Rendering Unto Caesar: The Essence of Slavery‏‏

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

People who have lived their entire lives in a slavish existence have no experience of what it means to live freely. If someone were to tell them that what they call freedom is actually quite unfree, they might respond with strong emotions. Their reaction could be so severe that they kill or injure the individual who delivers the message. They might go so far as to claim religious persecution and have the messenger brought up on charges of crimes against humanity. In a previous time and place, the messenger would be strapped to a pole atop a pile of flaming fuel or tacked to an artificial tree.

If you ask a chattel slave about slavery, he might speak of brutal punishment and loss of friends and family. If you ask a wage slave about slavery, he might speak of meager compensation and cutthroat competition. If you ask a chattel slave owner about slavery, he might speak of the innate inferiority of the laboring race. If you ask a wage slave employer about slavery, he might speak of the fear of labor organizers and the need for out-sourcing. None of this gets to the essence of slavery because it considers only surface phenomena.

Plato described the essence of slavery as an artificial system of deception. The chattel slave is deceived into fearing punishment. The chattel slave owner is deceived into controlling people. The wage slave is deceived into practicing cutthroat competition. The wage slave employer is deceived into sending his work to a more despotic domain. All of them are stuck in an artificial trap of slavish existence. Where Aristotle debits slavishness to human nature, Plato firmly places the blame on social structures that condition people to think and act in a narrow way.

What does this have to do with politics today? There is no slavery here and now. The problems of coerced and forced labor have all been solved by the miracles of modern science. Do you really believe that or do you see some room for improvement? A recent Time magazine article on labor conditions in India do not agree with that assessment. India is a hotbed of American and European outsourcing.

Links: Plato's famous cave analogy. Nilanjana Bhowmick on labor conditions in India.

Comments

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

If someone were to tell them that what they call freedom is actually quite unfree ... They might go so far as to claim religious persecution and have the messenger brought up on charges of crimes against humanity

Bullshit. When has this happened?

What does this have to do with politics today?

Oh. I had been waiting with baited breath for the part where you attempt to justify your pseudo-philosophical non-political nonsense.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

The Garden of Eden was a real scam, because they had no freedomz! It was all a rigged game. And that slacker Eve, SHEESH!

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

So... "There's slavery today, just look at this article about India for proof". Is that it?

OK. Next...

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Oh. It's Monday again. Reliable like clockwork.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

In California we have child undocumented migrant workers from Mexico who pick food they do not eat and do not attend school.

If that is not slavery....well...I guess there are no whips, not often anyway. NAFTA was like a needle sucking blood from their hearts.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

It's only slavery if you do not have a choice. If you agree to work for shit wages, that's terrible, but it's not slavery.

Coerced is not forced.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

What the Hell does Caesar have to do with the rest of this mishmash?