Outsourcing Slavery

Whether or not there is more racism and slavery in the world today than in any other time in history could be debated; however, it can hardly be denied that the subjects have ever received such widespread coverage, with exception to the slavery happening at the moment. Certainly this is true in politics, mass media, education, the entertainment industry, among corporate powers, and in almost every other facet of our lives, where clamorous social justice warriors are inciting divisions in the name of equality.

In Western societies today, the racism and the form it takes, appears more often in the form of an accusation of racism projected on someone of a different skin color, very often the target of the accusation is someone with white skin. Often the only evidence provided as proof of a racial bias is skin color. Thoughts of others are known, and meaning of words are interpreted as racist by an esoteric knowledge of another person’s heart rather than by any actual facts.

Society today is a place where the greatest demand for tolerance proceeds from the least tolerant, and where the self appointed, self righteous, anti-fascist is the true fascist. Indeed; it is the clamorous social justice warrior who is seeking to root out the ‘racists’ that emanates true racism, commits acts of violence, often against their own race.

Many of the discussions of slavery in America today are based upon events that happened in the United States over 150 years ago or more. However, outlawing slavery in the US did not ended slavery or racism. In many places around the world it never even slowed down. Truth be told, in this world, as long as human beings walk in the flesh, neither racism or slavery will ever end regardless of the color of the flesh. No race holds an exclusive on racism. It is a human condition to which all races and people are subject. Racism exists to various degrees within individuals of every nation, ethnicity, and color. Many are eaten up with it, and still would be if they had been born into any ethnic group, regardless of their DNA or ancestral background.

Most often slavery is viewed through a lens of racism; but to what extent should it be? The historical reality is, when there is a group of people of any race, who have the wherewithal and the determination to increase their wealth and power through the exploitation of the vulnerable, they will.

In an article entitled, “The Origins Of The African Slave Trade” Piero Scaruffi explains:

“...the Roman empire, would not discriminate: slaves were both white and black (so were Emperors and Popes). In the middle ages, all European countries outlawed slavery (of course, hypocritical Christian nations retained countless "civilized" ways to enslave their citizens, but that's another story), whereas the African kingdoms happily continued in their trade. Therefore, only colored people could be slaves, and that is how the stereotype for African-American slavery was born. It was not based on an ancestral hatred of blacks by whites, but simply on the fact that blacks were the only ones selling slaves, and they were selling people of their own race...”

Every race, tongue, and creed has, at one time or another, know the bondage of slavery. There exists a trove of historical documents and records that cast a far different prospective on slavery than being postulated today. In fact, before anyone comes to a determination as to who and how much to pay in reparations to decedents of slaves, it would be proper to know the history of some of the Irish, Chinese, and of other oppressed immigrants who came to America only to live under conditions that were nowhere near as good as some black slaves who lived on wealthy plantations in the South. How much do you propose we pay them in reparations? Out of all the slaves sold in the New World, approximately 4% were sold in North America. What is happening with the other 96%? Do they count?

The chief motive of slavery was not to persecute people for their color but to exploit defenseless people for profit. Most people did not care about the color of the skin the person had that was picking cotton or whatever, but rather, how much they were paying to have it picked. There were many who owned slaves who were against slavery but they didn’t want to starve to death, and neither did their slaves. It was an inherited system that could not be destroyed overnight. Slavery could not be abolished until the abolitionist movement was large enough to end it at once altogether. If slavery was not stopped at once all together, competing with products in the market place against those who still owned slaves would have proved impossible, and those who refused to free their slaves would have become like Amazon

Today we cannot change the past, but we should know it. What is most important now is now, and that which will follow; that is all we can hope to change. Indeed, and being that we live now, what is the state of the world today in regards to slavery?

With so much attention focused on the sins of the past, you would think it would be more relevant, and worthy of action, to address the same sins taking place right now. Instead, those who are now virtue signaling on behalf of those who suffered decades ago under slavery, are at present both benefactors and supporters of a system of slavery.

Today, not only do Americans, but also many other nations are spending billions of dollars on products which are manufactured in other countries where the labor used to produce these items is essentially slave labor. In some instances it is forced labor without pay, by those held prisoner in concentration and labor camps. It is the income from the products produced, which is chiefly shelled out by Western consumers, that drives this international slave industry.

The availability of goods at the prices they cost today cannot exist without oppression. It’s math. If the slaves in the East were being paid equally as adjusted to the benefits of the consumers in the West, there would be no reason not to produce the goods in the West. Anytime someone’s labor has far less value for the same services as someone else’s, there will be disparity and a devaluation of the people being oppressed.

In reality, slavery has never ceased. True we no longer outwardly embrace slavery as part of our own culture. Almost everyone outright condemns it. However, at the same time the same people who condemn slavery enjoy the benefits of slavery elsewhere. Consumer nations keep their hands clean by outsourcing slavery. With closed eyes, the people who condemn those who lived in the past, use many of the same excuses now for profiting at the expense of slaves in other countries. “It is the system, I can’t escape it, it is not my fault” they would say.

In some cases, the consumer societies are profiting off people who are dying in the circumstances they are in. This is the hypocrisy of those who live only in the past and are silent to the ongoing forced labor that provides them a higher standard of living now; while they riot in their Nikes. Millions of oppressed laborers are kept out of mind; if they even ever come to mind trying to get in, they get shut out.

Slavery is not part of the past, even for Western civilizations. What has changed is the way slavery is carried out. With the advent of high technology, global communications, and modern means of transportation, it is no longer necessary to move slaves in ships or keep them at home on a plantation. Modernization allows for their bondage in far away lands halfway around the world. There, slave-masters will handle the slave trade for the people living in so called free societies. All the consumer has to do is keep on purchasing the goods the slaves are forced to produce, and they can completely forget that they have slaves.

At least tens of millions of people are in slavery today. If you have any doubts, a quick online search of, “modern slavery”, “slavery today”, “21st century slavery” or a number of other terms should provide you more than enough examples of the horrors going on everyday.

The self righteous tirades on racism and slavery in the mainstream of society today are driven by mules with blinders. Pompous ignoramuses, hypocritical fools, without knowledge or historical context, it is they who are the modern purveyors of racism.

Jesus said, He that commits sin is the servant of sin. As horrible as physical slavery in the world is, the worst form of slavery is spiritual slavery. The physical bondage associated with this world has an end for in that we all die; but the soul is eternal. To die in sin is to be forever bound as a slave to sin and to be owned by slave-master.

Many souls are purchased with lies, pleasures, and money, to serve a worldly master. That master may be a vice, a political party, a religion, an agenda or anything one is given wholly to. Nonetheless, it is all slavery. There is a good slavery however; it only exists when one willing to sell, their whole heart, body, mind, and soul, to Christ to becomes a willing slave to God. That is when you become free. Jesus said: “Whom the Son sets free is free indeed”. In the Bible, Paul declares himself a slave of Jesus Christ. Willing offer yourself as a slave to Christ.

I though I had better add a citation, although not the original source, the facts are the same.

"Of the over twelve million Africans forced into the trans-Atlantic slave trade from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, only four percent – roughly 470,000 men, women, and children – were sent to North America. The overwhelming majority of enslaved Africans in the trans-Atlantic slave trade went to sugar plantations in the Caribbean and Brazil. This significant difference in trade numbers stems from various factors, particularly contrasting mortality and reproduction rates for enslaved populations in different regions." -- Lowcountry Digital History Initiative: A Digital History Project hosted by the Lowcountry Digital Library at the College of Charleston

Overall a good analysis. Notable: Europe generally banned slavery of Europeans in the Middle Ages, leaving Africa the primary source of commercial slaves - enslaved by their own - hence the subsequent racial associations.

End gets a bit squishy. Please ensure discussion of slavery doesn’t dilute the term by including “poorly paid with few options” which isn’t slavery (that’s a problem to address, but it’s not outright ownership of humans as disposable tools).

Whether or not there is more racism and slavery in the world today than in any other time in history could be debated;

Not really.

There is not.

Slavery used to be universal and racism based on far more tiny differences then it is now.

“poorly paid with few options” In China that can be ownership when you are forced into it and are given no choice about it whatsoever. Pay means nothing, even slaves got food, maybe some slaves got more than they are getting.

Slavery is all about bypassing the free market. The slave owner doesn’t want to pay what a free person would demand in wages to do the same work as the slave.

Slavery in the US could only have lasted as long as good agricultural land was very cheap, as it was in the early days before the country filled up. A free man, working for himself, would be able to get more out of a given acre of land than a slave who would strive to escape work when the owner wasn’t looking. This was why slave owners constantly demanded that slavery be allowed in the western territories.

Europeans banned the enslavement of European Christians of the right kind—in the late Middle Ages there were Catholics enslaving Orthodox and vice versa, and both enslaving “infidels” (Muslims or pagans). Enslaving African blacks was only considered OK if they were “infidels” which most of them were—the Portuguese carried pagan Africans to Brazil but did not enslave the Catholics in the Kingdom of Kongo. Meanwhile the Muslims were happily enslaving anyone who was not Muslim, white or black, unless they were “protected people” (and in the case of the Turks even Christian boys living under Ottoman rule).

The three fifths rule was to keep the south from controlling the country, because the rest of the country hated slavery.

Not really.

Even if you go with strict numbers (a stupid way to measure anything like this) it still does not work out.

If you google the subject, there’s actually a consensus (albeit a tentative one) that there are more slaves in the world today than at any time in the past. I don’t think most people have any idea of this.

And that’s going with a fairly restrictive definition of slavery. As governments grow more totalitarian and control an ever greater share of the economy, and control grows over people’s personal lives through censorship, educational indoctrination and surveillance, I think a fair case can be made that slavery is a general condition now of humanity.

The average life span of U.S. slaves was 30 years. The average lifespan for South American slaves was 10 years, due to extremely poor treatment.

I agree with you; especially about definitions and how slavery is structured to not meet the definitions. Like clever lawyers, classification of slavery can be covered up in methods, loopholes, and language. The essence is the same. Elites wish to make us all slaves in system that essentially is, but doesn’t meet the definition of slavery. It is no less than masked ownership of people who are trapped within the institutions of the system without any real power.

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