The Sorrows of Globalization: Capitalism and Slavery

[sintax]

The difference between traditional slavery and wage slavery proves to be difficult to articulate. The ILO officially defines slavery as "all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily." According to this definition sweatshop labor should qualify as a form of slavery, as it constitutes the extraction of labor under the threat of a penalty, starvation; which no person endures by his or her choice. It seems clear that a person working for Wal-Mart in a Chinese sweatshop making between 13 and 23 cents an hour and forced to work 60 to 70 hours a week or be fired and face starvation should be classified as a slave: however, the ILO does not consider sweatshop labor to be a form of slavery, on the precarious grounds that forced labor encompasses only coercion that is a "severe violation of human rights and restriction of human freedom," violations which apparently do not occur in "situations of pure economic necessity" that would force one to work in a sweatshop.

More at: www.lefthook.org/Politics/Baake051705.html

[OneBlueSky]

1. not bad for a 15-year-old . . . n/t

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