Modern Slavery and Oppression
View this post on Hive: Modern Slavery and Oppression
7 years ago in #philosophy by clayboyn (70)
$8.00
- Past Payouts $8.00, 0.00 TRX
- - Author $7.02, 0.00 TRX
- - Curators $0.97, 0.00 TRX
One of the things I often find deeply ironic is that the USA was founded on the notion of "freedom" and the whole idea was to create a place where people weren't oppressed by religious institutions and rich landowners.
Fast forward 500 years, and we have pretty much made ourselves indentured servants of a new generation of rich landowners, now known as "corporations" where we blindly live lives doing "work" that's too bad to stay, but too good to leave.
IdeologicallyI'm right there with you, functionally freedom seems more to be something reserved for an intellectual segment of the population capable of grasping its implications. My point? A lot of people don't WANT to have to think for themselves...
... which is pretty sad.
I tend to agree, I just wonder how much of it is like @immarojas said "programming." How much can we deprogram the masses by showing them a different way. The problem is when the average citizens feels threatened by people rejecting the system.
I expect a good bit... let's just start with a school system that's basically centered around the ability to "regurgitate" canned answers... but teaches nobody critical thinking.
But I don't know how to change things. Assuming for a moment that people are "rational and reasonable" (no sure thing!) presumably, the alternative would have to be more attractive. But then we have to decide what "attractive" looks like.
I chose to work for myself rather than continue in Korporate Amerika, as a wage slave. BUT not everyone would find it "attractive" to not know where your next pay for groceries is coming from... that steady paycheck at least offers some measure of stability. Many I talk to "don't understand" how I can be independent... and I'm only talking about work, here...
Well said, it was like you were reading my mind. In my intro post, I spoke about my dream of living full time in an RV. One of my main reasons to do so is to break free of the BS and cut the cord to funding a government that I no longer believe in.
Disagree about wage slavery. I've yet to hear a good argument about how trading one's time and effort in exchange for something one values more (be it an actual good or a medium of exchange) enslaves someone. That being said, thanks in large part to the machinery of the state, markets are so distorted that just relationships between employers and employees are nearly impossible except in small cases.
To your maxim, I'd add "provided they're not trying to impose on your free will."
The oppression of the state leads to the wage slavery situation. When you're "required" to pay taxes to own property or "required" to pay for health insurance to even pay your taxes in the first place there is no voluntary exchange taking place. People are forced to work jobs to either have the health insurance or make the medium of exchange to pay the government. Sure they could try to do all of that in some other ways, but business and agriculture are so heavily regulated and taxed that it's nearly impossible to do that successfully either. I don't know if you aren't hearing a good argument or refusing to listen to one, but that's up to you.
So would I be correct in understanding that you don't oppose the idea of voluntarily working for someone in exchange for a good or medium of exchange in principle? Cause whenever I've seen the term "wage slavery" used, the person using it equates voluntarily contracting your time and energy--even absent a state--as slavery.
I think people should be free to do whatever they want to as long as it doesn't impose on other's freedom. If you want to volunteer or contract with someone that's a valid decision and basis of commerce/community effort. When you're forced to contract with someone due to external influences put into place without your consent, it's a whole different story. There is literally no way to be born as a U.S. citizen in the country and not comply without the overt threat of the system that you never agreed to comply to. There is no route to leave voluntarily and there is no way to just go find a plot of land and grow/gather your own food without the risk of government intervention.
The most interesting part is that you are not even given a choice, if you want to survive you must be part of the system, the 9-5 slavery...people just accept this form of oppression basically because they fear the unknown and uncertainty.
99% of people even think they are free when they are in fact just rented brainwashed slaves instead, who are paid in useless paper backed by nothing and printed out of thin air by a central authority that has the full control of your wealth.
@clayboyn you are right, although we feel that the slavetrad may have been abolished, but it jusy took a new shape and better advanced, this is not good for our world thank you for this.
Programming.