U.S. prison labor programs violate fundamental human rights, new report finds

Not really. Norway has oil money. It's basically Scandinavian Saudi Arabia (but less off the rails).

Norway is far richer than US on a per-capita basis. Also, US mean wealth is a lot higher than its median wealth (which is what really counts). Any dirt-poor country could print money to give a few trillion dollars of nominal wealth to a single dictator and achieve a high mean wealth but everyone else in the country would be dirt poor.

GDP/capita isn't really everything. Norway's got an enormous sovereign wealth fund with decades of oil money.

You also need to consider this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor...

> One could start by not putting as many folks in prisons and jails. You don't have to be a wealthy country to do that.

Norway is able to put fewer people in prison because it puts more emphasis on crime prevention. The US chose a different path a long time ago, probably even as far back as the war on drugs. It's going to be very hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube again, if that's even possible.

> There is no reason that the US can't do this. The US is a wealthy country.

Besides being wealthy, isn't Norway pretty culturally/ethnically homogeneous? That may be a pretty important factor that may contribute to making their policy choices work.

Similarly, isn't it a welfare state? That could also play a pretty significant role, too.

Norway is able to put less people in prison because less people in Norway commit crime. The murder rate in the United States is almost 15 times greater.

You can claim that anyone who even hints that maybe two countries with very different demographics may in fact have differences due to those demographics is racist and that any comments along those lines are just inflammatory flamebait, but people will continue to ponder that theory because 1) it seems fucking obvious and 2) curious people (and people in general I guess) can't help but be interested in topics that they're told not to be interested in.

Now that you (and others) have flagged the thread, the people with showdead on will see that it has happened yet again, and they just might seek out a place where an actual discussion can be had.

Funny I’ve seen threads like that hit the front page and never get flagged. Hell I’ve seen some pretty explicit violations of the guidelines hit the front page and stay there plenty of times. Where are all the rules lawyers in those threads?

> If I'm wrong, prove it: point me to the prison website where they offer convicts for sale.

But they do - in the modern version. Just like we have - here in my native Germany in a very big way over the last two decades - made actually employing people, as too inflexible and too expensive, a thing of the past for hundreds of thousands, and instead lend them out to companies, you don't need to deal with the hassle of actually owning someone. After all, what does any slave owner actually want? Not the slave, that's just "costs" and a lot of effort (infrastructure, overseers, security etc.). No, all they want is their labor. And that is exactly what those prisons sell, no? All the benefits without the disadvantages in one convenient cheap package.

I have no idea why you focus on the unimportant part of slavery, the one that was always inconvenient for the slave owners, the one that only contributed to the "cost" side of their business.

I would also like to take the liberty of pointing to this page about "Disputing Definitions" when trying to dissect some non-existent god-given very exact and always valid no matter the changing context meaning of some word: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7X2j8HAkWdmMoS8PE/disputing-...

You don't need to sell slaves to have slaves.

> Being able to force someone to do anything against their will, minus the right to sell people, still sounds a lot like slavery to me.

It sounds like you have your definitions messed up. People being property is the defining characteristic of slavery. That would almost always entail involuntary servitude, but involuntary servitude is a more general term that encompasses other practices.

Also "being able to force someone to do anything against their will" certainly doesn't apply to prisoners in the US any other developed country.