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Comment by Peckingjay | Hacker News Reader

> There wasn’t much substance abuse treatment at CAAIR. It was mostly factory work for one of America’s top poultry companies. If McGahey got hurt or worked too slowly, his bosses threatened him with prison. And he worked for free. CAAIR pocketed the pay.

> Men who were injured while at CAAIR rarely receive long-term help for their injuries. That’s because the program requires all men to sign a form stating that they are clients, not employees, and therefore have no right to workers’ comp. Reveal found that when men got hurt, CAAIR filed workers’ comp claims and kept the payouts. Injured men and their families never saw a dime.

It's somewhat incredible (in a bad way) how far capitalism can go in terms of monetizing everything in people's lives when left unchecked.

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> It's somewhat incredible (in a bad way) how far capitalism can go in terms of monetizing everything in people's lives when left unchecked.

Slavery/indentured servitude/prison labor predates capitalism by forever, that really has nothing to do with it. Similar (but much worse) labor camps existed in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

I think that the point is that while it is widely agreed that these sorts of issues exist under systems like slavery, many people do not believe that they exist under capitalism.

What does this have to do with capitalism?

less capitalism, but the concept of having everything handeled by private enterprise that is for-profit. With prices set 'by thr market' is sorta what happened here.

Rule by unaccountable large organizations isn't specifically "capitalist", as it has existed in societies of every type of economic organization. By this definition even the Soviet Union was capitalist.

I totally agree with you that private organizations being above the law (especially sadistic ones like this) is bad.

> by the market

How is someone forced by the state to perform free labor a market participant?

I recommend The Gulag Archipelago for some perspective. This has nothing to do with markets or private for-profit enterprises.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago

Many people on the right believe that capitalism is incompatible with the exploitation associated with practices such a feudalism and slavery. Therefore, they argue that safeguards and regulation are not needed. This is showing hat exploitation is also a feature of capitalism; therefore, the regulations are still needed.

How is this showing anything is a feature about capitalism? The labor relations described in the article are not capitalistic.

How are you defining capitalism?

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