Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Going Once, Going Twice, Sold

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, April 4, 2014

Going Once, Going Twice, Sold

Click here if you wish to access the original posting by Abby Zimet from Common Dreams.

Aiming to create awareness of today's estimated 27 million slaves around the world "hidden in plain sight," the folks at the Freedom For All Foundation have been holding slave auctions in New York City as part of their "Stop the Nightmare" campaign. See the chilling one on Wall Street, and the stunned looks of spectators. And these "slaves" are young adults; real sex trafficking victims can be as young as 12.

Liberal activists like to do actions like this, but I would like to see activists do something much more radical: an auction for wage-slaves. All they would need to do is label each person's national and/or regional origin, hold the auction in terms of hourly wages and benefits, and have worker-slaves auction themselves off to corporations. People from poorer countries/regions would under bid those labeled as being from richer countries/regions. This would dramatically illustrate the reality of corporations pitting workers against each other all over the world to work for them at the lowest wages and benefits.

After all, is wage-slavery such a great advance over classic slavery? Capitalists would have you believe that this is "freedom"! But, what kind of freedom is this if a small segment of the population owns all the tools which workers made in the past, and they won't let present day workers use them unless they compete to be employed by capitalists for wages in a labor market? Freedom to starve? Freedom to live under a bridge?

Also, think about the advantages of classic slavery. If some person or corporation has purchased you in order to work on their property, they have an investment in you and are likely to take good care of you like they do with the machinery they own. Thus, they are likely to maintain you in good health, train you, and provide you with shelter so that they can keep exploiting the value you produce, recover their investment, and make a profit. That isn't the case with wage-slavery where they can simply and immediately replace you with someone else who is in better health and has more training purchased at their own expense.