I have a couple of problems with your point. 1st is that with a slave you don't have to account for work hours wich can make the capitalist a lot more money a day just cause of the vast amount of extra time that the slave is forced to endure. 2nd is that, while the slave owner Does have to pay for food and shelter, he doesnt have to pay for literally all the other necessities that workers would have like a good, bearable, healthy jobplace, healthcare, a mantained structure and workspace, and all you can think of like taxes, their needs, the fact that they can just not show up, that they wont do anything asked and more. 3rd is that owning slaves becomes cheaper the more you have, while the value that you get with more workers is gained much much slower, first you are not gonna need excessive shelter for more slaves, you dont need one guard for each slave but a single one will take care of a huge amount of them increasing their value, and, most importantly, eventually your slaves are gonna be enough to be able to build their shelter and produce their food giving you an undeniable surplus of money compared to the worker wich will always give you the same value no matter of how many colleagues it has. 4th and final is that I dont think that your arguement holds a lot anyways cause even the minimum wage for one person would still be higher spending on the long run than caring of one slave because you obviously dont care about the quality of what you give them while if you dont give enough to the worker they can just leave.
Monarchs in ancient times used to share their wealth with their servants and slaves much more than businessmen do with their employees today (Yes, I am white, but I am from Venezuela, the only liberators country in the history of the world).
Hey Mr. Alberto2768 thanks for watching and adding to the discussion. Your points were well thought out and below is my response to them 1) you don’t have to account for work hours - In our restaurant example, people only dine at certain hours. If we were to open the shop 24 hours, most of the traffic will occur during lunch and dinner time. If we go beyond our restaurant example and we speak on manual labor. A slave is still a human being, they cannot work endlessly. 2) Slaver owner has to pay for things that an employee does not. That does not refute my conclusion. In fact, when we did a breakdown in our example , the employee paid more the than the capitalist did, and the capitalist earned more money under that system. If the capitalist paid terrible conditions for their slaves, they earned less profit. So that means it’s better for an employ to pay for a better life for themselves and the capitalist earns more profit. Adam Smith would argue that the wages paid to the free worker will be less than having a slave. Which we can see in our capitalist’s profits in the burger joint. 3) more slave, more value. Fair that one manager can manage more slaves. So in that context, you are right. Consider that a slave manager has now a lot higher risk of getting killed because the group hates him. The capitalist will add more risks to his business. If the slaves have to build their own shelter and forage for their own food, it’s time they are taking away from working for the capitalist and remember humans can only do so much labor. 4) paying minimum wage will be more expensive than slaves. Adam Smith would argue that it wouldn’t and in our example you can see that profit went down even though we significantly decreased rent and food budget for our slave. Looking forward to your reply! Thanks again for watching and joining the discussion
Nice theory but it doesn't hold up to what we know from the real world. Hiring or renting slaves was cheaper than hiring free laborers in the Southern US and the 1800s. In the 1700s buying new slaves was cheaper than feeding the current ones because supply was so high. Slaves were and are not treated as people under capitalism but livestock/assets. There exist more slaves today than at any point in history.
Do you have some resources to support your claim that it was cheaper to “hire” (I’m assuming you mean buying) or renting a slave? Does your resource also take into account all the other costs associated with a slave ? More slaves today claim. Do you think that it’s because the global population is much larger? Has the definition of slave stayed the same? The reason for my second question is because in Haiti, some people send their kids to live in the capital with a family or friend in exchange for domestic labor, and people call that slavery.
You just pulled the example out of your imagination. I could just as easily reverse your entire model and make an example where we have a lazy worker who doesn't make many burgers at all because he hates his job because he has no money and a happy slave who is institutionalized and has complete loyalty to his master that finds making burgers an inherently meaningful life. The truth is that slavery existed for literal millennia, and it would not have if it was an inherently disadvantageous system. The death of slavery came via mechanization not capitalism. It became economically nonviable to use slaves because the basics of the economy changed. Move from burgers to a mass agrarian society and you're going to be dealing with completely different overheads and costs. Finally, you didn't actually engage with Noam Chomsky on the level in which he actually meant. Obviously workers and slaves are different, that's why we have different names for them. Chomsky's point was that while they're different, the net result of exploitation is the same, because at the end of the day, the worker in your example does not have freedom because he has net 0 at the end of the month.
Yes I did pull the example out of my imagination. Your example does not work for a lazy worker. A worker is incentivized to work well for money and punished for poor work by getting fired. A slave’s incentive is to get beaten for bad work or not beaten for good work (generally) Yes, in your example, a “good” slave would be better than an average employee. Human nature does not afford many “good” slaves Slaves have never been better economically. Have you read “Wealth Of Nations”? Slavery has nothing to do with mechanization. If you believe that slaves are more profitable than free workers, how would mechanization change that? Wouldn’t that mean that slaves are more productive, and by that logic, slavery would increase ? To engage further into his comment, which to be transparent is a tiny snippet of his thoughts. It seems to me (opinion) that he views wage labor as underneath him hence why he takes a moral “it’s bad “ view. This is my analysis and not his words, so I may be complete off. He thinks a wage laborer who has control over their decision of working to that of being a slave who cannot make any decisions over their lives. I genuinely don’t get it. Does he think people laboring is bad? Does he think employers are bad? Does he think profit is bad? There’s this notion that capitalism is “either you work or starve” then we can say that slavery is “you are forced to work, and you will still starve, you will be beaten, you will be raped, you will be killed, and your children will be owned by someone else”
@@keplersiguineau Again, you're just pulling examples out of your imagination. I could just as easily claim a workers incentive is not to work harder for more money, but to do the bare minimum to avoid being fired, while a slaves motivation is to do the best work possible to raise their standing as a slave (because there are better and worse jobs as a slave). If we're pulling examples from our imagination rather than from actual data then we can really form any kind of argument we want, but it's not worth anything compared to real, solid examples. And we have a solid example wherein slavery was the predominant economic system of virtually the entire planet until it suddenly wasn't. If it was plain inferior in the context in which it exists then it wouldn't have existed. Humans as a collective group are not going to insist on doing something that isn't personally benefiting them. And the truth is that a lot of modern wage workers simply don't have any choice. They work three jobs just to make ends meet and don't have any spare money to invest in capital because they're drowning in debt from a system they never agreed to.
@@Jotari can you give me the solid example that the economy of the world was predominantly slavery and then suddenly wasn’t ? Your example of the modern worker working 3 jobs and not having capital to invest does not make sense. I think it’s a lie that people spread to take away personal responsibility from workers that poorly manage their money. What debt are they drowning in that they did not accept?
@jotari I think you too missed an important point. The development of mechanisation went hand in hand with development of capitalism. Mechanisation is the result of accumulation of capital in the form of machines, this allowing for more value to be generated by each worker. Yes the worker still has little above subsistance level income. And yet this can still be more advantageous than slavery, as it was illustrated in a very 'immoral and yest pragmatic ' way in Burn! Queimada' by Pontecorvo, with M.Brando. it is a very interesting film.
Thank you for joining the discussion! Did you answer the question without watching the video? We didn’t answer if capitalism was oppressive or not. It was to see if it was pro slavery, and the answer is no. PS I don’t believe capitalism is oppressive.
To describe capitalism itself as oppressive does not make much sense in my opinion. If unregulated it can facilitate oppression as people will exploit it, but the same goes for other systems which have also been exploited by people and they end up oppressive. Oppression really exists because there are always powerful people in a society that will exploit the system they're in to benefit themselves and by doing so oppress others.
I may be the only white Daishon in the world, but my life is that of any other Daishon. In your video you clearly explain that capitalism is anti-slavery, but you also make it very clear that employment is actually worse than slavery.
@@Arhonnys How did you come to cmthe conclusion that slavery is better than wage labour? In slavery, the worker will only stop working when they die while a free worker can retire, and they can do that whenever they want. Also, even while working, a slave can be physically punished or even killed. How is that better than wage labour ?
@@keplersiguineau Human trafficking (slavery) still exists and now we have organ trafficking and many things that, to name the shit in the world that you only need to walk 15 km from your house to see, the problem is that attention is selective and cannot see what it does not know.
There are many different possible flavors of capitalism just as with other political ideologies. Isolating one manifestation of capitalism to something we find to be most ideal, whether that be our own or mere concept, I think would be a mistake in defining what it is. This might just be my own lack of knowledge for the subject but I've never seen a definition of capitalism which either explicitly nor implicitly disputes slavery. I have however seen capitalism explained, with antidote, the subject of freedom and justice for all human beings, but I think that is where the argument ends. Capitalism can have sprinkles of anything between freedom and slavery for the people, as long is the market remains free. I don't really know mutch about this topic. I'm just random speaking his thoughts out loud.
@@Blue-Spirit thanks for commenting and watching. We are all just "random" people speaking their minds outloud. Yes, you are right, capitalism has its different flavors. The point of this video was to make the case that implicitly, capitalism is anti slavery.
@@Blue-Spirit Milton Friedman wrote his book "capitalism and freedom" because to make the case that capitalism is the most freedom mankind can have economically. Haven't read that book yet so I am unable to provide you more info
@@keplersiguineau Now that I've had some time to think, I have recently heard someone speak on U.S. prison labor and making analogs to slavery in this context. Its technically not slavery by law. However shortly after slavery was abolished, black Americans were subject to some pretty racist laws, for example: walking without a purpose (an intentionally ambiguous "crime"), which landed allot of black Americans in prison, where there labor was exploited to fuel the economy. It technically cant be called salary but institutions still capitalized on the next most exploitive thing which still exists today and can still be explained as analogs to slavery. Prisoners are payed but if it wasn't for the people fighting for human rights within these institutions, I cant imagine anything much having changed within them.
@@Blue-Spirit yes that's a problem in the US, however that is not due to capitalism. The state gets free labour and the citizens pay for feeding, and managing the prisoners with the taxes they pay the government.
@@keplersiguineau It might not be due to capitalism but it can exist within it. This is the point I have been trying to make, hence the many flavors I spoke of earlier. there is a version of capitalism where slavery is part of the system and a version where it is not. My questions would be: 1. Where do we draw the line for what is considered slavery? 2. What does adopting a slavery adjacent practice within a system that is newly reformed from slavery say about the system? 3. Can we attribute the label of pro or anti (x) to a system where (x) can exist within or along side the system?
the point by Chomsky, at least as i understand it, is that wage labor is a bit more give on the leash, but youre still leashed! If you take out the moralizing aspect of your slavery definition and make it "treating humans as resources and making them obey their master, under threat of violence", this might become clearer. If the boss isnt willing to spend minimum wage (or minimum wage, but youre a certified engineer) your choices are essentially to either take it or lose your home and starve. Maybe intra-employer competition makes one give you a fairer wage, but a) it will never be the same value as the work done and b) the same holds true for the employee side, one is always willing to take the job, possibly because they starved last month. for one side, the con is "losing (or rather not making as much) money" while for the other side its "threat to life"
Losing a job aka your wage, is not the same as being forced to work for someone for the rest of your life while they have complete authority over you. When you sleep, when you wake up, what you eat, how often you eat, what happens to your children, and even when you get to die. That’s slavery. Noam Chomsky shouldn’t not make them sound like they are basically the same. Under your example, the worker is given the choice of working for a wage lower than legal (that would mean the capitalist can go to jail - breaking the law and all) or going home. That means the worker has a multitude of choices. They can 1) accept the low wage 2) find another employer 3) negotiate their wages 4) go home. A slave has none of those choices. The slave is under a leash guided by someone while the low wage worker that doesn’t want to work for their master has leashed themselves. Yes, someone can always accept the low wage. That’s their free choice.
@@keplersiguineauthe thing is that the threat of violence is the same, and I believe it's the thing you are so against admiting. Currently we have a job crisis because the reserved army of labour is a thing that was predicted and has been studied for more than 100 years. It means that under capitalism, there is a benefit and is often seeked to make jobs as hard and rare to find as possible, making the majority of people scared and desperate so that they accept any working conditions, that way the employer can demmand more out of them, extract more resources while giving less. The threat of dying is the same, it doesn't matter if it's at the hands of your master or starving under a bridge, getting a new job is an increasingly difficult task and a failure to do so for more than a month can permanently leave you living on the streets, homelessness can be the worst of marginalizations, since it completely aliennates you from your fellow humans, it makes it exponentially harder to be able to get a job, and subjects you to constant beatings, abuse and persecution of other homeless or even police forcer. On that way, slave and worker are on the same camp, only separated by a few consesions won by violent revolution on the part of the working class, but not by capitalism being a benevolent system, america for example is a country built by the blood of slaves and forced workers, either inside the country or abroad through conquering and exploitation.
thanks for adding to the discussion! How is the threat of violence is the same. I will make the assumption that you are a worker or know of workers in capitalist societies, how many of them have told you that they fear getting physically beaten by their employers if they did not do their job ? In your worse case scenario of a worker under capitalism not being able to find a job is homelessness and alienation. Do you think being homeless and alienated is the same as being forced to labor, alienated, no ability to ever improve your condition, beaten until you do what someone else wants you to do or them having legal rights to murder you?
@@keplersiguineau because both threaten with death and loss of humanity (either by as I said, alienation or being treated as disposable property), of course nowadays you don't get physically tortured for not doing your job, but the fact that we need to discuss specifics of "my violation of human dignity is less than that of past societies" should serve as proof of how messed up this debate and by extension the system that gives birth to it is. You don't need to be beaten to death to feel like you are treated as less than human, the threat of homelesnes and extreme poverty is an ever growing one for most of the world, and we won't be making any advancements toward fixing it by justifying the inhumane practices of our current mode of production. It's wrong to keep it going at the expense of not only our lives but the entirety of the world's, and we should be educating and working towards building a different system.
