Slavery

Slavery  (social control)
Interest of	• Anti-Slavery International • R. Kelly
Slavery is the most blatant of abusive relationships. Slaves are denied rights and freedoms, most notably the freedom to escape the relationship. They are de facto, if not de jure, property of their masters.

Slavery is when a person is forced to work and can not quit, at the same time being treated as property. While officially abolished, it is continued as forced labor to this day.

History

Historically, enslavement was a typical outcome of military defeat, and a reason to join or support an army. Slavery was often a feature of civilization and legal in most societies; now outlawed in all countries of the world except as punishment for crime.

Utility

Slavery was used in colonies with relatively small human populations compared to their size. In densely populated areas, the preferred method of social control was land ownership.

Rationale

In 1708 the UK British Board of Trade proclaimed it “absolutely necessary that a trade (slavery) so beneficial to the kingdom should be carried on to the greatest advantage.”

Modern Forms

Debt slavery

Full article: Debt slavery

Keeping individuals as debt slaves is generally illegal. However, many modern nation states have accrued such debt that this is a description of their condition

Wage slavery

Full article: Wage slavery

While, officially, slavery is illegal, wage slavery is not.

Abolition

Slavery, as a practice, was legally banned in Mauritania in 1981, as the last country in the world (although it was not a crime to own a slave until 2007).

Prevalence

Anti-Slavery International reports a high degree of correlation between nation state's foreign debt and the prevalence of slavery. They report that modern slaves are far cheaper, in real terms, than ever.

 

An example

Page name	Description
Berlin Conference	1880s conference to regulate European colonization and trade in Africa

 

Related Quotations

Page	Quote	Author	Date
George Carlin	“It's the old American Double Standard, ya know: Say one thing, do something' different. And of course, this country is founded on the double standard, that's our history! We were founded on a very basic double standard: This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free. Am I right? A group of slave owners who wanted to be free! So they killed a lot of white English people, in order to continue owning their black African people, so they could wipe out of the rest of the red Indian people, so they move west and steal the rest of the land from the brown Mexican people, giving them a place to take off and drop their nuclear weapons on the yellow Japanese people. You know what the motto of this country ought to be? "You give us a color, we'll wipe it out!"”	George Carlin
Enclosure	“The appropriation, by one means or another, of lands owned or occupied by the poor continues. What was accomplished in England by legislation is being accomplished today all over the world by bank-created capital and debt-finance.”	Ivo Mosley	2013
Edward Mandell House	“the President is to perpetuate the slavery of Americans. By design we have been kept bankrupt and insolvent by an ancient, evil system of pledging. Central Banksters have been profiting at our expense for over 70 years.”	Edward Mandell House
Lyndon Johnson	“If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.”	Lyndon Johnson
MLK	“He who lives with untruth lives in spiritual slavery. Freedom is still the bonus we receive for knowing the truth.”	MLK
Nepal	“500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have died in Qatar since it won the right to host the World Cup 10 years ago, the Guardian can reveal. The findings, compiled from government sources, mean an average of 12 migrant workers from these five south Asian nations have died each week since the night in December 2010 when the streets of Doha were filled with ecstatic crowds celebrating Qatar’s victory. Data from India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka revealed there were 5,927 deaths of migrant workers in the period 2011–2020. Separately, data from Pakistan’s embassy in Qatar reported a further 824 deaths of Pakistani workers, between 2010 and 2020.”	The Guardian Pete Pattisson	2022
Obedience	“Historically, the most terrible things - war, genocide, and slavery - have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience.”	Howard Zinn
Subsistence	“The great enemy of enterprising capital is a self-sustaining life.<a href="#cite_note-1">[1]</a> A family living a self-contained existence on a piece of land is profitable to no one.<a href="#cite_note-2">[2]</a> Once the family is displaced, the land can be put to profit. Dispossessed adults can be ‘gainfully employed’ (whose gain?) and the whole family can be trained up—via advertising and the rest—as consumers. Lastly, in the peculiar perversity of modern economics, the illnesses, depressions, crimes and other discontents of the dependent are of immense profit to the pharmaceutical, insurance, care, security, manufacturing, entertainment and prison industries.”	Ivo Mosley	2013
Yanis Varoufakis	“The problem with capitalism is not that it is unfair but that it is irrational, as it habitually condemns whole generations to deprivation and unemployment and even turns capitalists into angst-ridden automata, living in permanent fear that unless they commodify their fellow humans fully so as to serve capital accumulation more efficiently, they will cease to be capitalists. So, if capitalism appears unjust this is because it enslaves everyone; it wastes human and natural resources; the same production line that pumps out remarkable gizmos and untold wealth, also produces deep unhappiness and crises.”	Yanis Varoufakis	18 February 2015

 

Convicted of Slavery

Person	Born	Nationality	Summary	Description
Keith Raniere	26 August 1960	US	Businessperson Cult leader Human trafficker	Business/cult leader found guilty of sex trafficking.

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