Modern Slavery

[Joe]

The problem I see with using the word slavery, apt metaphor or not, is that real bodily slavery still exists, and they are two different things. We can bemoan our work circumstances, but we are not forced to labor under threat of violence, for little or no pay as some still do today.

Somewhere along the continuum from the latter to the former, I think exploitative work arrangements cease being slavery in the formal sense of the word.

[pErvinalia]

In Eastern Europe, it's common to be a wage Slav...

I'll get my coat...

[rainbow]

In Eastern Europe, it's common to be a wage Slav...

I'll get my coat...

yu go!
...as Tito used to say

[Brian Peacock]

I don't think it's supposed to be a direct analogue of ye olde slavery. It's an apt metaphor. But clearly not as bad as actual bodily slavery.

Sure, we're all familiar with the phrase, but Brian seems to be arguing that actual, chattel slavery and "wage slavery" are just two different kinds of slavery, one "better" than the other.

Indeed. Jim et al have suggested that a categorical distinction exists between 'slavery' proper and mere economic exploitation. I on the other hand have not suggested that no distinction doesn't exit.

I thought it was pretty clear that when I said "A wage slave is still a slave," and then went on to define being a slave as, "When a system you have no influence over forces you to sell yourself in order to survive," I was basically drawing an analogous comparison.

So yes, I am essentially saying that the old-fashioned "Don't whup me massa!" kind of slavery and the shitty end of the economic exploitation stick are different kinds of slavery - not the same kind of slavery - that is: different kinds of systemic exploitation in which the powerful define and maintain a system of socio-economic conditions which the rest have no choice about, freedom within, or influence over. If anyone thought I was saying that these two kinds of exploitation are literally the same thing then they have drawn their own conclusions.

However (ha!), while I think it is really important to draw and acknowledge the distinction between what Jim called 'real slavery' or 'true slavery', a system in which people are bought and sold as property, and what I referred to as "a better ... less abusive ... kind of slavery," in which ownship is a more nuanced matter, physical brutality is minimised, and people are presented with the 'choice' of opting-in, I don't think it is either helpful or valid to consider 'slavery' only in terms of a system in which a certain threshold of physical domination, brutality, or abuse is reached - as has been implied.

Essentially, I think that some element of violence is present in, and necessary to, any master/slave relationship - which is to say, any systemic exploitation.

With that in mind, let's say that, as suggested, "true slavery involves the total control of the slave, with life and death powers possessed by slave owners" (Jim (and I'm only singling Jim out because he's been eloquent and forthright in his contrapoints)), where the definition of 'slavery' rests very much on that very important question of ownership. As I pointed out earlier, while your boss might not possess your person in the legal sense, nor have the authority or legal right to thrash you, that distinction can soon begin to brake down in the face of the power imbalance between the employer and their employee -- indeed, the fact that we invariably talk about that relationship in the possessive is a bit of a clue here I think -- and particularly in situations in which governments are inclined to "weight the law too much in favour of those who already have the majority of the power."

Also, we may have to examine what 'the power of life and death' means in a broader context than simply being applied where people without rights are owned as property - people who lives are literally worth nothing to themsleves, and often nothing to others either. Again, this is a matter of degrees rather than absolutes. What are wages for if not to meet the bills and, hopefully, for a little bit of fun on top - for without paying the bills fun becomes almost impossible (broadly speaking). When jobs are plentiful - which is to say when workers are in short supply - then any individual obviously has more choice in the absolute sense about who they work for. But I would like to contrast that with situations where that trend is reversed as well as with situations where jobs are plentiful but wages are low across the board.

In the first case, when there are more workers than jobs, then having a job that meets the bills, and keeping it, becomes far more vital to one's material well-being than when one can pick and choose. This situation necessarily offers a person less choice in absolute terms about who they might 'choose' to work for, what type of work to undertake, and/or what kinds of working conditions are acceptable. And when jobs are plentiful but wages low, and perhaps are maintained low artificially (which is to say by cartel, monopoly, or by common agreement among employers and/or in law) then one is functionally in the same boat as when jobs are scarce,

So while we might say that current systems of economic exploitation do not grant employers de facto rights of ownership over their employees, and that they are certainly not able to treat their employees as possessed object to do with as they wish (with the absolute power of life and death) they nonetheless exert considerable and significant influence over and on their employees material well-being due to the inherent power imbalance between the employer and their employee.

When we consider this systemically, which is to say not merely in terms of employer/employee relations but in terms of a system which is maintained and operated in the interests of the powerful and in which the rest have little to no choice about, freedom within, or influence over, then we might conclude, reasonably I think, that the system as a whole does exhibit and exert total control of the waged (slave) with life and death powers possessed by the maintainers and operators of the system (owner). This shift in perspective meets Jim's definition of 'true slavery' and, in my view, is not invalidated either by the absence of physical brutality or the necessity of legal possession of the person as property.

When we look around us, or consider our own employment situation, where do we see the power lying? Who wields it, and in the interests of and for the benefit of whom?

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, when I say that "A wage slave is still a slave," what I am also saying (besides drawing and analogous comparison) is that paying people wages for their labour does not mean that they are not, or cannot ever be, on the wrong end of an exploitative, power-imbalanced, master/slave relationship. As my examples of US prison workers, child agricultural workers, and indentured iPhone factory workers show, a wage does not automatically dissolve that relationship nor preclude the brutal and brutalising treatment of workers by their employers.

It may be true that so-called 'true slavery' of the kind so strikingly exemplified in that photograph on page one is outlawed and extremely rare in contemporary Western countries, but despite the contention over the term 'wage slave' the 'waged slave' is still a slave in the supposed 'true' sense of the word, and if left unchecked capital will always tend towards ever more extreme forms of exploitation in the name of productivity and profit.

[Brian Peacock]

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody

...
It's in the material interests of the slave master to make you believe that there's no alternative to your slavery - because maintaining that fiction ensures their power and your ongoing subservience - to make you believe the system which they define and operate is just a fact of life; just the way things are; normal; natural; or even that it's the best kind of system there could or can ever be; that it's a system which somehow bestows virtue upon all who 'choose' to take part; that resistance is futile.

[Brian Peacock]

The problem I see with using the word slavery, apt metaphor or not, is that real bodily slavery still exists, and they are two different things. We can bemoan our work circumstances, but we are not forced to labor under threat of violence, for little or no pay as some still do today.

Somewhere along the continuum from the latter to the former, I think exploitative work arrangements cease being slavery in the formal sense of the word.

I accept the (see above, above) but what do you think would happen if you and your co-workers all went on strike and picketed your employers business. Do you think you might be subject to state-sponsor violence as a result? What I'm saying here is that violence might not be explicit at the softer end of the spectrum, but it is still present implicitly - to some degree. The question might then turn on what is the acceptable level of violence that the state can inflict upon the population in order to maintain that softer system of exploitation.

I'd also note that the idea of the 'wage slave' is neither new nor novel.

[Joe]

The problem I see with using the word slavery, apt metaphor or not, is that real bodily slavery still exists, and they are two different things. We can bemoan our work circumstances, but we are not forced to labor under threat of violence, for little or no pay as some still do today.

Somewhere along the continuum from the latter to the former, I think exploitative work arrangements cease being slavery in the formal sense of the word.

I accept the (see above, above) but what do you think would happen if you and your co-workers all went on strike and picketed your employers business. Do you think you might be subject to state-sponsor violence as a result? What I'm saying here is that violence might not be explicit at the softer end of the spectrum, but it is still present implicitly - to some degree. The question might then turn on what is the acceptable level of violence that the state can inflict upon the population in order to maintain that softer system of exploitation.

I'd also note that the idea of the 'wage slave' is neither new nor novel.

Yes, the concept of the wage slave is neither new nor novel, and as I said, is an apt metaphor for the economic exploitation of our capitalistic system. However, metaphors aren't reality, and the reality is that slavery by the thousands of years old definition is still among us. You've acknowledged this, and provided useful links earlier, so I assume we agree on that.

My defense of the old definition is founded on concern for the enslaved, and the moral power the word slavery commands. I fear that extending the definition, modernizing it so to speak, dilutes that power and the attendant outrage needed to continue the fight against the very real slavery that still operates.

Also, this re-purposing of the word encourages the kind of demagoguery Seth indulges in vis-a-vis taxation. After all, taxes are backed by the implicit threat of state force, and are imposed upon us much like terms of employment. Our tax laws favor the master class much as our our labor laws do, and so forth down the kind of rhetorical rabbit hole he often delights in.

I assume we can agree this reasoning is nonsense on stilts, and I hope you understand my reservations. Perhaps, this stodgy defense of an ancient word's meaning seems quaint, and you are welcome to see it as such, but it is founded on a premise I hold to be sound. I will defer its exposition to one more astute than I.

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language — so the argument runs — must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.

Although, as an Englishman, he may not have considered me an English speaker.

[laklak]

Like, word, Dude.

[Seabass]

I don't think it's supposed to be a direct analogue of ye olde slavery. It's an apt metaphor. But clearly not as bad as actual bodily slavery.

Sure, we're all familiar with the phrase, but Brian seems to be arguing that actual, chattel slavery and "wage slavery" are just two different kinds of slavery, one "better" than the other.

Indeed. Jim et al have suggested that a categorical distinction exists between 'slavery' proper and mere economic exploitation. I on the other hand have not suggested that no distinction doesn't exit.

I thought it was pretty clear that when I said "A wage slave is still a slave," and then went on to define being a slave as, "When a system you have no influence over forces you to sell yourself in order to survive," I was basically drawing an analogous comparison.

So yes, I am essentially saying that the old-fashioned "Don't whoop me massa!" kind of slavery and the shitty end of the economic exploitation stick are different kinds of slavery - not the same kind of slavery - that is: different kinds of systemic exploitation in which the powerful define and maintain a system of socio-economic conditions which the rest have no choice about, freedom within, or influence over. If anyone thought I was saying that these two kinds of exploitation are literally the same thing then they have drawn their own conclusions.

Yes, I understand that you are not saying they are literally the same thing, but you are saying that they are the same kind of thing, and that's where I and some others differ with you.

However (ha!), while I think it is really important to draw and acknowledge the distinction between what Jim called 'real slavery' or 'true slavery', a system in which people are bought and sold as property, and what I referred to as "a better ... less abusive ... kind of slavery," in which ownship is a more nuanced matter, physical brutality is minimised, and people are presented with the 'choice' of opting-in, I don't think it is either helpful or valid to consider 'slavery' only in terms of a system in which a certain threshold of physical domination, brutality, or abuse is reached - as has been implied.

Essentially, I think that some element of violence is present in, and necessary to, any master/slave relationship - which is to say, any systemic exploitation.

With that in mind, let's say that, as suggested, "true slavery involves the total control of the slave, with life and death powers possessed by slave owners" (Jim (and I'm only singling Jim out because he's been eloquent and forthright in his contrapoints)), where the definition of 'slavery' rests very much on that very important question of ownership. As I pointed out earkuer, while your boss might not possess your person in the legal sense, nor have the authority or legal right to thrash you, that distinction can soon begin to brake down in the face of the power imbalance between the employer and their employee -- indeed, the fact that we invariably talk about that relationship in the possessive is a bit of a clue here I think -- and particularly in situations in which governments are inclined to "weight the law too much in favour of those who already have the majority of the power."

Also, we may have to examine what 'the power of life and death' means in a broader context than simply being tied to people without rights owned as property - people who lives are literally worth nothing to themsleves, and often nothing to others either. Again, this is a matter of degrees rather than absolutes. What are wages for if not to meet the bills and, hopefully, for a little bit of fun on top - for without paying the bills fun becomes almost impossible (broadly speaking). When jobs are plentiful - which is to say when workers are in short supply - then any individual obviously has more choice in the absolute sense about who they work for. But I would like to contrast that with a situation where that is reversed as well as with a situation where jobs are plentiful but wages are low across the board.

In the first case, when there are more workers than jobs, then having a job that meets the bills, and keeping it, becomes far more vital to one's material well-being than when one can pick and choose. This situation necessarily offers one less choice in absolute terms about who to 'choose' to work for, what type of work to undertake, and/or what kinds of working conditions are acceptable. And when jobs are plentiful but wages low, and perhaps are maintained low artificially (which is to say by cartel, monopoly, or by common agreement among employers and/or in law) then one is functionally in the same boat as when jobs are scarce,

So while we might say that current systems of economic exploitation do not afford employers de facto right of ownership over their employees, and that they are certainly not able to treat their employees as possessed object to do with as they wish (with the absolute power of life and death) they nonetheless exert considerable and significant influence over and on their employees material well-being due to the inherent power imbalance between the employer and their employee.

Now when we consider this systemically, which is to say not merely in terms of employer/employee relations but in terms of a system which is maintained and operated in the interests of the powerful and in which the rest have little to no choice about, freedom within, or influence over, then we might conclude, reasonably I think, that the system as a whole does exhibit and exert total control of the waged (slave) with life and death powers possessed by the maintainers and operators of the system (owner). This shift in perspective meets Jim's definition of 'true slavery' and, in my view, is not invalidated either by the absence of physical brutality or the necessity of legal possession of the person as property.

When we look around us, or consider our own employment situation, where do we see the power lying? Who weilds it, and in the interests of and for the benefit of whom?

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, when I say that "A wage slave is still a slave," what I am also saying (besides drawing and analogous comparison) is that paying people wages for their labour does not mean that they are not, or cannot ever be, on the wrong end of an exploitative, power-imbalanced, master/slave relationship. As my examples of US prison workers, child agricultural workers, and indentured iPhone factory workers show, a wage does not automatically dissolve that relationship nor preclude the brutal and brutalising treatment of workers by their employers.

It may be true that so-called 'true slavery' of the kind so strikingly exemplified in that photograph on page one is outlawed and extremely rare in contemporary Western countries, but despite the contention over the term 'wage slave' the 'waged slave' is still a slave in the supposed 'true' sense of the word, and if left unchecked capital will always tend towards ever more extreme forms of exploitation in the name of productivity and profit.

Is a man who lives off the land, away from civilization, who has to hunt and gather his own food and fend off predators, and who has to build his own shelter—is he a slave to nature? A slave to his belly? A slave to the elements? A slave to the environment?

Is a submissive woman who is married to a domineering man a slave? A house slave? A sex slave?

Is a young boy who has been forced to hand over his lunch money to a bully a lunch slave?

Where do we draw the line? How far are we willing to stretch the definition of the word "slavery"?

[Seabass]

The term "wage slavery" is fine when we all understand that we're using it figuratively, but calling employment literally a type of slavery is, as Joe points out, a lot like calling taxation slavery.

So basically, I'm a slave to the company that I work for, I'm a slave to the government to which I pay taxes, and I'm a slave to my wife because she makes me take out the trash. Well, at least one of the three puts out once in a while...

[JimC]

I think that the focus should be on understanding that workers in a capitalist society get the shitty end of the stick in terms of power and economic inequality. Without advocating the overthrow of the entire system (sorry, rEv), I think that strong unions and careful legislation by progressive governments can alleviate the problem to a degree, plus the idea of worker's co-ops actually owning (or part owning) a business...

[Brian Peacock]

The problem I see with using the word slavery, apt metaphor or not, is that real bodily slavery still exists, and they are two different things. We can bemoan our work circumstances, but we are not forced to labor under threat of violence, for little or no pay as some still do today.

Somewhere along the continuum from the latter to the former, I think exploitative work arrangements cease being slavery in the formal sense of the word.

I accept the (see above, above) but what do you think would happen if you and your co-workers all went on strike and picketed your employers business. Do you think you might be subject to state-sponsor violence as a result? What I'm saying here is that violence might not be explicit at the softer end of the spectrum, but it is still present implicitly - to some degree. The question might then turn on what is the acceptable level of violence that the state can inflict upon the population in order to maintain that softer system of exploitation.

I'd also note that the idea of the 'wage slave' is neither new nor novel.

Yes, the concept of the wage slave is neither new nor novel, and as I said, is an apt metaphor for the economic exploitation of our capitalistic system. However, metaphors aren't reality, and the reality is that slavery by the thousands of years old definition is still among us. You've acknowledged this, and provided useful links earlier, so I assume we agree on that.

My defense of the old definition is founded on concern for the enslaved, and the moral power the word slavery commands. I fear that extending the definition, modernizing it so to speak, dilutes that power and the attendant outrage needed to continue the fight against the very real slavery that still operates.

Also, this re-purposing of the word encourages the kind of demagoguery Seth indulges in vis-a-vis taxation. After all, taxes are backed by the implicit threat of state force, and are imposed upon us much like terms of employment. Our tax laws favor the master class much as our our labor laws do, and so forth down the kind of rhetorical rabbit hole he often delights in.

I assume we can agree this reasoning is nonsense on stilts, and I hope you understand my reservations. Perhaps, this stodgy defense of an ancient word's meaning seems quaint, and you are welcome to see it as such, but it is founded on a premise I hold to be sound. I will defer its exposition to one more astute than I.

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language — so the argument runs — must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.

Although, as an Englishman, he may not have considered me an English speaker.

I entirely agree that what Engles referred to as "the old, outspoken slavery" is still with us. There's no dispute about that here whatsoever. Nor am I trying to redefine, revise, or revoke that meaning of 'slavery,' but simply drawing an analogous comparison. I'm sticking to analogy over metaphor here because I think the application of the term to, for want of a specific or better term, systematic capitalistic socio-economic exploitation has a certain explanatory purpose. I'd also note that the system in which we see prisoners exploited for their labour or Chinese workers essentially working in labour camps is the same system we operate within - it's just that we are more often the recipients of the benefits of said exploitation than the exploited. That purpose is of course to cast all of us who have no option but to participate at the messy end of capitalism as, to some extent, slaves, in order to consider the system and ourselves in those terms - in that context. And it's not that I haven't qualified what a number of times now.

I think the problem here -- well, one of the problems with what I've posted at least -- is that suggesting that we are all, to some extent, slaves is to dilute or devalue the term we have traditionally applied to "the old, outspoken slavery." This is curious, because I have not made light of or downplayed "the old, outspoken slavery"; I have not denied, excused or offered apologies for it; I have not drawn any false equivalence between the harms and sufferings of so-called 'true slavery' and what we generally experience under our current political, legal, and social norms; and, I have acknowledged several expressions of its persistence in our supposedly enlightened modern age. What I have suggested however is that we are effectively the chattel of power masters.

Still, the argument against the use of it in the context I have set out appears to be that 'slavery' is such a touchy subject and/or loaded term that it should not be casually bandied about. However - and I am charged with reckless bandying, though I really don't think I've casually bandied anything of that sort about. That notwithstanding, if such a use of 'slavery' is too dangerous a term, socially or intellectually speaking, or just definitionally inappropriate in this context, then we don't seem to have a ready and reliable reference term to characterise the prevailing systemic imbalance that is maintained and perpetuated for the benefit of those with all the power. Again, you see, I am referring to a system - one we are bound to, trapped within or enslaved under: a system we have no option but to service and over which we effectively have no control.

I could labour (!) the point further, but I'll spare you the chore of wading through that at the moment. Suffice to say, I could have chosen to talk about the intersection of capital and labour in terms of a father/son relationship, or an clergy/congregation relationship, and I doubt there would have been as much resistance if I had. But I didn't. I'd admit I didn't expect the word 'slave' to elicit such a stern reaction, but I don't think it's use necessarily invalidates or forecloses the broader point - which is that the socio-economic system we find ourselves in today is akin to the instituti9on of slavery because it is a system which relies on exploitation, ultimately backed up by force, and that is detrimental to the material well-being of individuals. As I said up top, it is a system in which we are forced to sell ourselves in order to survive.

As to the dilution of meaning generally, and the devaluation of the term 'slave' in particular, I'll just say...

[Brian Peacock]

I don't think it's supposed to be a direct analogue of ye olde slavery. It's an apt metaphor. But clearly not as bad as actual bodily slavery.

Sure, we're all familiar with the phrase, but Brian seems to be arguing that actual, chattel slavery and "wage slavery" are just two different kinds of slavery, one "better" than the other.

Indeed. Jim et al have suggested that a categorical distinction exists between 'slavery' proper and mere economic exploitation. I on the other hand have not suggested that no distinction doesn't exit.

I thought it was pretty clear that when I said "A wage slave is still a slave," and then went on to define being a slave as, "When a system you have no influence over forces you to sell yourself in order to survive," I was basically drawing an analogous comparison.

So yes, I am essentially saying that the old-fashioned "Don't whoop me massa!" kind of slavery and the shitty end of the economic exploitation stick are different kinds of slavery - not the same kind of slavery - that is: different kinds of systemic exploitation in which the powerful define and maintain a system of socio-economic conditions which the rest have no choice about, freedom within, or influence over. If anyone thought I was saying that these two kinds of exploitation are literally the same thing then they have drawn their own conclusions.

Yes, I understand that you are not saying they are literally the same thing, but you are saying that they are the same kind of thing, and that's where I and some others differ with you.

Indeed.

However (ha!), while I think it is really important to draw and acknowledge the distinction between what Jim called 'real slavery' or 'true slavery', a system in which people are bought and sold as property, and what I referred to as "a better ... less abusive ... kind of slavery," in which ownship is a more nuanced matter, physical brutality is minimised, and people are presented with the 'choice' of opting-in, I don't think it is either helpful or valid to consider 'slavery' only in terms of a system in which a certain threshold of physical domination, brutality, or abuse is reached - as has been implied.

Essentially, I think that some element of violence is present in, and necessary to, any master/slave relationship - which is to say, any systemic exploitation.

With that in mind, let's say that, as suggested, "true slavery involves the total control of the slave, with life and death powers possessed by slave owners" (Jim (and I'm only singling Jim out because he's been eloquent and forthright in his contrapoints)), where the definition of 'slavery' rests very much on that very important question of ownership. As I pointed out earkuer, while your boss might not possess your person in the legal sense, nor have the authority or legal right to thrash you, that distinction can soon begin to brake down in the face of the power imbalance between the employer and their employee -- indeed, the fact that we invariably talk about that relationship in the possessive is a bit of a clue here I think -- and particularly in situations in which governments are inclined to "weight the law too much in favour of those who already have the majority of the power."

Also, we may have to examine what 'the power of life and death' means in a broader context than simply being tied to people without rights owned as property - people who lives are literally worth nothing to themsleves, and often nothing to others either. Again, this is a matter of degrees rather than absolutes. What are wages for if not to meet the bills and, hopefully, for a little bit of fun on top - for without paying the bills fun becomes almost impossible (broadly speaking). When jobs are plentiful - which is to say when workers are in short supply - then any individual obviously has more choice in the absolute sense about who they work for. But I would like to contrast that with a situation where that is reversed as well as with a situation where jobs are plentiful but wages are low across the board.

In the first case, when there are more workers than jobs, then having a job that meets the bills, and keeping it, becomes far more vital to one's material well-being than when one can pick and choose. This situation necessarily offers one less choice in absolute terms about who to 'choose' to work for, what type of work to undertake, and/or what kinds of working conditions are acceptable. And when jobs are plentiful but wages low, and perhaps are maintained low artificially (which is to say by cartel, monopoly, or by common agreement among employers and/or in law) then one is functionally in the same boat as when jobs are scarce,

So while we might say that current systems of economic exploitation do not afford employers de facto right of ownership over their employees, and that they are certainly not able to treat their employees as possessed object to do with as they wish (with the absolute power of life and death) they nonetheless exert considerable and significant influence over and on their employees material well-being due to the inherent power imbalance between the employer and their employee.

Now when we consider this systemically, which is to say not merely in terms of employer/employee relations but in terms of a system which is maintained and operated in the interests of the powerful and in which the rest have little to no choice about, freedom within, or influence over, then we might conclude, reasonably I think, that the system as a whole does exhibit and exert total control of the waged (slave) with life and death powers possessed by the maintainers and operators of the system (owner). This shift in perspective meets Jim's definition of 'true slavery' and, in my view, is not invalidated either by the absence of physical brutality or the necessity of legal possession of the person as property.

When we look around us, or consider our own employment situation, where do we see the power lying? Who weilds it, and in the interests of and for the benefit of whom?

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, when I say that "A wage slave is still a slave," what I am also saying (besides drawing and analogous comparison) is that paying people wages for their labour does not mean that they are not, or cannot ever be, on the wrong end of an exploitative, power-imbalanced, master/slave relationship. As my examples of US prison workers, child agricultural workers, and indentured iPhone factory workers show, a wage does not automatically dissolve that relationship nor preclude the brutal and brutalising treatment of workers by their employers.

It may be true that so-called 'true slavery' of the kind so strikingly exemplified in that photograph on page one is outlawed and extremely rare in contemporary Western countries, but despite the contention over the term 'wage slave' the 'waged slave' is still a slave in the supposed 'true' sense of the word, and if left unchecked capital will always tend towards ever more extreme forms of exploitation in the name of productivity and profit.

Is a man who lives off the land, away from civilization, who has to hunt and gather his own food and fend off predators, and who has to build his own shelter—is he a slave to nature? A slave to his belly? A slave to the elements? A slave to the environment?

Is a submissive woman who is married to a domineering man a slave? A house slave? A sex slave?

Is a young boy who has been forced to hand over his lunch money to a bully a lunch slave?

Where do we draw the line? How far are we willing to stretch the definition of the word "slavery"?

As modes of expression there's seems nothing wrong with saying any of that unless one is equating being 'a slave to nature' etc with the harms and sufferings of people owned as the property of others - which you've acknowledged I'm not. However, some of these phrases speak directly to a power imbalance, so as a means of identifying such imbalances I think talking about the domestic and/or sexual servitude of women is useful, as is noting that the powerful in society adopt similar attitudes of ownership, superiority over the less powerful, and employ similar means to effect similar ends as the playground bully: indeed, the bully asserts a kind of ownership of the bullied, perhaps saying such things as, "I own your ass," or "You're my bitch now," etc, so you might not be as far off as you think with those.

[Joe]

The problem I see with using the word slavery, apt metaphor or not, is that real bodily slavery still exists, and they are two different things. We can bemoan our work circumstances, but we are not forced to labor under threat of violence, for little or no pay as some still do today.

Somewhere along the continuum from the latter to the former, I think exploitative work arrangements cease being slavery in the formal sense of the word.

I accept the (see above, above) but what do you think would happen if you and your co-workers all went on strike and picketed your employers business. Do you think you might be subject to state-sponsor violence as a result? What I'm saying here is that violence might not be explicit at the softer end of the spectrum, but it is still present implicitly - to some degree. The question might then turn on what is the acceptable level of violence that the state can inflict upon the population in order to maintain that softer system of exploitation.

I'd also note that the idea of the 'wage slave' is neither new nor novel.

Yes, the concept of the wage slave is neither new nor novel, and as I said, is an apt metaphor for the economic exploitation of our capitalistic system. However, metaphors aren't reality, and the reality is that slavery by the thousands of years old definition is still among us. You've acknowledged this, and provided useful links earlier, so I assume we agree on that.

My defense of the old definition is founded on concern for the enslaved, and the moral power the word slavery commands. I fear that extending the definition, modernizing it so to speak, dilutes that power and the attendant outrage needed to continue the fight against the very real slavery that still operates.

Also, this re-purposing of the word encourages the kind of demagoguery Seth indulges in vis-a-vis taxation. After all, taxes are backed by the implicit threat of state force, and are imposed upon us much like terms of employment. Our tax laws favor the master class much as our our labor laws do, and so forth down the kind of rhetorical rabbit hole he often delights in.

I assume we can agree this reasoning is nonsense on stilts, and I hope you understand my reservations. Perhaps, this stodgy defense of an ancient word's meaning seems quaint, and you are welcome to see it as such, but it is founded on a premise I hold to be sound. I will defer its exposition to one more astute than I.

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language — so the argument runs — must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.

Although, as an Englishman, he may not have considered me an English speaker.

I entirely agree that what Engles referred to as "the old, outspoken slavery" is still with us. There's no dispute about that here whatsoever. Nor am I trying to redefine, revise, or revoke that meaning of 'slavery,' but simply drawing an analogous comparison. I'm sticking to analogy over metaphor here because I think the application of the term to, for want of a specific or better term, systematic capitalistic socio-economic exploitation has a certain explanatory purpose. I'd also note that the system in which we see prisoners exploited for their labour or Chinese workers essentially working in labour camps is the same system we operate within - it's just that we are more often the recipients of the benefits of said exploitation than the exploited. That purpose is of course to cast all of us who have no option but to participate at the messy end of capitalism as, to some extent, slaves, in order to consider the system and ourselves in those terms - in that context. And it's not that I haven't qualified what a number of times now.

I think the problem here -- well, one of the problems with what I've posted at least -- is that suggesting that we are all, to some extent, slaves is to dilute or devalue the term we have traditionally applied to "the old, outspoken slavery." This is curious, because I have not made light of or downplayed "the old, outspoken slavery"; I have not denied, excused or offered apologies for it; I have not drawn any false equivalence between the harms and sufferings of so-called 'true slavery' and what we generally experience under our current political, legal, and social norms; and, I have acknowledged several expressions of its persistence in our supposedly enlightened modern age. What I have suggested however is that we are effectively the chattel of power masters.

Still, the argument against the use of it in the context I have set out appears to be that 'slavery' is such a touchy subject and/or loaded term that it should not be casually bandied about. However - and I am charged with reckless bandying, though I really don't think I've casually bandied anything of that sort about. That notwithstanding, if such a use of 'slavery' is too dangerous a term, socially or intellectually speaking, or just definitionally inappropriate in this context, then we don't seem to have a ready and reliable reference term to characterise the prevailing systemic imbalance that is maintained and perpetuated for the benefit of those with all the power. Again, you see, I am referring to a system - one we are bound to, trapped within or enslaved under: a system we have no option but to service and over which we effectively have no control.

I could labour (!) the point further, but I'll spare you the chore of wading through that at the moment. Suffice to say, I could have chosen to talk about the intersection of capital and labour in terms of a father/son relationship, or an clergy/congregation relationship, and I doubt there would have been as much resistance if I had. But I didn't. I'd admit I didn't expect the word 'slave' to elicit such a stern reaction, but I don't think it's use necessarily invalidates or forecloses the broader point - which is that the socio-economic system we find ourselves in today is akin to the instituti9on of slavery because it is a system which relies on exploitation, ultimately backed up by force, and that is detrimental to the material well-being of individuals. As I said up top, it is a system in which we are forced to sell ourselves in order to survive.

As to the dilution of meaning generally, and the devaluation of the term 'slave' in particular, I'll just say...

I'll happily own up to being overly sensitive to the term. It's discomfort that motivates my objection, rather than any "reckless bandying" on your part. For convenience's sake, I'll just blame that on Seth.

[JimC]

Seth is to blame for everything...