... that is not what slavery is
>> A free man sells the results of his work. A free man cleans someone's house and bills him when the work is done. A free man drives passengers from the airport to their home and bills them when they get there. A free man creates a software module and bills the client when it's ready. A free man translates a document and bills per page. A free man cooks a cake and bills for it.
A free man sells results, not time.
Also, a free man takes care of the food and security on his or her own.
Is it more risky? Yes. Is it more stressful? Yes. But that's what freedom is about.
Source: http://www.yegor256.com/2015/07/21/hourly-pay-modern-slavery...
Of course it is optional, because no one is holding a gun to your head, right?
But "everybody knows" that 1. if you don't work, you'll sooner or later (perhaps sooner!) be homeless and 2. homelessness can lead to sudden, violent death.
Just because the trigger and the barrel are far apart doesn't mean it isn't a gun.
The majority of people need to work if they want to survive, that's true. So "jobs" aren't voluntary. But "a job" is. You don't have to pick plants out in a field if you don't want to. If you don't like your position, or boss, or pay, you can quit and look for work elsewhere. Or even have multiple jobs!
A slave doesn't get to say "This other company is nicer and pays better, so I'm leaving here and going there instead." But you can.
Thing is, neither do most people.
SELECT TOP 1 job,residence
FROM jobs JOIN residences
WHERE jobs.pay > residences.rent
ORDER BY jobs.pay DESC, residences.rent ASC
AND jobs.category NOT IN ('murder','prostitution')
AND residences.crime_factor < 0.4
But that doesn't change the fact that LOTS of people believe in their hearts that they have absolutely no choice but to continue doing exactly what they are doing.
I'd hazard the guess that almost all of us have actually removed WHERE predicates because during the initial searches (back in late childhood), zero rows were returned. Predicates like
jobs.category = 'helping_people'
residences.climate = 'tropical'
Why exactly is it so hard to survive without a job, in 2016? I mean, physically. You need air and water and food and shelter. Those are listed in decreasing order of necessary frequency.
Seems to me that the problem is rent and the social framework that enforces eviction via violence--even if the space isn't otherwise being used.
I, for one, would not die without a job--not from starvation. But I would eventually be arrested, beat up, stripped of my possessions, etc, and that would eventually lead to death. The jobless don't die--they are killed.
Slavery.
> Why exactly is it so hard to survive without a job, in 2016?
Why should it not be, for a sufficiently broad definition of "job"?
> [Suppose] we are enslaved by the
> existence of personal property ...
> [Maybe we are enslaved] by the
> existence of society, in general.
This topic is a hobby of mine.
>> for men change their rulers willingly, hoping to better themselves [...] they are deceived, because they afterwards find by experience they have gone from bad to worse
Not being a slave means not having a ruler.
Having a job is the cost of living in society. It sucks and needs improvement, but it is not as bad as slavery where you have no choice and not much gain.
There is no living outside of society, outside of private property and the rule of law. There is no real choice here.
This is sort of a proxy conversation about money. I'd like to point out that manufacturing your own money from scratch is a good way to get shot.
In other words, we are born into debt and must work all our lives to pay off that debt. This is true in so many ways, and makes what we're talking about amount to at best a kind of bonded child labor.
You don't have to think of it as slavery, but it's very very far from COMPLETELY OPTIONAL. There is no deserted island to live on!! There are no guarantees of universal housing, or healthcare, or much else that is needed to survive. Until there are, working vs. not working can never be a real choice. The working class by definition must work in order to live.
It might take some work, but it seems possible to me.
A person either needs to use his parent's cash or to work for a number of years and save before leaving. The "choice" isn't available to him until that happens, so either his parents must work to purchase their child's freedom, or he must work to purchase it himself. In either case this is one of the very definitions of slavery.
I ate a banana once. I will die some day. Bananas are guns.