The problem with slaves is that they're too damn expensive.

[Jackpine Radical]

The price of a good slave in 1855, in today's dollars, would be about $100,000. And then you have to feed them and put up with their illnesses and do something with them when they get too old to work.

Fortunately, American corporations have found the answer. Don't buy the slaves--just lease them for a few bucks an hour & let the Gubmint worry about supplementing their rations. Keep their hours too low for health care, and if they get too sick to work, fire them. Ditto when they get too old to work. It's all so sensible…

[Scuba]

1. Hippie.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Hippie? Me?

I was just pointing out one of the major advances of modern capitalism.

[Coyotl]

2. The RICH love the underground economy, workers w/o paying social security, worker's comp, min wages

And, at the end of the day, the government foots those bills also to keep retirees out of abject poverty.

[hunter]

4. And many of these slaves will argue they are not slaves...

... and will vote against their own best interests in support of those who enslave them.

[Jackpine Radical]

5. The most effctive shackles

are the invisible ones.

[Hydra]

6. Wage Slavery is the most efficient kind

The slaves will fight to work for the illusory chance they have to become a slavemaster. Meanwhile, the Slave Masters can keep all the control they would have had via more subtle means such as propaganda and religion, but they can pick and choose their slaves and dump them when they're done.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. Excellent points.

[uponit7771]

8. +1

[reddread]

9. brave new world

I doubt all the outsourcing and free trade agreements in the world will hold a serious candle to what is really destroying jobs-
technology in the service of greed.
We need to plan for the near future in terms of policy and expectations that will serve us all.

[el_bryanto]

10. Michael Moore did a segment on American Apartheid on one of his TV shows

I think it was the Awful Truth; in which made this case. Made me really uncomfortable at the time (and still does) but he makes a lot of good points about how we treat poor people in general and minorities in particular in our nation.

Bryant

[JoeyT]

11. It's not slavery, it's closer to serfdom.

You can't sell a serf, but you don't have to buy them either. They're disposable, since they don't represent any initial investment: If they get sick or injured and die, there are plenty more of them. You don't even have to feed them. Serfs are responsible for feeding themselves. If they can't do it because their lord took too much of what they made to enrich themselves, see the line above about there being plenty more.

The goal of deregulation and all the bullshit is serfdom, with the "Job Creators" cast as the nobility. I genuinely wouldn't be surprised to hear someone on Fox haul out "Clearly they're the favored of God, if not they wouldn't have been born rich".

[ck4829]

13. Christian Coalition already advocates that

"Of course, slavery was abolished in this country many years ago, so we must apply these principles to the way Americans work today, to employees and employers. Christians have a responsibility to submit to the authority of their employers since they are designated as part of God’s plan for the exercise of authority in the earth by man."

http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2011/08/16/christian-coalition-endorses-slavery/

[Jackpine Radical]

15. You can just hear the tone of regret

as they lament the end of (one form of) slavery after the Civil War.

[H2O Man]

12. Recommended.

The corporations are saving some money by purchasing foreign slaves, rather than the domestic brands.

[raouldukelives]

14. That equals good money if your in the markets.

Nothing helps someone sleep so well as the knowledge their money is hard at work for them. Heck, some people make a pretty good living being day slave traders.
Its never too late to help fund a few corporate dreams. Won't you give today?

[johnnyreb]

16. And when you need a war,

..you jest tell 'em they're fitin' for Freedom.

[July]

17. A few months ago, a DUer coined the term "free-range slaves" for what you're talking about.

Unfortunately, I can't remember who it was so I can give him or her credit.

But the point was that corporations want to enjoy the labor of their "slaves" without worrying about food, shelter, medical care or anything else.

I thought it was a clever notion.

[Jackpine Radical]

18. I just stole that.

If I can only remember t.