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Jackpine Radical

(45,274 posts)
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 03:13 PM Jul 2014

Ya know why we no longer have slavery? The corporations don't want it.

Slavery is expensive & inefficient. When a slave gets sick or dies, you have all this money that you tied up in them going to waste. Much better to just sorta rent your employees. They're disposable, & when they keel over, you're not out much.

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Ya know why we no longer have slavery? The corporations don't want it. (Original Post) Jackpine Radical Jul 2014 OP
I read several years ago xfundy Jul 2014 #1
Yep. "Dead peasant" insurance. nt laundry_queen Jul 2014 #8
True. And the only way to know if AllyCat Jul 2014 #13
As others point out, this is called 'dead peasant insurance' PatrickforO Jul 2014 #21
capitalism and the people applying it heaven05 Jul 2014 #24
not only that, you don't bbgrunt Jul 2014 #2
Um, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery 150 years ago frazzled Jul 2014 #3
Northern industrialists vs. Southern plantation-owners starroute Jul 2014 #12
Those northern industrialists relied heavily on slave labor lightcameron Jul 2014 #32
Plantations were not early day corporations? tecelote Jul 2014 #18
Yes, and they wanted slaves frazzled Jul 2014 #35
Thank you, I was going to say something rustydog Jul 2014 #45
Oh, corporations still use slaves PatrickforO Jul 2014 #23
Please Re-Read it. Slavery IS still legal. Myrina Jul 2014 #28
actually many historians BainsBane Jul 2014 #33
Also, we fought a big-ass war shenmue Jul 2014 #4
sweat shops are slavery... lame54 Jul 2014 #5
slaves have to be clothed, housed and fed. Serfs are on their own. hobbit709 Jul 2014 #6
Indeed. Most of the American working populace are little more than PatrickforO Jul 2014 #25
Oh, really? I thought it was because the big shots in the states that outlawed raccoon Jul 2014 #7
Corporations prefer "wage slavery". nm rhett o rick Jul 2014 #9
Student loans are slavery. Cerdit card debt is slavery. Minimum wage is slavery. The GOP is slavery. blkmusclmachine Jul 2014 #10
Plastic slavery. Debt is as effective as shackles. alfredo Jul 2014 #15
It is not dead at all. It is a big part of the prison industrial complex. nt Live and Learn Jul 2014 #11
Yes, but in this case the cost of housing & feeding the slaves is transferred to the gov't. Jackpine Radical Jul 2014 #14
It costs more to house, feed, and provide health care of a prisoner than it does A Simple Game Jul 2014 #19
The Prison-industrial Complex likes profit from prison labor. Manifestor_of_Light Jul 2014 #36
my guess was redruddyred Jul 2014 #16
Nah tooeyeten Jul 2014 #17
Back when Mother Jones was organizing, she was at a mine explosion. The first casualties asked about jtuck004 Jul 2014 #20
The founders put an end to slavery in the Constitution. former9thward Jul 2014 #22
It was supposed to be 1807, but PatrickforO Jul 2014 #27
The Constitution ended the slave *trade* in 1808. No one thought slaves couldn't reproduce. Bucky Jul 2014 #42
Posts on DU are not research papers. former9thward Jul 2014 #46
There weren't enough of us. bravenak Jul 2014 #26
LOL ... funny Tuesday Afternoon Jul 2014 #37
Renting is more economical than buying. Leave all the maintenance fees to the owner. Kablooie Jul 2014 #29
They want you making just enough to barely survive. JaneyVee Jul 2014 #30
Sorry, but your post discounts the true horror that was slavery. greatlaurel Jul 2014 #31
actually we do still have slavery BainsBane Jul 2014 #34
I think this thread does great injustice to those who suffered real slavery Marrah_G Jul 2014 #38
Well, it's just looking at the economic aspects of slavery. Bucky Jul 2014 #44
DU finds a new low on a regular basis, but this post is the Marianas Trench. nt LeftyMom Jul 2014 #39
Exactly. And the training? It's really expensive. lumberjack_jeff Jul 2014 #40
I've always felt that professional athletics most closely mirror it in our society. raouldukelives Jul 2014 #41
Kind of. Sort of. Bucky Jul 2014 #43
plus, you have to be responsible for slaves. Feed em, house em, clothes... librechik Jul 2014 #47

xfundy

(5,105 posts)
1. I read several years ago
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 03:22 PM
Jul 2014

that some employers take out life insurance policies on their employees (Mal*Wart comes to mind) so that when they do keel over, the company profits.

AllyCat

(16,035 posts)
13. True. And the only way to know if
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 04:27 PM
Jul 2014

A company does it is if their is public record from a suit or some such. They are not required to say if they take out dead peasant insurance.

PatrickforO

(14,516 posts)
21. As others point out, this is called 'dead peasant insurance'
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 05:33 PM
Jul 2014

This link presents a list of 215 companies that are thought to purchase insurance policies on their employees so they can profit in case they sicken and die.

http://deadpeasantinsurance.com/which-employers-bought-policies-on-the-lives-of-employees/

Some famous (or shall we say Infamous?) names on the list:
Anadarko
ATT
BF Goodrich
Ball Corporation
Bank of America

You know, this list once again reminds us all that capitalism sucks. It really does.

 

heaven05

(18,124 posts)
24. capitalism and the people applying it
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 05:42 PM
Jul 2014

are cold-hearted and completely callous in their indifference to the harm it causes human beings. Profit has always trumped compassion for real human need......

bbgrunt

(5,281 posts)
2. not only that, you don't
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 03:23 PM
Jul 2014

have to pay a living wage or worry about health care if you don't have any vested interest in keeping your rented labor resources alive and healthy.

frazzled

(18,402 posts)
3. Um, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery 150 years ago
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 03:25 PM
Jul 2014

in 1864. And I don't think the reasons were for corporate benefit: indeed, the benefits of owning slaves for the large plantation owners was of great economic benefit to them, so they fought for it tooth and nail. The abolition of slavery was a moral and human rights issue.

But go with whatever narrative fits your preconceived notions--knock yourself out!

starroute

(12,977 posts)
12. Northern industrialists vs. Southern plantation-owners
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 04:12 PM
Jul 2014

When your wealth comes from agriculture, slaves are probably more efficient. You have plenty of land for them to live on, the means for them to raise their own food -- they kind of fend for themselves while you exploit their labor.

When your wealth comes from factories, housing and feeding your workers would be a more significant expense. It's much simpler to hire their labor for eight or ten hours a day and then turn them out at nightfall.

I don't know that the plantation system was actually a threat to the corporations. I suspect it was more than recent immigrants -- the Irish, the Germans -- headed to the northern cities, and the South felt demographically challenged. There was also the matter of the British supporting the south as a source of raw materials and a way of preventing the North from becoming too much of a competitor.

But the economics of it was definitely a factor.

lightcameron

(224 posts)
32. Those northern industrialists relied heavily on slave labor
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 11:16 PM
Jul 2014

in the south (and to a smaller extent on slaves in the north), particularly within the textiles industries. Plantations weren't a threat to them at all.

frazzled

(18,402 posts)
35. Yes, and they wanted slaves
Mon Jul 7, 2014, 12:16 AM
Jul 2014

The OP claims that corporations don't like slavery because it's not economically viable. I contested that claim on a historical basis. Sorry but the OP is just making shit up to fit their current world view.

PatrickforO

(14,516 posts)
23. Oh, corporations still use slaves
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 05:38 PM
Jul 2014

They are known as wage slaves.

Wage slavery is when the corporation pays you just enough to live but not enough to get ahead. And, if you listen to the Koch brothers and their ilk, we shouldn't have Social Security or health care coverage; people should have to work until they die without corporations having to spend anything on pensions or something as frivolous as health care.

Myrina

(12,296 posts)
28. Please Re-Read it. Slavery IS still legal.
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 06:43 PM
Jul 2014

There was an exception clause allowing it as punishment for a crime. Why do you think the prison populations gave exploded over the past 30 years? Cheap prison labor aka slavery.

BainsBane

(53,001 posts)
33. actually many historians
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 11:24 PM
Jul 2014

Have examined economic causes for the abolition of slavery and the way in which it acted as an impediment to capitalist development. What the OP describes is essentially the difference between fixed vs. Variable capital that makes slavery less efficient than free wage labor, a phenomenon discussed by both Marx and Adam Smith.

raccoon

(31,091 posts)
7. Oh, really? I thought it was because the big shots in the states that outlawed
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 03:40 PM
Jul 2014

slavery (at least that had outlawed it by 1861) just thought it wasn't very nice
to buy and sell people and treat them like livestock.

You got it right, OP.

 

blkmusclmachine

(16,149 posts)
10. Student loans are slavery. Cerdit card debt is slavery. Minimum wage is slavery. The GOP is slavery.
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 03:55 PM
Jul 2014

$4.50/gal. of gasoline is slavery.

The NSA is slavery.

"Bi-partisanship" is slavery.

Etc., etc.

Jackpine Radical

(45,274 posts)
14. Yes, but in this case the cost of housing & feeding the slaves is transferred to the gov't.
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 04:30 PM
Jul 2014

Slavery is fine if someone else (i.e. us, the more fortunate serfs) pay for it.

A Simple Game

(9,214 posts)
19. It costs more to house, feed, and provide health care of a prisoner than it does
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 05:26 PM
Jul 2014

to pay minimum wage to a peasant. It shouldn't be a good deal for a company, but ends up being a bargain as taxpayers pay 100% of the cost of labor.

The true cost is no bargain for the consumer as they pay twice, once for the price of the product and once in taxes to support the prison labor.

 

Manifestor_of_Light

(21,046 posts)
36. The Prison-industrial Complex likes profit from prison labor.
Mon Jul 7, 2014, 12:20 AM
Jul 2014

That's the one exception to the 13th Amendment.


 

redruddyred

(1,615 posts)
16. my guess was
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 04:46 PM
Jul 2014

that they were having too much fun abusing the 14th amendment.

not that comparing wage slavery to actual slavery is that much of a stretch.

tooeyeten

(1,074 posts)
17. Nah
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 05:15 PM
Jul 2014

They've invested in criminal justice in order for the prison system to pick up where slavery left off, it's a trillion dollar enterprise.

 

jtuck004

(15,882 posts)
20. Back when Mother Jones was organizing, she was at a mine explosion. The first casualties asked about
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 05:28 PM
Jul 2014

by the manager were the mules. Because those cost $$.

The people just walked up of their own volition, and if they died or quit or were murdered there were always those desperate enough to take their place.

former9thward

(31,802 posts)
22. The founders put an end to slavery in the Constitution.
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 05:33 PM
Jul 2014

They said that in 1809 the importation of slaves would be illegal. Everyone knew that would mean the eventual end to slaves because it could not be supplied by domestic reproduction. This was almost a century before structure of the modern corporation was invented. Your theory fails to history.

PatrickforO

(14,516 posts)
27. It was supposed to be 1807, but
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 06:00 PM
Jul 2014

the last verified slave ship bringing people from Africa to be sold into slavery here was the Wanderer, which brought it's cargo of 409 slaves to Jeckyll Island, Georgia in 1858.

So like today's corporations, yesterday's southern plantation owners seem to have found ways to flout the law. It has been documented many times that our 'justice' system has ruled firmly on the side of the wealthy since the beginning of this nation, and that when popular pressure for reform can no longer be effected by the tried-and-true 'divide and conquer' strategy, the laws are simply changed to make demonstrations for (labor, social policy) reform illegal. Consider the current situation with the Moral Mondays demonstrations in N. Carolina.

Hey, if people demonstrating for justice makes the powers that be 'uncomfortable,' then the powers that be just change the law.

God forbid they should engage in actual reform...

Bucky

(53,795 posts)
42. The Constitution ended the slave *trade* in 1808. No one thought slaves couldn't reproduce.
Mon Jul 7, 2014, 10:49 AM
Jul 2014

You can't just make stuff up because it's what you want to believe. If you read the actual debates in Philadelphia in 1787 and those held over ratification over the next year or so, you'd know better. The reason the Upper South (Virginia and Maryland) opposed the slave trade was because they already had enough slaves. A few Framers argued that slavery would die out eventually, but that was because they expected white workers to come in and take over the work once it became more profitable. Others (fewer) understood that tobacco would never become profitable by paid labor and predicted ongoing slavery. Zero people argued that slaves would not reproduce.

Slavery was not sustainable in the Caribbean because the tropical conditions and the work in the sugar plantations were so harsh that high mortality rates required ongoing imports of workers, as slaves. But the Framers from the Lower South (Georgia and the Carolinas) agreed to the 1808 Compromise because they fully expected their growing slave populations to be sustainable within 20 years. Originally the slave trade cut off was to be 1800, but the Lower South delegates pushed for a few more years' extension on top of that. They were able to get that 8 year addition because they were supported by delegates from the New England states whose constituents were also profiting from the slave trade.

The structure of the modern corporation runs back to the 1600s. Shareholders invest capital in expectation of a share in the profits and a diversified risk structure. This gives incredible buying power and ensures profits when proper investment and management skills are applied. The only two things different between corporations in 1787 and today are not significant--it's easier to buy in on shares through open stock markets and the corporations are now considered people rather than time-limited enterprises.

Please avoid telling people that their theories "fail to history" when you yourself are getting the basic facts wrong.

former9thward

(31,802 posts)
46. Posts on DU are not research papers.
Mon Jul 7, 2014, 01:26 PM
Jul 2014

There is no room for footnotes or passages in history books. The founders thought slavery would die out by ending the slave trade. If you wish to support the theories of the OP and their "history" go ahead...

 

bravenak

(34,648 posts)
26. There weren't enough of us.
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 05:53 PM
Jul 2014

They needed to let you think that slavery was over so that they could enslave the rest of you too.
It worked.

greatlaurel

(2,004 posts)
31. Sorry, but your post discounts the true horror that was slavery.
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 11:04 PM
Jul 2014

Slavery was a near fatal wound from which our country has not still healed. Unfortunately, we have failed to educate people on the institution of slavery which is why we are still so easily manipulated by powerful interests using race and class to divide and conquer.

BainsBane

(53,001 posts)
34. actually we do still have slavery
Sun Jul 6, 2014, 11:27 PM
Jul 2014

More people live in slavery today than at any point in history. What we longer have are slave systems, economies that revolve around slave labor.

See antislavery.org for info on modern-day slavery.

Bucky

(53,795 posts)
44. Well, it's just looking at the economic aspects of slavery.
Mon Jul 7, 2014, 11:12 AM
Jul 2014

I think it's a safe bet that everyone here is against slavery. That's not controversial. But looking at the economics of it is enlightening as to why it held on for as long as it did in the "Land of Liberty." There's a time for moral outrage and there's a time for understanding deeper causes and effects.

 

lumberjack_jeff

(33,224 posts)
40. Exactly. And the training? It's really expensive.
Mon Jul 7, 2014, 12:38 AM
Jul 2014

Better to offload that cost onto the slaves err employees themselves. They'll even bid against one another in ever higher levels of arbitrarily expensive education for the right to work in your plantation.

Working in the house jobs, at any rate.

raouldukelives

(5,178 posts)
41. I've always felt that professional athletics most closely mirror it in our society.
Mon Jul 7, 2014, 10:30 AM
Jul 2014

A bunch of wealthy white guys get together and run potential new recruits through a series of tests to see how much they can lift, how hard they can push, how high they can jump, how fast they can run and how good they are in physical health. Checking the teeth and muscle structure and giving tests for mental aptitude.
Then they all bid on the right to own that person for a guaranteed amount of time.

But in all seriousness, slavery ended when good people refused to partake in or profit from it. The idea of profiting from someones pain and misery being too much for them.
If only we felt the same way today. We are facing a much larger moral dilemma than slavery in climate change and environmental destruction. Far from just making life miserable for the slaves and they're families, our current lifestyles and choices are ensuring suffering for everyone and everything that relies on stable ecosystems.

If we had slavery today, we'd hear some muted rants from us extreme leftists against it. The majority would be pumping money into slave trading corporations and shrugging "We can't change it. Only the government can change it. Best to watch out for numero uno until it is outlawed."

Bucky

(53,795 posts)
43. Kind of. Sort of.
Mon Jul 7, 2014, 11:10 AM
Jul 2014

If there was a profit to be made, there was probably going to be out there trying to make it. Slavery is inefficient--George Washington famously calculated that he was losing money on the practice and switched over to renting out his spare farms to tenants. But he held onto "his people" in part because of the legal mess that slavery produced, in part out of consideration for the vulnerability they would have if suddenly freed, and in part because he didn't think it through clearly enough to realize how wrong it was (though he did arrange for his own slaves to have freedom on his wife's death and provided them with job skill training--however his executor Bushrod Washington only allowed some to be freed and sold off a few of the others to balance the books).

The prevailing argument against slavery at the time was that its existence scared off white yeoman immigrants. Why work a small farm or open up a blacksmith shop when there was a neighbor with slaves doing the same labor at supposedly a fraction of the cost. Also there was a concern that the existence of laboring slaves made freed labor seem too menial for a free man to stoop to. In truth, as you point out, there was a high hidden cost in slave labor--at least a third of the workforce was out sick or disabled most of the time, and working conditions actually left slaves with far fewer productive years than a yeoman or wage farmer would have.

This is the reason ultimately for the math behind the 3/5s Compromise. During the Confederation years (1781-1788) the money contribution quota from each state to the federal union's Congress was calculated by population of freemen (regardless of race) plus 3/5s of slaves because it was expected that a slave only produced 60% of the wealth of a free man. So when it came time to allocate representation in 1787, there was an existing formula to figure out how much representation a slave's value added to the economy (since taxation=representation was a founding principle in the Revolution).

The disposability of workers was an issue that they were just starting to grapple with in that age. Lacking much money, the army relied in part on paying the troops in farmland allotments after the war was over. Troops dying in battle was definitely a boon to the state since it meant that much less land that would be allocated to veterans for their service in wartime. That meant more farmland to sell later on. If criticized on this point (which they weren't generally) the Founders would have said that they enshrined the right to pursuit of happiness in the Declaration--which they generally understood as the right to go out and find the best work you could for the best profit you could make and no one was going to tell you what you had to do.

Even then, freedom wasn't free.

librechik

(30,663 posts)
47. plus, you have to be responsible for slaves. Feed em, house em, clothes...
Mon Jul 7, 2014, 01:28 PM
Jul 2014

much better to make the worker pay for those out of his meagre salary. From a business standpoint.

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