2 months ago
> In a statement, the department’s attorney, Jason Dare, called the reporting “baseless.” The Rankin County jail, he wrote, “is one of the cleanest and best-run jails in Mississippi, with jailers never having been found to use excessive force in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
That's not much of a defense. All he's saying is they haven't been convicted yet.
2 months ago
2 months ago
Mandatory archive.is link: https://archive.is/Mf0O7
2 months ago
Slavery never ended in the US. And I imagine that the racial make-up of the inmates subjected to this treatment will surprise no one. Deconfederalization is 150 years late, but we can always get to it. Changing that state flag was a start. (In 2020. In 2020!)
2 months ago
Very bad racially-motivated atrocities are perpetrated today. Characterizing that as "slavery never ended in the US" is trivializing a much, much worse past regime.
2 months ago
It is both technically (because of the penal exception in the 13th Amendment) and substantively (mass incarceration and penal slavery were adopted as policy directly and almost immediately as a replacement for chattel slavery, and have spread from their original geographic domain since) accurate, it doesn’t trivialize anything.
2 months ago
The 13th amendment explicitly provides a carve out (“as punishment”) for slavery/involuntary servitude. We still allow slavery in the USA.
This incident took place at a prison, the “as punishment” space that allows the state to enslave American citizens.
2 months ago
One of the great opportunities to improve politics in this country would be to increase our moral dynamic range, to be able to hold in our heads that slavery was very bad, for profit prisons are very bad, and slavery was much worse.
2 months ago
2 months ago
Slavery has never ended overall.
The last I knew I was working for a company that powers their cogs earning millions whereby I get a pittance.
Modern day slavery isn't forced unlike previous generational eras sure, but we still get ripped off for the sake of forced living.
2 months ago
I’ve got plenty of complaints about how capitalism works in practice. But the “force” bit is pretty fundamental to slavery, I think.
2 months ago
2 months ago
My boss has never beat me up.
Only ever made passive aggressive comments.
2 months ago
True, but if you stop working you’ll have no healthcare, and pretty soon no place to live and nothing to eat.
It’s indirect, but it’s still force.
2 months ago
but if you no longer work for your boss, why should he pay you? in fact, how could he pay you? if the value your work should create has not been created?
do you want to force him to pay you? would that not just be the same thing in reverse?
does that mean that everyone should be paid by everyone?
I never understood this sort of reasoning.
2 months ago
I’ve lived in a couple of countries where I continue to get healthcare and higher education and more when I’m not working. It’s very nice. Not surprisingly those countries are at the top of the most livable countries/cities in the world, while countries that don’t are not even in the top 50.
Why is it ok to force someone to pay for fighter planes, moon missions and freeways but not for food and healthcare?
Are you suggesting nobody should pay taxes?
2 months ago
in the last 50 years I've lived in NL, UK and FR.
if your point is that on a societal level there should be a social security system, we're in agreement.
The exchange was about how "a boss" had power over you. I just pointed out that an individual company could not be held responsible for that security system. So yes, your boss has power over you?
But even society as a whole also forces you to work. If you temporarily lose your job you will still get (roughly) the same income, but only for a short time. And only if you try to look for work.
If you lose your job for longer, you still get fed and housed, but it's a painful experience. Partly to force you back to work, but mainly for a simple economic reason : we don't have infinite wealth to redistribute.
To redistribute wealth you need to generate it first. If there were no "force" on people, people would be less likely to drive a bus 8h a day, wake up at 3am to bake bread, or work 8h a day in a factory. I agree that their life would be better, and they might take better care of their children or parents, make more art, or read more books. But since that does not generate a working bus system, bread, or money that you can redistribute, I don't see how society can work if we don't "force" people to work, at least a little bit?
2 months ago
> But even society as a whole also forces you to work. If you temporarily lose your job you will still get (roughly) the same income, but only for a short time. And only if you try to look for work
That’s incorrect.
Australia pays benefits forever. Even if you’ve never had a job. Even if you quit because you were bored.
Plenty of countries have free university, and pay a living allowance to students.
I don't see how society can work if we don't "force" people to work, at least a little bit?
Provide a good base life (healthcare, for a start), and offer good wages to those who choose that. Again, plenty of countries do that now.
2 months ago
Not sure what we are arguing here.
So we have established that the original point "the boss that you work for has power over you" is unfortunate but logical.
We have also established that a social safety net is a good thing, have agreed that it cannot be the role of individuals, and that we have delegated that to the state.
In the case of Australia, your example, it is actually a very sober system. There is no unemployment insurance like there is in Europe. In France or the Netherlands, if you lose your job and it is not your own doing, for two years your income level is sort of maintained (generally ~70%). Not in Australiaa. In Australia, if you lose your job, you go straight to the "JobSeeker Allowment", which is a fraction of minimum income. There are conditions to this allowment: you have to be registered as a job seeker, develop a job plan, apply to a set number of jobs or do a set number of trainings, volonteering, etc. So again, force is being used to get you to work, and if you do not comply, you lose (part of) your (already sober) rights. This is basically the same "basic income" that exists in many western societies.
And so now we're talking about university fees, which is another thing altogether. But OK, let's discuss university. There are two main ways that this is organised. Either the state subsidises basic secondary education, so that entry-level schools are (almost) free (generally still one months income per year, or thereabout). Generally this means that "better" schools are private and have annual tuition costs of upwards of a year of wages. This is for example the case in France.
In other systems, the state provides you a student loan. You may or may not have to pay interest over the capital sum, but it is still a loan. In some countries you don't have to pay back the loan if you finish the education. For example, in the Netherlands it is a loan, but it becomes a gift if you finish the education "on time".
In your example, Australia, is a "income‑contingent loan system". Repayments start once your income passes a threshold. The amount never becomes a gift, though if you never cross the threshhold the debt disappears when you die (well, your children pay it out of your inheritence, if something is left).
So, again, no free money: there are strings attached to incite people to work.
I'm not saying that this gives me great pleasure, just that this seems logical, since without extrinsic motivation it seems likely that a big set of economic activities would not be possible, for lack of manpower. Some day we may have a society of abundance, à la Star Trek, where money does not matter. But we are not currently in that society, because we do not have unlimited resources and energy?
2 months ago
I’ve always found the language in these cases to be severe so I get your reaction and agree in some ways, but it’s also not as simple as you’re making it out to be.
If I am your employer and I know you don’t really have any viable options/are economically insecure, I can put the squeeze on you because I know if I lay you off or you quit your life could be ruined. I know that the threat of you losing your job is going to drastically increase your tolerance for what I can ask of you. That is not a very tenable situation and it’s one a lot of people experience, whether their employer knowingly does it or not.
It’s not a fair power dynamic at the end of the day. In that case it’s true - my employer can force me to do a lot of things I would otherwise not agree to.
For an even less severe example, think of how many people have had to say the phrase “I can’t say no, I will lose my job.” In an ideal world you would be able to apply “the free market” to bad jobs, but in reality it’s nothing like that in the slightest except in very narrow cases and usually for a temporary duration, especially in the US where losing your job means you (and possibly your family) losing healthcare or otherwise being unable to pay your premiums. Many people simply can’t walk no matter how much pressure and abuse is applied to them. Hence “wage slave” as a term.
2 months ago
We were talking about a boss who made passive aggressive remarks. And that it was unfair that people could not stop working. I just pointed out that the responsibility of the social protection could not fall on the shoulders of individual employers.
We have created trade unions, works councils and labor laws to protect against the most egregious abuses of power. Many countries have a social safety net. All of these are good things.
I just don't see how one can argue in good faith that "not working" (the original point) should be a human right, guaranteed by society without any condition. On a macro-economic level how would that work?
2 months ago
We’re not just talking about that specific instance anymore - I agree that’s clearly not “slavery” - the scope has clearly expanded into a larger issue about the power dynamics between employers and employees and how it can (and does) lead to compulsion/abuse.
> We have created trade unions, works councils and labor laws to protect against the most egregious abuses of power. Many countries have a social safety net. All of these are good things.
You may have them where you live but we do not have nearly as robust systems in the US. All of these systems are notoriously weak here and are trending weaker with each year for the last 60 years or so. For some light context: less than 10% of the US workforce is unionized, I believe it’s closer to 4% in the private center but I would need to doublecheck. Most Americans don’t even know what a “work council” is and our current NLRB is a joke. Combined with our very weak social safety nets and it’s easy to see how precarious the situation is for many people here.
Depending on which article/study you want to believe, roughly between 35% and 50% of the US workforce fears retaliation in the workplace for speaking up. That is a very high percentage of people and is indicative to me of a very unhealthy workplace power dynamic.
2 months ago
Well the vibe I am getting from testing22321 is more one of "there should be unconditional support from society". See the points about free education and (supposed) unlimited benefits in Autralia. As said, it's not that I am against them, I just don't see how as a matter of practicality that would work on a societal scale.
I know the current situation in the US. So if you want to argue that the US has in general a poor social safety net, find someone who disagrees with you. In my mind, as long as Americans see themselves as "temporarily embarassed millionaires" living in the "greatest country on earth", and keep voting against their own interest, I don't see that changing any time soon.
2 months ago
> I know the current situation in the US.
The situation in the US is not as you described in your previous comment. That’s why I felt the need to explain the woefully inadequate safety nets and worker protections we have here.
I feel like you’re conflating some things here and oversimplifying poverty/under-employment, but we can just move on. Suffice to say I don’t agree with your assessment of the root causes here.
2 months ago
That is stretching the definition of words into realms to which they do not belong.
Force is measured in newtons.
2 months ago
I think the way it ends up working is you’re a sort of very cushioned, comfy (in the US upper middle class, that is) slave not to a boss, but to the entire class of bosses. Sure you could quit, but you’d have to work somewhere or you’d suffer horribly. A shitty set of options created by someone else is what coercion is.
2 months ago
Right, I agree that the lack of force basically makes it not slavery… maybe by definition?
2 months ago
When your employer starts selling your children you can call it slavery, until then take it to Bluesky dude
2 months ago
Slavery also existed long before chattel slavery. Just because you have some rights doesn't automatically make it not slavery, Roman slaves had protected rights too, but were still slaves. Indentured servitude is also just another way to say slavery and yet that didn't give full rights over slave's children.
Yes it is still certainly debatable, but to so easily dismiss the entire idea and the person proposing it is foolish and privledged.
2 months ago
Prison should altogether be banned for non-violent crimes, in favor of monitored house arrest, allowing only medical and legal outdoor visits. At least this should be an option for whoever can afford it. In prison there is bad food, bad healthcare, slave labor, occasionally torture, and exposure to bad people and ideas that perpetuate crime.
2 months ago
Why should prisoner who can afford it get better conditions? To me there should be equality. Treat everyone the same in punishments.
2 months ago
I agree with you on the ideal of equality.
Practically speaking, even the option to be home bound if you have a home, apartment, or willing caretaker could be a serious blow to the prison industrial complex, and the incentive structures that allow these guards to commit horrific abuse.
2 months ago
I'd expect that removing everyone with resources to fight back against horrific abuse would make the abuse far more horrific, not less.
2 months ago
I thought about that too, but I don’t think your resources matter much once you’re in the penal system except to bribe or pay for protection.
Honestly I’m not sure how it would pan out but it does appear that the power to abuse is directly correlated with the number of inmates and revenue generated as a result thereof.
2 months ago
It is equal opportunity. As per the proposal, if the person cannot afford it, the state arranges for their residence, which specifically is prison.
2 months ago
Ah, yes, "equal opportunity".
The rich and the poor alike are forbidden from sleeping under bridges!
Everyone has exactly the same opportunity to invest in the stock market and make high returns!
Y'know, aside from the pesky fact that a large percentage of Americans have no savings—not because they are feckless and irresponsible with their money, but because wages have not risen to match expenses over the course of several decades.
And the pesky fact that poverty among marginalized groups is disproportionately much higher than among able-bodied white men.
Yes, truly everyone has exactly the same opportunities in this great country of ours!
2 months ago
Will this residence be the same quality as the highest quality residence currently employed to imprison someone?
2 months ago
I think we should improve prison conditions, but we still need prisons to keep criminals from reoffending and serve as a deterrent. Non-violent crime isn't victimless and we want to decrease it, not increase it.
2 months ago
There are better ways.
In fact, there's plenty of evidence that prison is, in many cases, a net negative, as it takes people who committed crimes of opportunity or poverty and turns them into either hardened criminals who see it as a lifestyle, or people who have no choice but to commit crimes to survive, as we treat them as nonpersons and shut them out of society.
2 months ago
There aren't any other ways.
There is zero evidence prison is a net negative for society. No one is running RCTs here. Progressives advocating this stuff completely ignore second order effects and we see them play out in west coast cities. The other major fallacy is that criminals can or want to be rehabilitated -- they mostly can't or won't. Prison is undoubtedly negative for the criminals, but that doesn't mean it is a net negative for society.
2 months ago
2 months ago
true but most victimless crime is non violent
2 months ago
So if you commit financial crimes and have a massive mansion, you get to just be at home and order door dash, plot your next scam, have visitors. Even without the amazing house it's already way less bad than even COVID restrictions. That's not a punishment
The if you can afford it bit makes makes it even more likely that rich and powerful aren't appropriately punished for their crimes.
Maybe improve the prisons instead so everyone has a proper chance at rehabilitation.
2 months ago
Ideally, I agree. Along with other freedom limitations depending on the crime (corruption should prevent you from actively managing your money/assets).
The issue is what to do for people without a house. But in a perfect society, you're right. We still are not there yet, so working on improving the current systems should be preferred.
2 months ago
CA started to do this and crime got much worse. No thanks.
2 months ago
So many more people hide out in their homes since covid, anyway. It wouldn't seem like much of a punishment to them.
2 months ago
For a not insignificant chunk of the population, staying inside your house is not a deterrent to crime.