Susan Pitchford

We tend to think of slavery as the legal ownership of one person by another. But that definition belongs to the past, as does our “Gone With the Wind” image of plantation slavery. Slavery today takes multiple forms, but all slaves are people who are forced to work without compensation, who are kept at it by violence or the threat of violence, who are unfree, controlled through physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual coercion.

In his book “Disposable People,” Kevin Bales identifies two developments that have contributed to the problem of slavery today: population explosion in the poorest parts of the world, and macroeconomic changes that have eroded traditional means of subsistence. Shortages of land push poor people into the cities, hoping for jobs that are not there. Together, these trends have created huge numbers of “disposable people.” While slavery is illegal in every country, and no slave today is legally “owned,” there are so many of these vulnerable people that slavers can buy them much cheaper than in the past.

For example, Bales points out that in 1865, a slave bought in the American South cost roughly $40,000. Today, you can “buy” a slave for under $100, as low as $40 in many cases. Bales likes to ask, “If you could buy a new car for $40, how would that change your relationship with your car?” The question points out the difference between the old and new forms of slavery. In the 19th century, a slave was a considerable capital investment, and however much you might abuse slaves, you at least had a financial incentive to keep them alive and healthy enough to work.

Now, slaves are so cheap they’ve become disposable. Like a $40 car, you don’t worry about how you drive it, or where you park it, and you don’t insure it or do routine maintenance. You drive it until it stops, and then you leave it on the roadside and get another. Sex slaves in Thailand, for example, are worked until they get AIDS, then turned out into the street. Those who are healthy enough to try to escape are often returned to the brothel by corrupt police.

Most of us aren’t going to be visiting sex slaves, either in Thailand or here in the U.S., where (along with domestic work) it is also one of the main forms of slavery. But slaves are also commonly used in agricultural and manufacturing work, both here and abroad. That means that the food we eat, along with all kinds of other products we use, is likely to be tainted by slavery at some point in the production process. Maybe the car I drive wasn’t assembled by slaves, but the parts may have been. If not, perhaps the bricks for the factory the parts were made in. And those stores that tempt us with “low, low prices” can do so because the labor costs of the products they sell have been kept to a minimum – and in some cases, eradicated completely through slavery.

The sad truth is, we’re all involved in this; we’re all implicated. But there is hope for eradicating slavery in our time. In the next post, I’ll consider the modern abolitionist movement, but you can learn more here: http://www.freetheslaves.net