AtD RE: ATD Spoilers

[Dave Monroe]

How "voluntary" is this "commerce" for third world
sweatshop laborers with no other apparent, much less
real, perhaps, options?  No, I'm all for making such
fine distinctions where and when needed, so one might
add in here, with teh caveat that this in no way
justifies straight up, unapologetic slavery (though
one might look at slavery amongst tha Aztecs for an
interesingly differnet system, as I recall), but there
were at least some slave owners who felt at LEAST some
responsibility to their slaves as at LEAST an
investment, who may have even come to see then as
indiviual human beings in their own right, with at
elast some affection for them.  Which is HARDLY to say
that pride-of-ownership is something to be wither
forgiven, much less admired there, but ... but
sweatshop wage-slavery, on the other hand, sees its
putative slaves as interchangeable, disposable,
something it doesn't EVEN have an investment in,
initial or ongoing, something it merely rents, and
resents even having to do that much for, is all ...

Neither is better, perhaps, but, certainly, neither is
good ...

The question is, who get to choose, who CAN opt into
or out of the system?  To cite another novel, "This is
your country, you let it happen.  Let it unfurl." 

--- Monte Davis <monte.davis at verizon.net> wrote:

> DM: "But we're STILL dependent on slavery, or
> something very close to it, its just offshore and
> ill-paid, is all."
> 
> See the "Colonization of time" thread in MDMD,
> especially 7 August 1997. As I said then: 
> 
> "Commerce is indeed a powerful system, but a
> voluntary one. To forget that is to trivialize not
> only the plight of real slaves, past and present,
> but our own ability -- however rarely exercised --
> to choose how far to buy into it [commerce]."
> 
> There *is* a difference. It is important. It is not
> all the difference in the world-- but that doesn't
> keep it from being important.


 
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