You do realize this reasoning was historically (and to a lesser extent currently) used to defend slavery? Be careful what rhetoric you use.
this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2023
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Pointing out the fact that wage slavery under capitalism is worse than chattel slavery is a not defence of chattel slavery.
Except it isn't worse, and that's frankly a horrible thing to say. Like, if you're making the same argument that a white supremacist makes, maybe it's time to check whether you want to be saying that?
Except that I'm not making the same argument that a white supremacist makes, that's just your deranged reading what my argument. My argument is that both types of slavery are bad, and capitalism makes aspects of slavery EVEN worse. The fact that capitalism outcompeted chattel slavery is itself an indicator that it reduces the costs for the slave owner.
Since you evidently have trouble understanding what I'm saying I'll spell it out for you. Slavery should be abolished period whether it's the old chattel slavery or the modern capitalist slavery. Hope you can get that through your head.
Except that I’m not making the same argument that a white supremacist makes, that’s just your deranged reading what my argument.
Every single one of the points in that image could be coming out of a neo-confederate's mouth. Yes, the North had its problems with exploitation and industrialization, this is well known. But it was nothing close to chattel slavery.
The fact that capitalism outcompeted chattel slavery is itself an indicator that it reduces the costs for the slave owner.
My dude, we fought a fucking war over it. That's how chattel slavery ended in the US.
Every single one of the points in that image could be coming out of a neo-confederate’s mouth. Yes, the North had its problems with exploitation and industrialization, this is well known. But it was nothing close to chattel slavery.
You seem to be confusing recognizing facts of the situation with intention. Your white supremacist friends see these facts and advocate going back to slavery, while socialists see these facts and see that slavery has not yet been abolished and there's more work to be done. It's simply amazing that somebody could have so much trouble understanding this.
My dude, we fought a fucking war over it. That’s how chattel slavery ended in the US.
Chattel slavery was never ended in US. I am amazed just how ignorant you are about your own country. A quintessentially American moment here.
Your white supremacist friends see these facts and advocate going back to slavery
Neo-confederates are primarily of the "Lost Cause" variety, where they diminish the horrors of slavery, make comparisons with the industrialized North, and romanticize the South. I'm not exaggerating when I say that you are snatching words right out of their mouth.
Chattel slavery was never ended in US.
While the prison system arguably allows a form of slavery via the felony exception to the 13th Amendment, it is not chattel slavery since no ownership is involved. There are of course plenty of pieces of history that I could in depth on like Black Codes, debt traps, and terrorism by the KKK and other white supremacist groups. Still not chattel slavery.
I am amazed just how ignorant you are about your own country. A quintessentially American moment here.
Oh teacher, I was unaware that you required a ten page single spaced Times New Roman paper on African American history following the period between Reconstruction and the present day. I'm quite well versed in US history around slavery, thank you.
Neo-confederates are primarily of the “Lost Cause” variety, where they diminish the horrors of slavery, make comparisons with the industrialized North, and romanticize the South. I’m not exaggerating when I say that you are snatching words right out of their mouth.
You're the only one diminishing the horrors of slavery here. I continue to be amazed by your inability to understand that there are multiple dimensions to any comparison. It is possible see parallels between chattel slavery and capitalism from both the right and left wing perspective. The notion that just because the right uses a particular argument it should be automatically discarded is infantile beyond belief. You're using reductive logic here.
While the prison system arguably allows a form of slavery via the felony exception to the 13th Amendment, it is not chattel slavery since no ownership is involved. There are of course plenty of pieces of history that I could in depth on like Black Codes, debt traps, and terrorism by the KKK and other white supremacist groups. Still not chattel slavery.
People are being deprived of liberty and being forced to work in order to create profit for the people who own the prisons. This is literal slavery, and the fact that there is no ownership involved on paper is just a formality so people like you can claim this is somehow completely different.
Oh teacher, I was unaware that you required a ten page single spaced Times New Roman paper on African American history following the period between Reconstruction and the present day. I’m quite well versed in US history around slavery, thank you.
Oh so just knowingly whitewashing the things your regime does here.
I'm not whitewashing the current state of things as being perfect. If that wasn't already obvious from our numerous interactions, I don't know what to tell you. Chattel slavery was incredibly brutal on a systemic level, far beyond anything present in the US today. Yes, you could cherrypick parallels and try to cast them as the current system being worse, like this meme does. You would just be utterly wrong to the point where most Black people in the US would find this meme incredibly offensive.
My argument was that aspects of capitalist exploitation are in fact worse. Both systems are horrific in their own way. What the meme focuses on in particular is that the reason capitalism outcompeted chattel slavery is because it reduces the operating costs for the business. Meanwhile, you went on a weird tangent here.
Then all I can say is you badly need to go back to your history books on slavery (and the post-Reconstruction era for that matter) before you keep ragging on about how ignorant I am about my own country.
Why don't you address what specifically you disagree with in the statement you're replying to there buddy.
- Spends money on purchasing slaves vs. Can exchange one "slave" (worker) for another: This leaves out the horrors of the slave trade, both transatlantic and domestic. Families were routinely split apart. Slave auctions were dehumanizing. Enslaved people were entirely at the mercy of their enslavers. The states would help track down escaped slaves, and the federal government attempted to force Northern states to cooperate via the Fugitive Slave Act. I won't whitewash the poor balance in employer-employee relationships, but it's offensive to put it in the same league. Workers can leave. They can move companies, cities, states, or countries. Workers are not forced to leave their family, at least not at a level that is utterly non-negotiable.
- Pays for the total upkeep of the slaves: Yeah, in the same way you keep up a piece of machinery. If it was no longer profitable to pay for the "upkeep" of an enslaved person because of age or disability, they were subject to being sold off for medical experiments, left in the woods to die, etc. Quality health care was not in the cards.
- If a slave gets sick it's [the enslaver's] problem: Only if it interfered with work. And if you're making a comparison with modern capitalism, workplace injuries are very much the employer's problem because of worker's compensation. Likewise health care insurance is commonly employer provided. There are also pieces of the social safety net, with are partially paid for by businesses in various ways.
- Slaves come to work on their own: I see no downside to people having their own homes instead of whatever half-assed shack their enslaver provides.
- Only has to pay for 8 hours of their lives: That other 16 hours was a hard won victory by unions. Going over 8 means paying overtime. Slaves didn't get overtime, but they did get over 8 hours of work.
This leaves out the horrors of the slave trade, both transatlantic and domestic.
That is an entirely separate point. Go read up on what the capitalist regime in Korea, that US installed, did rounding up, torturing, and forcing homeless people into work. These horrors are quite akin to the chattel slavery horrors in US.
Workers can leave. They can move companies, cities, states, or countries.
Except that's not how it works in practice. The baseline for the conditions that the companies offer is the conditions people experience when they don't have a job. In US, that means starving on the street. Therefore, job conditions only have to be preferable to that. Meanwhile, moving cities, states, or countries implies having the means to do so which people being exploited do not have. The fairly tale liberals tell about the workers having freedoms to choose better employment has no basis in reality. Nobody chooses to work in an Amazon fulfillment center and piss in a bottle.
Pays for the total upkeep of the slaves: Yeah, in the same way you keep up a piece of machinery. If it was no longer profitable to pay for the “upkeep” of an enslaved person because of age or disability, they were subject to being sold off for medical experiments, left in the woods to die, etc. Quality health care was not in the cards.
And that's precisely how things work under capitalism as well except the capitalist doesn't even have to worry about their worker dying on them because they just replace them. That's why Amazon lets people just drop dead on the floor as work carries on as usual.
If a slave gets sick it’s [the enslaver’s] problem: Only if it interfered with work.
The whole point of having slaves is so that they do work.
And if you’re making a comparison with modern capitalism, workplace injuries are very much the employer’s problem because of worker’s compensation. Likewise health care insurance is commonly employer provided. There are also pieces of the social safety net, with are partially paid for by businesses in various ways.
That's total bullshit, see Amazon example above for a counter point. In fact, there are countless horror stories of people being literally worked to death in US without being able to take sick days or seek medical help that they needed. And not just US, here's how capitalism is working in Japan.
Slaves come to work on their own: I see no downside to people having their own homes instead of whatever half-assed shack their enslaver provides.
The point you evidently missed is that capitalism reduces the costs for the business owner where worker is now responsible for ensuring they don't live on the street. Huge numbers of people in US are both employed and homeless. These people don't even get a shack. Here's an explanation for you of how this works:
Only has to pay for 8 hours of their lives: That other 16 hours was a hard won victory by unions. Going over 8 means paying overtime. Slaves didn’t get overtime, but they did get over 8 hours of work.
Most workers in US don't get any paid overtime. This isn't even restricted to blue collar labor. Unpaid overtime is standard practice for white collar jobs like software developers as well.
Your arguments aren't based on reality.
Well, I made an attempt. I just ask that you consult with someone who you will actually pay attention to as to whether this comparison is an offensive one to make. As I said, when you're starting to sound like a neo-confederate, step back and ask whether you're saying something offensive.
To recap, I addressed your points with concrete examples showing why they're wrong. You come back parroting the same thing again. It's like talking to a bot.
This comparison is only offensive from a hyper idealist moralist point of view. It isn't like chattel slavery was better at any point or that changing it to wage slavery was not a progress, especially on a systemic scale.
We argue that wage slavery is still slavery in other form and chattel slavery was not abolished because some moralist crap but because it was more effective for the ruling bourgeoise class, which is literally what the meme was about and which should be clear especially on the example of USA. And also, that it was not entirely abolished in USA exactly because the form in which it exist now (prison labour), even if restricted in scale by its nature and by ruling social system, is bringing more profit than wage slavery - which results in absurdly high rate of incarceration.
Notice that the only objection @pingveno@lemmy.ml makes to chattel slavery in this whole thread is the brutality. Evidently, he'd be perfectly fine with the system as long as the slave owners weren't allowed to egregiously abuse their slaves. Thus he even argues that the modern prison slavery in US is not comparable to chattel slavery.
Evidently, he’d be perfectly fine with the system as long as the slave owners weren’t allowed to egregiously abuse their slaves.
Slavery is intrinsically abusive. I didn't think I needed to bother saying that. Chattel slavery is intrinsically more abusive than other forms of slavery, especially as was practiced in the South.
Thus he even argues that the modern prison slavery in US is not comparable to chattel slavery.
Comparable? Hell no, in the same way that the Holocaust is not comparable with a few dozen people being murdered. Obviously both are evil, but one is terrible on a completely different scale than the other.
Rounding up minorities to work in labour camps is likewise intrinsically abusive. Again, the argument you're trying to build is based on chattel slavery being excessively abusive the way it was practised in US. This implies that you don't actually have an issue with the concept in general, just as long as slaves aren't abused excessively. Hence, US prison system today is not comparable.
I love how you further go on to minimize the scale of the US prison labour system. Entire state economies are now based around it. In the United States today there are more prisoners than farmers.
You keep on digging though.
This implies...
And here's where you're making a mistake. You're drawing all sorts of inferences to put words in my mouth. I don't know if you're just a spiteful individual, but it's a pattern of behavior.
I can only infer what you mean based on what you say. In the entirety of this thread the only criticism you've managed to come up with for chattel slavery is that it's exceptionally abusive.
Nowhere do you address the fundamental issue that chattel slavery shares with capitalism which is the domination of one set of individuals by another.
Ah yes, the benevolent slaver myth.
I also love this notion that the conditions got better because of capitalism. This shows such profound ignorance of history. Pretty much all the concessions workers got were won through militant organization of workers and the threat of USSR.
Nobody remembers that rights were payed in blood. Literally nobody. Everyone thinks that at some point in history we suddenly obtained them or something.
And the fact that those rights were fought by the left is even more forgoten…
Yeah, people really need to learn how all these rights we enjoy today were won.
Things like the 8 hour work day?
Yeah, things like 8 hour work day were won through violent labour action. Love how you keep claiming to be historically literate, but clearly not the case is it https://www.ibew48.com/blog/may-day-and-fight-8-hour-work-day
Exactly. Won by the labor movement after the American Civil War. Not achieved by capitalists and not involved in abolishing chattel slavery.
Thank you for supporting the point I'm making. Capitalism of itself does not improve worker conditions compared to chattel slavery. The improvement in conditions comes from violent action against both systems of oppression.