Just imagine what we'll do to the labor supply if we can figure out a way to keep the poors working 24/7 and have them not suffer any ill effects from it!
The causes of the interruptions could be manifold but i would hazard a guess that the primary cause would be interruption from young children in small domiciles and lack of could social responsibility within the neighbourhood.
I've experienced both having a young family and currently living in relatively low social economic neighbourhood. Just last night I was disrupted by someone deciding to burn something rather noxious at 0100 in the morning.
Although not completely relevant to the topic, it's not outside the realm of possibility for what was stated to become a reality. And it's very much an important idea to explore, because to not do so would help those willing to exploit such "zombie workers" actually go through with it.
For these to work most often one needs to denigrate the peoples concern to the point where they are no longer even perceived as the same level of human. Sure all of that is possible but we wont have useful conversations or strategies if we're constantly elevating every instance of stratified to a slave like scenario.
I'm not convinced that there is really any other make up of society. The only way would be for us all to live as isolated self sufficient hermits.
It doesn't require anyone to subjugate or enslave anyone else.
Nor think of them as "sub-human" or try to convince a larger population that their exploitation is warranted. All it takes is for the substance or technology that allows for this 24/7 waking state to become legal and you're done.
The moment it's legal, warehouses, factories, the service industry, will start looking for people who can pull 10 hour shifts. If you can't do that then you can't have a job (or you lose an existing one.)
Then it goes from 10 to 15 hours. If you can't keep up, perhaps be cause you refuse to "augment" yourself, then you're unable to find work or loose your existing one.
This really isn't that far stretched.
Do you really think Bezos and his lot wouldn't be willing to invest in technologies that allowed an already underpaid workforce to go from 8 hour shifts to 15, 18 or 24 hours?
Of course they would.
It's not inflammatory because it's an accurate description of the capitalist mindset. You wouldn't get a CEO to admit it out loud, but they all believe that in their heart, otherwise they would be replaced by someone who does.
If we had the technology to force people to work 24/7 but proved to it was detrimental to people’s health, somehow I know deep down that society would just bite the bullet and people would burn the midnight oil for a few more dollars.
This is actually why economics is called the "dismal science", it's not because everyone hates economists, a slave-owner gave it that name because he was mad economists didn't like slavery.
As for literature backing this up, Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations talks in detail about slavery in the American colonies.
He gives examples where slavery was only viable in the southern states where they grew tobacco. Maybe one of the reasons why the South were so opposed to the end of slavery vs the North where slavery was expensive
There's a reason why overall income didn't really go down in 2020 (and even increased in some places), and thats because poor people don't actually make that much money, nor do they provide any significant value.
I’d love to see this reasoning or study behind this, and the context of “poor people”.