Comment by fsloth | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fsloth | Hacker News Reader

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"How about this: robbing everyone of any means of survival short of selling their labour is the very definition of slavery. We just obfuscate it with money, but never offer a real chance of owning capital."

So by your definition any position short of economic independece would be slavery?

I'm not depreciating suffering. Calling employees in a poor bargaining position "slaves" is muddled argumentation. Any arbitrary non-negotiable position is not slavery - unless one wants to be poetic (i.e. "we are all slaves to laws of physics" etc).

As to the definition of slavery I would refer to wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery

"Slavery is a legal or economic system in which principles of property law can apply to humans so that people can be treated as property,[1] and can be owned, bought and sold accordingly, and cannot withdraw unilaterally from the arrangement."

Capital has been always a lopsided thing - few have it. It's quite different not having capital, than being treated as a capital asset and having almost no human rights.

As a fairly modern example Frederick Douglas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass) has more than a few words to say about his time as a slave.

"I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday... A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. ... I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent,"

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23/23-h/23-h.htm

Being bound to only few means of sustenance is one thing. Having ones birthday robbed is another entirely.

Capital hasn't always been a lopsided thing. There was a time when a great number of people had access to productive land, and had the means to survive without relying on "employment".

The industrial revolution changed this dramatically.

I'm sure you have heard the term "wage slavery". Sure you can argue: "hey at least you know your birthday now, and technically we don't own you". But that's ignoring the fact that we have still robbed that person of free will because we have robbed them off the means of production. Saying that " they can quit if they want " is equivalent to saying a slave can kill himself if he doesn't like it.

I'm not saying that the situation hasn't improved. Slavery has changed, it is a more sustainable model now, with less chance of uprising, as people such as yourself actually defend it even though chances are, you are on the wrong side of it (I.e you sell your own labour rather than benefit from others labour in order to survive).

But it is still a massive inequality and it literally robs people of choice in their life.

I think you need to specify your historical period and geographical region before you can claim that a great number of people had access to productive land and economic independence before industrial revolution. My perception of history is that the majority of people in post-hunter-gatherer societies have always lived under someones thumb.

"But that's ignoring the fact that we have still robbed that person of free will because we have robbed them off the means of production"

Who is "we" and what are the means of production that have been robbed from this person? Sure, poverty makes people dumb because all their energies are go to economic struggle - but being born to poverty does not imply that anything was stolen from them. I'm not saying poverty does not suck because it does. But it's not an act of personal malfeasance but a systems error.

It would be very cathartic if one could just blame all the rockefellers for the economic inequality in this world but the world is not that simple.

"Slavery has changed, it is a more sustainable model now, with less chance of uprising, as people such as yourself actually defend it"

I think you are being silly. The specific difference between slavery and current economic trends now is that to fix slavery the people needed to implement fundamental changes to the economy and legal system at large scales. Nowadays to give people a little more independence in developed economies would only require a sustainable model of basic income which is more of a political hassle rather than anything since most developed countries already have extensive systems of income transfer.

"We", are the capitalists. Those who own the means of production, and use that "property" to have others work for them. They're the owners of factories, and have workers make products for them. They're the owners of land and housing, and have the tenants pay for the privilege of living there —effectively, tenants partially work for their landlord.

Interestingly, becoming a capitalist is almost as difficult as becoming nobility used to be. It's not a birth right, but very few people manage to start poor and die wealthy. Even creating your own personal business is not easy —though some professions, like medicine, have it easier than others. Capitalists are a caste.

So, what to do when you're not a capitalist? The only thing you can reasonably do: you go find an employer, and give up most of your autonomy for 40 hours a week. Well, given the sheer amount of part time work we have in our industrialised countries (including France, Germany, and the US), it's more like 30. 30 hours a week, you have basically no say in what you do nor how you do it. You can only hope that whatever is being asked of you resembles what you actually want to do. For most people, this is not the case: they just hate their job, but live with it because it's the only way they can pay their bills. (And no, they don't have access to better jobs. And switching jobs is a pain. And they have a poor bargaining position in the first place, thanks to unemployment.)

That was an individual's point of view. Collectively, things are much worse. See, a small proportion of the population (the capitalists) can decide what is being done. They decide what has economic value, provided they can sell it. When they can't sell it, they use aggressive marketing (fashion) or artificial scarcity (copyright) to sell it anyway. They lobby for laws meant to reinforce their position (as is natural: when life is good for you, you want it to stay that way), effectively preventing the common people from having any serious say. And of course, there's the maximisation of profit, that have the capitalists drive wages down, or maximise production, or outsource work, or externalise costs… or all at the same time. They destroy people's lives (outsourcing) and pollute the land (externalisation). It looks like long term, capitalists are at best poor decision makers, and at worst criminals deserving the chopping block (or anything that permanently prevents them from doing further harm).

Lucrative property is currently human right. Probably the most fiercely enforced. It should be abolished. No one should be able to have others work for them just because they happen to own something they don't use themselves (land, factories, houses…). I'm not sure what the alternatives are yet, but capitalism just doesn't work.

> I think you need to specify your historical period and geographical region before you can claim that a great number of people had access to productive land and economic independence before industrial revolution.

Pre industrial revolution: Anywhere. You had large agricultural community (i.e farmers) typically in a Surfdom kind of relationship. So yes, they had to either pay some form of tax, or tend to land of others. But they also had land of their own, of which the could depend and survive on. "Unemployment" wasn't a thing. You also had open access to resources (hence they oil and gold rushes). These have all since been privatised.

> Who is "we" and what are the means of production that have been robbed from this person

"We" is the capitalists. Means of production is property, natural resources, etc.

> It would be very cathartic if one could just blame all the rockefellers for the economic inequality in this world but the world is not that simple.

It actually is that simple. But that's just identifying the problem. The solution to how we unwind multi-generational theft is an outright impossible one. The capitalists of today, think they rightfully own their capital, as it wasn't them personally who stole it.

> I think you are being silly.

Ad-hominem, but you are entitled to that way of thinking. It is difficult when people challenge our core beliefs, I can understand the position.

> Nowadays to give people a little more independence in developed economies would only require a sustainable model of basic income which is more of a political hassle rather than anything since most developed countries already have extensive systems of income transfer.

Would "only require", and given it's such an obvious thing to adopt, why hasn't it been? I would argue: "Because capitalists don't want it, and they are the ones in control". There are extensive systems of income transfer from the middle class. But Warren Buffet made it clear that Capitalists are largely unaffected by such measures (this is true the world over, not just the US).

Sorry about the ad-hominem in the previous post, it was a poor choice of words.

I did not claim that capitalism was 'fair', nor that the rich elites did not have a political leverage to further their personal well being. But it's not slavery. Calling things "Unfair" would be a good start, and then figuring out the parameters of the solution space. I.e. if the status quo is "unfair", then what would "fair" look like. It certainly does feel unfair that while the productivity has skyrocketed people still need to work 40 hour weeks to provide for housing, food and healthcare.

But I don't think the answer to "fair" is in rural pre-industrial societies.

I said: "I think you need to specify your historical period and geographical region before you can claim that a great number of people had access to productive land and economic independence before industrial revolution."

To which you replied: "Pre industrial revolution: Anywhere."

"Anywhere" would imply all members of pre-industrial agricultural communities thrived in sovereign bliss. This is quite far from the truth.

Russia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_in_Russia#Transition_t...

Ireland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29#Lan...

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