Slavery in the 21st century
We are all used to consider ourselves free - and modern reality readily supports this illusion. But is there such a thing as slavery left in the distant past? After all, today we can talk about the so-called economic "slavery", namely, compulsion to work constantly - which in fact is not so different from slavery in its primordial understanding ...
1. The need to constantly earn
Slave in modern conditions can not afford to remain without work. After all, he earned enough money to pay for housing, travel and food, exactly for a month. And more than that - he is forced to work throughout his life. After all, as a rule, pensions for a retired slave are enough to pay for public utilities and food (not always of good quality), free money for everything else (including at least a minimum set of necessary clothes) is not enough.
2. Necessity of constant consumption
If the earnings of a slave-man are able to cover the minimum needs with an excess, the following mechanism of hidden coercion is included. It consists in the artificial imposition of a number of pseudo-necessary goods, the creation of artificial demand for them. With the help of television advertising, skilful arrangement on the shelves and clever moves, the modern slave has a persistent idea that it can be successful only after acquiring a number of goods. Then he joins the race for a variety of "novelties" and supposedly necessary things, being forced to work indefinitely to pay all this.
3. The bondage of the credit system
The third trouble-free mechanism, which drives the modern slave to continuous activity is the bondage of the credit system, into which more and more people are drawn. It involves a system of so-called "loan interest", which many have to pay for through new loans, getting bogged down in this system. Not giving up the old loan and getting a new one, and then again and again, the slave of our time creates a whole pyramid of debts, it is extremely difficult to break out of it, and to pay, many agree even to the most poorly paid and hard work, since they see no other way out for themselves.
4. The myth of working for the state
It can be considered the fourth, no less successful than the previous ones, a mechanism that allows you to covertly make a person work tirelessly. Thinking that they are working for an abstract state, in fact the present slaves are quite unambiguously working for the hidden employers, which are a pseudo-state, where taxes paid by slaves are gone. The myth itself is created so that there are no unnecessary questions about where exactly huge amounts of taxes are being sent, and why slaves who work all their lives remain poor without having a share of profits in the so-called state system.
5. Inflation
The next - the fifth mechanism, designed to make a person work all his life is inflation. When prices grow at an astronomical rate, and salaries remain at the same level, at this point, a hidden robbery of modern slaves takes place. It makes the poor people go down with an even more beggarly, job-dependent state.
6. Impossibility to change living conditions
The sixth hidden mechanism of coercion to work is the deprivation of the opportunity to change the conditions of life. When a slave is deprived of the means to move to another place of residence, he simply has to work practically for a penny at a single enterprise in a city or township. While rejoicing that he has a job and agreeing to often carry it for miserable, irregularly paid out means. And it's completely free. Running as a matter of fact there is nowhere because of the lack of funds for such an escape.
7. No understanding of the real value
The next, the seventh way, which forces a modern person to agree to work throughout his life, is to deprive him of the opportunity to find out how much his labor really costs. And also the cost of the goods that he produces and the size of the share that the employer assigns to himself. Using this ignorance and having subordinated to itself the system of accounting accrual, modern slave owners take to themselves the entire surplus value of the goods produced, over which slaves have no control.
8. Earned by ancestors just disappears
And, finally, suppressing the scale of the profits that the slaveholders have extracted thanks to the work of many generations of slaves, they defend themselves against the demands of modern slaves of their own share, which they own from their fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers. After all, the ancestors certainly just as hopelessly worked during the long history of mankind.
Do you think that the current financial system makes people weak-willed?
You are very right in pointing invisible chains which have bonded us to a new modern form of slavery. Human misery and conditions are not much changed from the past. Only difference is that in the past, chains were visible but now a days there are virtual chains in the shape of above mentioned well thought out problems.
Unfortunately we cannot escape from the system, so we have to cope with the challenges and make our way to happiness. I appreciate your visionary thinking.
Previously, when people were ruled by individual rulers, they were bound by an iron chain. But now in our time of globalism and high technology we all have become more informed and have gained more access to technological achievements and the most important thing to information. But unfortunately it also has a negative connotation in the form of invisible chains (as you wrote). We are dependent on much and we are easy to manipulate. The global network in "evil" hands is able to infest harm to human consciousness.
Imagine if the Internet disappears and electricity disappears ... we will return to the Stone Age. The young generation of the 21st century can not imagine its life without electricity and internet. It will be chaos :)
Wonderfully said!
I think the young generation must be trained to live without them. Life without them is actually blissful but they are too "addicted" to them.
It's only getting worse in my opinion, the retirement age keeps increasing, wages don't rise at the same rate as inflation, yet most people are under and believe the illusion that they are Freeman with the latest iPhone and a 2 week holiday booked to Spain.
We don't just work to live our lives we over work ourselves just to get by (majority of population) and fit an annual holiday in the summer, its quite sad once you realise this.
Modern day man enslaved by the credit and failing banking system.
I agree that the age of retirement is constantly increasing. The government benefits that people work as much as possible and bring in income. In heavy industries, the life of any person is shortened. Therefore, after retirement, some people have to be treated for a variety of diseases. And what did they acquire as replacements? Nothing. All my life I worked and spent my health for fictitious values and social status.
Cherished, ever-sought, but never availed bliss of true freedom remains a two-edged enigma throughout the philosophical discourse. The more one yearns for it, the more one has to, in steemit’s parlance, delegate it.! Freedom has its own invisible and captivating chains which continue growing and stiffening as oblivious tentacles. Given that every financial system has to be a kind of serving one, the more one longs for its service, the harder one has to do a disservice to one’s liberty. Thankyou @frank1in for the insightful piece that touches aspects which we feel every moment but Cant shake off as we are survival-hungry
At all times there were those people who were the ruling caste and they controlled the overwhelming majority. Now practically nothing has changed. Technological progress extends our capabilities, but it also makes us dependent.
Perfectly. And how many of us would, at cost that is not to be taken in consideration even, be ready to ward off perpetuating dependence? Seems like self negation. Likewise run other shackles; and freedom, alas, slaughted therefore, conscientiously
I think that people simply need dependence on something. Some are addicted to alcohol, some from smoking, some from the game, some from relationships. But completely independent people are very few.
Things like complete independent, or the absolute one, exists no where if we have to persevere in a society that is regulated by materials and monetary concerns. Beyond that, is jungle, and these every herbivore or carnivore is again dependent on food chain, protective camouflage, and so on. Pitiably, man got only what he can do, not what could be done to him or her
You are very right!
One of the reasons I'm so hard at work is because I feel the slavery chains around my wrists and neck and want to break free.
Cheers
Your advantage is that you realize this. Some people do not understand this, they like to watch news on TV and believe that they are free :)
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STOPA very deep and informative article which describes the open-mindedness of the author.
I think that fear is the game here to keep people in control. The masses are afraid to get out of their comfort zone and that is why.
The current financial system brainwashed the masses to the fact that fiat currency is ok to accumulate not knowing that it is going to be worthless day by day. Gold and Silver is another topic.
In conclusion, the current financial system makes people weak-willed. Upvoted!