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Can't make money off of me if I don't exist rule (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/196@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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[–] 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

In your view, what's the most important feature of slavery that makes it slavery and not something else?

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Not the same person but the answer is non-biological coercion of labor even if that's not the way it's often defined. If one lives in a system where they are compelled to sell their labor to survive so that someone can skim value from their labor this is a form of slavery.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I wonder what you mean by non-biological here, why is that a helpful distinction?

    I don't see why we couldn't think of human coercion of other humans isn't "biological" in some sense, so I also don't understand what distinction exactly you are making with "non-biological", but I might just be a bit slow today.

    Still, I agree with you that coercion seems central to the idea of slavery.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Ah, it may have been unneeded. What I meant by that is that every living being is compelled to work on some level to survive and I wanted to be clear that I wasn't including that. Like, a lion must hunt for food, a lion is biologically compelled to do this work to survive but this isn't slavery.

    To continue with that silly analogy, if some lions coerced other lions to hunt extra and took their extra food, that would be a form of slavery.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    ah, I see what you mean - it's an important distinction, and one that I think some existentialists looked at (not necessarily in terms of slavery, per se, but certainly in terms of freedom). Ultimately we can't avoid constraints and in that sense there is always coercion from the environment. However, there is a big difference between those inescapable constraints and the immoral and unjustified hierarchies a tiny minority of humans have successfully imposed on the rest, and pointing that out is definitely worthwhile.

    Thanks for the clarification!

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I think it’s insulting to compare working 40 hours a week to afford to live to literal slavery

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    First of all, I think I completely understand where you are coming from. This was the same reaction I had when I heard words like "slave" or "slavery" being thrown around to describe contemporary working conditions.

    Coming from a U.S. context where slavery overlaps with racism, it seemed even racially insensitive to me that an office worker would be compared to a slave, which in my mind was an African slave working in a cotton field.

    The reality is that working conditions vary considerably in the U.S., so when we speak of the working class we include everyone from the undocumented immigrant who is forced to live in shacks and pick crops without pay or even basic access to sanitary or safe conditions all the way up to cozy financial workers who work in skyscrapers. Something as big as an economic or political system is a difficult thing to analyze and talk about.

    But I noticed you did not answer my question. If you're not open to a discussion I understand, at least I have had a chance to put some of my thoughts out there. I just want to offer the opportunity to discuss the topic if you would like to, but no worries either way.

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