South by Southwest’s unpaid labor problem

Consider http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/06/04/open-job-at-boston-law... where a lawfirm offered a job for $10,000 per year:

> Larry O’Bryan, one of the firm’s partners, said he’s received about 32 applications for the $10K per year job, since posting it one week ago. He said that while the pay is low, the lawyer who is eventually hired will gain valuable experience.

Obviously $10K/year for the first year is enough to make people want to sign up. The estimated eventual gains are worthwhile, so by your logic this is acceptable.

A negative is when volunteerism leads to stratification by economic class. If a career typically requires several years of free labor or below poverty wages, then mostly only those with access to money - through savings, charity of friends and family, or perhaps a loan - can afford that career.

But those who are poor, with less access to the cash needed to survive those first few years or facing higher loan rates, are much less likely to enter that career.

As an extreme case, if all white-collar careers required several years of free internship then mostly only the children of white-collar parents will be able to have that job. I am morally opposed to this sort of self-perpetuating class division.

"I think that volunteering, and the volunteer-cause relationship, is radical. It might even be scary to some power brokers."

Anything might be scary to 'some power brokers', so there's no message in your statement.

In practice, we see that Fox Searchlight and Charlie Rose at PBS are examples of organizations which enjoyed the 'volunteer-cause relationship', and had to pay fines for it. Are they power brokers? There are similar lawsuits against ICM, NBCUniversal, Conde Nast, and the Hearst Corporation - are they power brokers?

If yes, then the 'volunteer-cause relationship' is not scary to them. If no, then bringing up 'power brokers' is tangential to the discussion.