Employee=Slave?

[Malchik]

Are we mixing up several definitions here?

 

We may well be slaves to ourselves - setting limits that we feel we have to adhere to. We may be slaves to circumstance - the socio-economic group we are born into coupled with conditions in which we could get an education when young for instance. We may find ourselves in the poverty trap. But that doesn't equate employment to slavery.

 

There is no doubt that some employers treat their workers as if they were slaves but that is all down to the specific employer and the definition cannot be extrapolated more widely to mean 'employment' generically equals slavery.

 

In loveme's case I see some of the limits as being self imposed. If we build our own prison (and many of us do) we can't seek to lay off the blame on an innocent third party. Often the bars of the prison are comforting and we don't even realise it is prison but it confines our thinking. In such circumstances when we do feel or sense 'the bars' we look for someone to hold responsible. Often we should reach for a mirror!

[Mojlnir]

Exactly!

 

Slavery, at its most basic definition, is the owning of a person by another person. Your employer does not own you. And yes, employment is a contract entered into of your own free will. Employers do not waylay you on the street, force you down and threaten your life until you come work for them!

 

For example, let's take a foreigner with low salary, who supports his whole family (with family I mean not just man, woman and kids, I mean the broader term where everyone related to you is included) and doesn't really have a good education.

 

Have you gotten this man's opinion of his life? Perhaps its many times better than what he and his family came from. Perhaps he is happy that his kids don't have to worry about landmines and starvation? And he can send money home to his family as well. I would wager that he defines his life not in terms of his salary but rather what he has been able to accomplish.

 

I think the over-arching point of this discussion is to what extent do we allow ourselves to be coerced into consuming? Theta is absolutely correct in stating that state welfare benefits will keep you from starving. In the States, if you want to go to college, the poorer you are the more money you can get for school. I am walking proof of this. I have loans to pay back but I never would have had a chance at college if those programs hadn't been there.

 

We are all responsible for ourselves and our own needs and wants. We are also responsible for our own situations as well. Drug addicts are in a situation of their own creation (except for babies born addicted...which is a whole different topic), and a young man who would rather %&$! around in school and not apply himself sufficiently to earn entry to college is also in a situation of his own creation.

 

If the only job open to someone is cleaning streets then they should take it. Nobody says they have to clean streets their whole life though. They can put themselves on a budget, save as much as they can and they're making a start. If they can't stand being a street cleaner then again its a situation of their own creation.

 

Perhaps we are slaves to pride alone?

 

-M