• Marxism-Fennekinism
    link
    fedilink
    English
    162 years ago

    Reminder that slavery was never outright abolished in the US, the constitution explicitly allows slavery as punishment for a crime which is why private for-profit prisons are a thing in the US.

  • @Cagi@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    62 years ago

    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.

    • @gowan@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      62 years ago

      Educated in history here (history should have no bias), while there are a greater number of slaves today they represent a smaller portion of the population than during the 1800s. In addition modern slavery is not the same as chattel slavery which is infinitely worse given that it denies the slave’s existence as a human being. Im not saying slavery is OK Im just saying your claims aren’t entirely accurate.

  • Uriel238 [all pronouns]
    link
    fedilink
    62 years ago

    This has always been the case. Look at immigrant exploitation, the truck system, sharecropping, child labor, exporting work to undeveloped countries to exploit unregulated labor forces there.

    It was always about bringing back slavery without calling it slavery.

    And it will always be so long as we let them keep trying.

    Violence is not the answer until the hour that it is.

  • @MisterScruffy@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    32 years ago

    Our only hope is to become a strong union country. Without collective power we’ll never reign in the greed of the billionaires

  • Queen HawlSera
    link
    fedilink
    English
    32 years ago

    Humans get powerful and don’t see the point in power unless they can abuse people

  • Yepthatsme
    link
    fedilink
    32 years ago

    Too many elite shitbags think they’re rich because it’s ordained when in reality their grammy and pee paw just fucked first.

    Nothing divine or important about that.

    So the next time you see a rich person give them the finger and a bad look because their family is probably a bunch of tax dodging cock sucking thieves.

    Legacies are for insecure shit cunts.

  • @Canis_76@feddit.nl
    link
    fedilink
    22 years ago

    Trying? Abolished? Sigh. Words. Slavery never left. Put all the pretty paint you want on those bars. It’s the change of perspective that comes with wisdom. Use that power well.

  • @Gsus4@feddit.nl
    link
    fedilink
    22 years ago

    With enough inequality and without a strong social net, wage labour is equivalent to slavery. They cover the minimum costs of your survival and you spend as much time working as they ask or else they’ll find someone more desperate.

  • Yepthatsme
    link
    fedilink
    12 years ago

    Too many elite shitbags think they’re rich because it’s ordained when in reality their grammy and pee paw just fucked first.

    Nothing divine or important about that.

    So the next time you see a rich person give them the finger and a bad look because their family is probably a bunch of tax dodging cock sucking thieves.

    Legacies are for insecure shit cunts.