is compelled to eat and sleep but should we call it slavery? I don’t think so.

I had to paint my kid’s bedroom. I hate painting but I wouldn’t call it slavery.

I call it a part of the mix of life.

The work benefits the employee as well.

Yeah, it’s a question of degree. Slaves got something out of it and they lost something. The general evaluation became that the slaves lost too much and that there were better options.

We’re still looking for the better option to paid employment. Right?

Fact is a matter of opinion.

Why not?

Why not?

Yes, slaves have benefits.

Instead of forcing the slaves to live on site for fear that they may escape, it was found to be easier to simply pay the slaves slightly better so they would return to work of their own volition.

Partnerships or what Richard Wolff calls “worker co-ops”.

Not really.

Because it trivializes slavery and the suffering of slaves.

That’s a significant difference.

But if I don’t want to work in a co-op or otherwise, then by your own definition, it’s still slavery.

And since you seem not to want to grade it by degrees, all slavery is the same. Right?

Yes really

No it doesn’t. Does a first degree burn trivialize a third degree burn because they’re both called burns?

Not significant enough to remove it from the category of “slavery”.

Slavery is being forced to work for the benefit of someone else. If you’re not forced, then it’s not slavery.

Are all burns the same even though graded by degrees? They’re still burns.

Sorry, I must have missed the post where you made a distinction between first-degree slavery and third-degree slavery.

It appeared that you went out of your way to make slavery and employment seem as similar as possible.

Well, if I don’t want to work but I have to work to put food on the table, then I’m being forced to work and therefore I’m a slave.

Maybe I don’t want to work in some particular co-op but I have no choice because there are only a limited number of available jobs. I’m being forced once again.

Those kinds of issues are going to arise whether I’m an employee of a capitalist or a partner in a co-op.

So you’re admitting that capitalist wage-slavery is significantly better than real slavery?

I didn’t. You did. I’m just playing along. Slavery is slavery and I don’t condone any variety, although you see condemning the one as somehow trivializing the other, presumably because you support capitalism???

Yes they are similar, but I didn’t go out of my way to show it.

CEOs are compensated 400x the salary of their average employee, but did masters live 400x better than their slaves? What did it cost to own a slave back then and what % is that of the income generated on the plantation? I suspect the ratio isn’t all that different and perhaps it’s worse today than in the slave-days. Wouldn’t that be ironic lol

Right.

The only way you can choose to work is if you do not have to work. If you have to work to live, then working is not a choice, but a compulsion. What you are talking about is having the choice about what type of work you might want to do, which is irrelevant to the slavery status.

Sure, why wouldn’t I? Being a well-paid prostitute is better than being a crack-whore, but still isn’t anything to brag about.

No.

You asked why a compulsion to eat and sleep and to paint my kid’s room should not be called slavery. And I replied that it would trivialize slavery and the suffering of slaves to call it slavery.

That exchange had nothing to do with capitalism.

It didn’t say that you “showed it”.

What does compensation have to do with it?

The critical point would appear to be the ownership and control by one person of another person. Abuse finally made people seek an end to slavery. The fact that some people were very rich while others were very poor was not the motivation. The abolitionists didn’t care about that.

Okay, that’s settled. :smiley:

I’m an anarchist. If I were free to do what I want without some bossman putting me in jail or taking away my resources I’d be providing my own food with hunt and gathering and planting crop here and there. But that’s illegal in all kinds of ways. There isn’t space that some asshole doesn’t claim to own, all game is domesticated and owned, hardly any wild fruits hanging around anywhere. So if I don’t find a way to be my own capitalistic boss and get others to do the grunt work for me I am nothing more than a slave of this goddamme co-op I had nothing to do with founding. I didnt choose this economy, but it doesnt have laws to allow exempting people, but it does have laws to dispose of my nuisance if I dont comply with the rules i didnt make or cboose, so you bet I am a prisoner of it, a slave. I am forced to pay taxes for things I morally puke on. Damme rignt this is far from being free. Except for one thing. I can make a million dollars if I put my mind to it. I can buy my own freedom.

Right, so admitting one form of slavery is trivializing the other to you. So then admitting you have a first degree burn is trivializing folks with third degree burns; admitting you have a cold is trivializing those with stage 4 cancer; admitting you have financial problems is trivializing those starving in africa. It seems according to your philosophy, we’re not allowed to label anything unless we are the worst case of it lest it trivialize those who are the worst. I don’t see any benefit from holding that philosophy unless you have an agenda, such as capitalism or possibly religion, that you wish to defend. What else could it be? Why do you want to draw a distinction between first degree and third degree slavery?

Because compensation is the point of slavery. People didn’t own slaves because they liked to be mean to people, but to make a profit.

No that’s more of a side-effect. The critical point is the profit.

I’m not sure how bad the abuse was. Abusing your slaves wouldn’t make any sense since they wouldn’t be able to work as hard. I’ve never seen anyone abuse their horse because they depended on it for work and transportation. If people do not abuse animals (typically), then why would they abuse humans? I suspect history is distorted to demonize slavery and I’m sure abuse did exist, but I doubt it was as common as we’re led to believe. I think the end of slavery was a matter of dignity rather than physical suffering.

The civil war had absolutely nothing to do with slavery, but tariffs and the control of the north over the south. The US was meant to be a confederation of states rather than one big country under a central authority. The scotus had already ruled in favor of slavery before the war began, so why would the south launch an attack if slavery were the motivation? It was about tariffs on cotton causing starvation in the south to which the north was immune since they didn’t deal in cotton.

Slavery was on its way out anyway due to the tractor and general ebbing towards civil rights which is just an artifact of a prosperous society; as prosperity rises, people find new monsters to fight. First it was slavery and race, then women’s rights, then the handicapped, then gays and trannies. I don’t know what’s coming next, but we’ll find something that was once considered trivial to make a big deal out of.

I wasn’t aware it was disturbed lol

Societies don’t fare well being hunter gatherers and farming requires cooperation because of the amount of food produced in a short time that needs to be stored and sold for storable profit to be traded back for food later. Economies always evolve to what they are now because that is what works best.

Buy a hunting license and you could fill your freezer with deer meat.

Wild fruit doesn’t exist in any meaningful supply. Farming is absolutely necessary and even that is difficult on smaller scales. It’s much more efficient to delegate farming to those who are best equipped and then participate in a market economy.

Because of the abundance of machines and technological efficiencies, the ONLY reason you have to work is because OTHER people can’t stand that fact that you might get something for nothing. There is no REAL reason you have to work. You’re a slave to the ideology that people must suffer for money.

Only 4% of people make it from the bottom 5th to the top 5th, so good luck! Putting lots of people to work making you money is the easiest way to get rich. Move to a place where there aren’t many human rights. Places like California make it too hard to take advantage of people; the southeast is best.

Please don’t distort what I said.

Please don’t put words in my mouth.

It’s not a distortion to take your reasoning to its ends.

If 1+1=2, then 2+2=4 is not a distortion, but a continuation of the reasoning.

If recognizing wage-slavery as slavery is trivializing a harsher form of slavery, then recognizing a first degree burn as a burn is trivializing third degree burns because it follows the general form: If recognizing lesser-X as a form of X, then major-X is trivialized. If I’m in error, then kindly point out my error.

I’ve conceded that wage-slavery is not as bad as indentured servitude, but it’s still slavery.

And what got the whole thing going was my saying that slavery was a necessary evil, as capitalists would invariably have to argue unless they dogmatically refuse to concede that wage-slavery is a form of slavery, and if they did, it would be totally obvious as to why.

And another thing, Peter Schiff (die-hard capitalist) pointed out: It used to be that people prided themselves for working for themselves and it was a mark of shame to have to work under someone else (because you couldn’t stand on your own, you had to resort to working for someone else). Now a man is measured by WHERE he works or WHO he works for rather than admired for standing on his own (Note: I’m not being sexist in using “man”, but the men worked back then and I have to make a comparison). The shame (loss of dignity = slavery aspect) has been massaged out of our culture, and not only that, but the extent to which one is a slave is now an object of pride.

Conservatives pride themselves on their work ethic and call liberals lazy, but liberals call conservatives stupid because they’re advocating their own servitude and that’s like a cow defending the slaughterhouse… or a black slave defending black slavery. The reasons a slave would defend servitude are: he is too ignorant to see it, too stubborn (ignore-ant) to believe it, or genuinely feel he’s better as a slave than being left to one’s own devices, which is, beyond a doubt, the situation of today: there are just too many people in society for every one of them to be self-sustaining. And therefore, slavery is necessary. Always was and always will be, except in the future, the machines will be our slaves… that is until someone decides that machines have feelings too, and dignity, and we will be back in the same ethical boat we’re in now.

I specifically said that I don’t consider the compulsion to eat, sleep and paint my kid’s room to be slavery.

What don’t you understand about that point of view?

To use your analogy, I don’t think that what you call a burn is a burn at all. Therefore all this stuff that you are saying is not even applicable:

I asked why you do not consider those activities to be slavery and you said "Because it trivializes slavery and the suffering of slaves. "

So you’re saying a burn that is less than third degree is not a burn?

Getting a little color in your cheeks is not a burn. A first degree burn is considered a burn. It seems like he is saying something like the word slavery carries connotations that do not apply to having to eat and the other examples. And yes, if you were in a conversation with someone with third degree burns and you had first degree and you kept making them equivalent,
rough day for both us, each burned,
you would be trivializing their experience.
But if you just got a little color, iow nothing a doctor would call even a first degree burn, it would be even more ridiculous. We use words to deliniate things. It’s floppy, and often we can’t come up with neat categories and even the burn scales have some grey areas.

But if I run at you on the street pointing finger going bang bang and run past you, I didn’t try to kill you, even if it was a bit scary.

Or is your argument that there are ONLY differences in degree and never in kind and it would be irrational to ever say something was not in a category.

Like if you went under a bright incandescent bulb you were burned, because perhaps one cell had its temperature raised to some extent?

I’m just saying that the degree of something doesn’t remove it from the category. Slavery is slavery regardless of the degree of slavery and burns are burns regardless of the degree of burn. Like sky blue is blue, but less blue than navy blue, but it’s still blue.

You’re putting all sorts of things into the category of ‘slavery’ which don’t belong there.