Slaves endure 'a living hell' on remote South Korean islands | Hacker News Reader

Slaves endure 'a living hell' on remote South Korean islands

stripes.com

288 pointsmcgwiz100 comments

From the article:

"Several freed disabled slaves told the AP they will return because they think that even the salt farms are better than life on the streets or in crowded shelters. In some cases, relatives refused to take back the disabled or sent salt farmers letters confirming that they didn't need to pay the workers."

If you ever need an example that there is no "government" there is only "us" you can use that one. These are horrific circumstances for the people involved. The solution is for the people in this community to take ownership of the horror and to commit to eradicating it. That means that each of them will either pay with some of their earned income or with their time, and they will take care of these disabled people and feed them and house them. Individually it will be a small sacrifice, but collectively it will give the disabled a way to live outside of slavery.

Except they don't.

In a democracy, it is run at the whim of the people. When it becomes too corrupt or veers too far from the will of the people who are governed, it is the people who must change it. Sometimes that can be done with voting, sometimes it takes protest, sometimes it requires one give up their own lives.

The choice to eject the current government is also a commitment that people share.

In this case, though, isn't it precisely the "will of the majority" that this continue? If any other minority were being oppressed, they might revolt, and thus create an economic incentive for the majority to take their needs under consideration—but since this minority is specifically "disabled people", they can't really do much, so the game-theoretic driver of "possible revolt" isn't there.

> since this minority is specifically "disabled people", they can't really do much, so the game-theoretic driver of "possible revolt" isn't there

In The Better Angels of Our Nature [1] Steven Pinker describes the process by which, in the past, humanity has expanded its "circle of empathy". Children, animals and countless other voiceless minorities have gained rights through this process.

One specific process he identified for expanding our collective circles of empathy is the expansion of literacy. "Reading is a technology for perspective-taking. When someone else's thoughts are in your head, you are observing the world from that person's vantage point" [2].

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence/dp/0...

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/nov/01/extract-better-...

Horror persists because we just don't care that much. Especially if it isn't in our face. We will forget about this story tomorrow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_voter_theorem

Except, it was a police officer that saved this and other slaves. The problem here is exactly the "us" in those islands, that self organized to flaunt Korea's laws.

> She brought the letter to Seo Je-gong, a police captain for the Seoul Guro district. "A vanished person had suddenly reappeared," Seo, now retired, told AP.

...

> Because Kim's letter noted collaboration between local police and salt farm owners, Seo and another Seoul officer ran a clandestine operation without telling local officials.

From your very own quotation, the people are explicitly condoning this. The government is doing a pretty good job of reflecting the will (or lack thereof) of the people.

Do you remember in the 70s and 80s that there was a raft of adoptions of Korean orphans in the US and elsewhere? That's because S Korea was still economically depressed and adoption was culturally frowned upon. Kids were abandoned left and right. It was the government that actually took initiative to push public opinion in favor of domestic adoption and it worked.

Reminds me of the Iowa/South Carolina turkey plant scandal the NY Times broke last year.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/03/09/us/the-boys-in...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/us/separated-from-brother-...

I'd love another source for this story, with the information presented clearly and not in the unreadable gonzo NYT style.

Another source on the original investigation:

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090208/NEWS/90208...

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090209/NEWS10/902...

There's this one as well:

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/14142/bulls_hit_farm_l...

And this one:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/06/05/119393/-Slavery-in-...

I'm pretty sure there are even older reports done in the 90s and 80s

It's sad that even though we're in the 21st century, slavery still exists... in our own country. I'm not even counting forced prostitution.

http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/

We need to treat the mentally disabled better. S Korea is bad, but just looking at places like SF (I feel that most of the homeless have mental issues here); it feels that we're not doing a great job either. The obvious solution is that mental hospitals need more funding. However where will they get that money from? Is there another more optimal solution that doesn't require as much money?

EDIT: I guess we're not that different

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/14142/bulls_hit_farm_l...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/06/05/119393/-Slavery-in-...

http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/

I'm not sure you have to go as far a mental hospitals. If you just build half decent government funded accommodation it deals with a lot of the problem. Plus maybe the odd visitor to help them fill forms etc if they are not capable of doing that. It surprises me that the US doesn't do more of that.

A certain past US administration got rid of mental institutions by denying funding, which in turn dramatically increased # of homeless in US.

A lot of shit is still trickling down from that.

A lot of bad shit was stopped by shutting those places down too.

I was referring to the legacy of the Reagan administration more broadly.

There is a history of modern worldwide homelessness. A single law signed by Reagan was only a small part of this phenomenon. The bipartisan law itself mainly concerned ending indefinite detention (sound familiar?) and for the most part, added programs to help the mentally ill. It did affect funding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness#Modern

A large portion of Americans are too selfish to pay extra tax to support the poor. They don't realize that their selfishness hurts everyone, including themselves: http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson

Sometimes when I read stories like this (which I'm glad that it's being exposed) and the recent NYT article about cramming school in China, I wonder if they are just printed to make American feel better.

The homeless consitently reject services offered to them. One way to solve this problem is to force them to have treatmemt and lodging but this seems rather harsh.

There are some very good reasons why some homeless people resist services offered them: It often isn't terribly humane or useful.

http://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/2014/11/mi...

For those of you who read German there was an article about what I even to this day would call wage slavery in German slaughterhouses in die Zeit. A quite interesting view of the backside of the industry's (in this case meat industry) search for cheap labour:

http://www.zeit.de/2014/51/schlachthof-niedersachsen-fleisch...

And you can also take a nice look at how Amazon operates: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/amazon-used-n...

Here's the short documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdrkY_NpgrY

Why the downvote?

I see lots of people are mentioning other instances of slavery that this reminds them of. Well, here's one that's rampant, well-known, and persists right now:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/08/16/robert-fulfor...

I picked the newest "story" link I could find for it. There are countless articles and news stories about it, with whatever level of bias you wish or don't; you can google for it.

When I was in high school in the '70s, we discussed "Man's inhumanity to man".[1] Things have improved in the last few hundred years (and even in the last 40 years), but clearly we have a ways to go.

At least the guy in the article was able to get $35,000 in back wages. At the risk of bringing Godwin's law into the discussion at first post, this is a major improvement over WWII when prison guards gassed Gypsies and Jews during the week, then went to church on Sunday.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_inhumanity_to_man

Godwin's law should be taken out the back and shot along with the person uttering it. Is a lazy form of attempting to neutralize any argument a person makes by simply mentioning Godwin's law.

Eh.

References or comparisons to Hitler are nearly always a lazy appeal to emotion made because the speaker is unable or unwilling to provide any better way of stating their position. And that kind of argument often gets made as a discussion over a contentious drags on and one side or the other is eager to just "win" the debate.

And, of course, you know who else thought people and things should be taken out back and shot...

I'm sure Godwin's law was introduced because of a genuine problem with lazy comparisons to Hitler. That said, any time I want to make a genuine comparison to something Hitler or Nazi Germany did, I have to go out of my why to find some other historical figure who did the same thing, just to avoid wasting time arguing about whether a comparison Hitler invalidates my argument.

Are you saying Godwin's Law is now recursive?

At least he was able to get $35000? How does make a difference? None of what happened to him can be fixed with money. You should have stopped at the first sentence.

Weird to be reading something like this in a modern liberal society in this day and age.

How is Korean culture liberal? Maybe you mean consumerist?

kiba said "in a liberal society" not "about a liberal society".

The intention was 'about', because we read about stuff like this all the time in places like North Korea; it's hardly weird at all.

It's South Korea, not North Korea.

South Korea doesn't quite fit the "liberal" label either. It's a technologically advanced country, but a socially conservative one.

Hierarchy similar to Japan although as you say, more socially and economically conservative.

Korea is a young democracy though - it's only had free and fair elections since 1987. Pretty much under military rule and dictatorships since 1945.

Liberalism in this case refer to a cluster of ideas that usually made up a democratic society like South Korea.

Freedom of speech, free and fair elections, the freedom of religion, and all the traditions that make democracies workable.

It does not refer to how "conservative" or "liberal" you are.

Actually the OP refers to Korean culture. Not the state.

Korea lacks 'freedom of speech' and 'free and fair elections' whilst the National Security Act is still on the law books.

It's not right therefore to refer to Korea as liberal democracy. It isn't.

South Korea is a socially conservative democracy. They are somewhat consumerist in that they consumer oriented, although not to the extent of the US.

Consumerist is not the same as communist - in fact it is almost the opposite. North Korea used to be a communist country, but now is follows the philosophy of juche[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juche

Err.. thanks for the downvotes? An explanation would be useful?

The GP said: Maybe you mean consumerist?

The parent comment said: It's South Korea, not North Korea.

They are plainly mistaking "consumerist" for "communist" - perhaps by misreading, perhaps not.

North Korea is the "communist" half of Korea. I quote communist because their political system meets no possible definition of communism I know of, and they themselves claim to have outgrown it:

"Kimilsungism is an original idea that cannot be explained within the frameworks of Marxism–Leninism. The ideas of Juche which constitutes the quintessence of Kimilsungism is an idea newly discovered in the history of mankind." Kim Jong-il went further, stating that Marxism–Leninism had become obsolete and needed to be replaced by Kimilsungism;[1].

They do argue that Juche is a type of socialism, which I guess could be construed as true by stretching the definition of socialism and ignoring the reality of how North Korea is run.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juche#Kimilsungism.E2.80.93Kim...

How can hackers help? How might we create new technology to eradicate this? How might we create tech to empower the slaves?

I'd love for us to begin using our brainpower and super powers to dismantle these power structures instead of the next "uber for x" app.

hubris isn't a super power

Not exactly sure what you mean here.. By super power I was referring to creativity, coding skills, ability to solve problems,etc.

One way might just be to find a more cost-effective way to make that same salt, and put those farmers out of business.

A hack might be to use drones to run surveillance on those places.

The longer-term and stable solution is to have governments or community to care for those people so they are not homeless and vulnerable.

Yes. Perhaps inventing a technology that would eliminate the need for slaves and selling it to the farmers at a price point below the cost of slaves.

Also, perhaps a salt farm that was operated by the homeless, set up as a social enterprise and branded as such. Since this seems to be a luxury item, the increased price and status could be desirable.

Create automation to produce the salt, organize a B Corp [+], use any profits from the production to support the homeless and mentally ill.

[+] http://www.bcorporation.net/

It seems to me that we should be talking about sanctions & boycotts of Korean products. An obvious first place to start is the products produced by slave labor. But I think it's reasonable to extend a boycott to the rest of an economy that is turning a blind eye to such atrocities.

So think about the plight of these slaves considering a purchase of Samsung, Mitsubishi, Kia, or other items built in Korea or owned by Korean companies. Then buy something else.

Not sure what makes me feel worse, the fact that this shit still happens or the fact that I didn't know it did...

EDIT:

*that this shit still happens so close to "civilization"

Types of slavery prevalent https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery#Types

A reminder that the Korean peninsula is pretty much the cold war in caricature, and still ongoing...

man this region of Korea as a whole always have these stories popping up. Unlike the rest of the Korea South western part of Korea is economically undeveloped as a result of the political elite being from South Eastern region which benefit tremendously (namely Hyundai and other big companies creating large amount of jobs).

Allegedly there exists a couple millenia old feud between Koreans from these two regions of West and East.

People from West and East don't marry each other or do business together. Much of Korea's online communities show extreme hatred for people from South West region of Korea.

> Much of Korea's online communities show extreme hatred for people from South West region of Korea.

One major reason for this is the Gwangju Uprising[0].

0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwangju_Uprising

Yes in particular it's viewed as a pro-communist armed revolt from a region that has not received any of benefit from Korea's rising economy.

It's a controversial topic in Korea and views are divided. It's interesting to note that the special force soldiers specifically from South East region were handpicked to carry out merciless beatings and killings.

It's amazing how little it takes for people to nurture bitter differences with neighbors.

It started a long time ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Kingdoms_of_Korea

Basically the South East kingdom Silla ended up killing everyone and taking the whole country to themselves with the help of China. Then when they pulled a switcheroo and attacked China and unified Korea.

Honam (Jeolla) acts as a separate political block too. It votes the same party, with a low of around 80% in 2007 and high of 95% in 1997. Just look at the regional break down for each election and you can see that South Korea is divided among itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korean_presidential_elect...

Yes that's a common reason why that region as a whole is blamed for bringing a decade of anti-American, pro-North Korean policies that ultimately backfired. It has long been equated with violence and rebellion for left wing causes. You can see that since 2007 Seoul has basically shifted back to right wing administration and has not returned since.

Economic inequality is still a problem, but everything else you wrote is about twenty years out of date.

It's like how there are still white supremacist websites in the US even when a black guy is their president. Sure, there is at least one online community who show extreme hatred toward people from the Southwest region (I wouldn't name it, but it should be obvious to anyone who's been following South Korean news for the past several years[1]), but they represent the social norms of South Korea about as much as Youtube comments do of America. (They also tend to show extreme hatred of women, the liberals, the poor, the disabled, and North Korea.)

Also anybody who talks about "a couple millenia old feud" between these regions don't know what they're talking about. Case in point: in 1963, Southeast(Gyeongsang)-based candidate Park Jung Hee won the presidential election[2] thanks to the votes of both Southeast and Southwest regions. (He then went on to foster the regional discrimination we're talking about to secure his political base, and died a dictator, but that's another story.)

Even when it comes to economic inequality, the much more serious problem is that between Seoul (and its neighbor regions) and everywhere else. It was another social problem president Roh Moo-Hyun (2003-2008) tried to solve (by building a new capital city that specializes on administration, like Washington DC), but the constitutional court killed the plan by basically inventing "customary constitution" out of thin air. He was also widely supported by the Democratic Party (or several other names the party assumed in Korea's hectic climate), largely based on the Southwest region, but he himself was from Busan, the biggest city in the Southeast. So, there.

As for why these "island slaves" are always found in the Southwest region, I think there's a much simpler explanation: that's where almost all islands are. Look at the map of South Korea. Not all coastlines are shaped alike.

[1] By the way, if you know the site, admitting "I visit that site" will be about as beneficial to your online reputation as saying that you support Westboro Baptist Church.

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korean_presidential_elect...

The feud is very much real and exists especially if you've ever been to South East part of Korea. It is not at all on par with white supermacist but it's a tradition of segregation that is regardless of how advanced or modern Korea is exist in some way or another. It may not be visible on the open but people from South East openly discriminate people from South West. The two regions were separate kingdoms couple thousand years ago and the beef still remains.

You can see clearly the disparity in income and economy between South West and South East which reflects the economic policies of the past. It may not be as explicit than before but you can see that there's a reason why South West voted for the 10 year for a leftist administration in Korea that brought much danger to the security of republic of Korea as a result of practicing sunshine policy.

The website is well known in Korea called ilbe.com and it's extremely popular right wing views gaining the attention of mainstream. IT has many entertaining articles written in non-honorifics and ton of swear words which is quite a departure from the mainstream media. It's common to see people spreading their hatred for Jeolla (South West) region and it's people often referring to them as some really awful stinky fish dish from that regioncalled Hong-uh (홍어, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocellate_spot_skate) and pictures of former presidents Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun have become a sort of meme.

I'm sorry, I can't take serious any person who would describe Ilbe as "extremely popular right wing" site, talking about that (almost racist) epithet about that fish as if it's normal.

If you are Korean, shame on you. Otherwise, find a better source to learn about Korea.

(Also, 10 years of "leftist administration"? For heaven's sake, in both elections there were basically two choices. One party harbors those people who sent troops to murder their friends and families in 1980. So they voted for the other one. Turned out these two presidents were about as "leftists" as Obama, which in turn disappointed some of their supporters who wanted faster progress.)

And if you want to bitch about how they brought "danger to the security of republic of Korea", you might want to dig up on the whole "gun-wind affair (총풍 사건)" in 1997, where several government officers of the "rightist" regime met North Korean officers shortly before the presidential election, and basically asked them if they could start a border skirmish, to persuade South Koreans to not elect the "leftist" candidate Kim Dae-Jung (who later received a Nobel Peace Prize for the Sunshine policy that's so cheaply mocked these days).

There's lot of inaccuracies here. First, president Park Chung Hee was the only choice as a result of a military coup d'etat in May 16th, 1961. Democratic organs only acted to appease United States, they did not function at all. Yes, Park Chung Hee was from South East (Kyongsang) region. Kim Dae Jung was from South West (Jeolla) region. PCH tried to have KDJ killed many times for his pro-North views and viola, KDJ becomes president in 1998, billions of slush funds travel to Kim Jong Il despite the warnings from US, Kim jong il tests a nuclear weapon 5 years later, KDJ wins the nobel prize. This is why he is mocked in Korea, he traded the security of his country for a fucking medal. The fundings continue when Roh Moo Hyun executes his predecessor's "Sunshine Policy". Of course, KDJ and RMH were popular presidential candidates in South West because of promises of economic development PCH completely neglected (the prejudice against Jeolla region was far more blatant back then).

As you know Park Chung Hee was assassinated by his own intelligence director in fall of 1979 causing a major state of chaos. General Chun Doo Hwan seized power eventually. The timing of the Gwangju Uprising or Gwangju Rebellion is really peculiar as Chun had just begun to seize complete power after 7 months since the tragedy of PCH. A strong response was the only way to stabalize the country as there are reports that it was instigated by North Korean sleeper agents based on first hand accounts. The official case leaves this out but North Korean defectors admitted that North Korean agents in South Korea were placed strategically in cities to instigate armed rebellion should conditions allow it. Lot of pieces are missing with the official version that Gwangju civilians ran into a cache of guns and ammunition but they leave out the first hand reports that the people handing out the guns had a different dialect one that was closer to North Korea. This explains why an Air Force commandos, the military response because they were responding to a rebellion instigated by a foreign enemy country. We see this happening today in Crimea, Donetsk by Russia.

You might have heard that recently, a South Korean lawmaker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_South_Korean_sabotage_plot) was known to have been leading a similar armed saboteur group called RO (Revolutionary Organization) to assist North Korea in the case of a war by assassinating various figures, attacking vital infrastructure. The evidence against them was overwhelming including recordings and informants. He is sentenced to 12 years in prison.

총풍 사건, the "gun wind affair" was blown wildly out of proportion and is a popular topic for left wing elements to use in their arguments but in reality it was found to be groundless accusation and the presidential candidate would try to run for office 10 years later after winning a large defamation lawsuit.

I am Korean btw, and shame on you for attacking me and being flagkilled earlier. If you want to sound convincing please keep it civilized.

Completely agree with curiously.

Kim Dae Jung really brings shame to Nobel Peace prize and the term human rights with his COMPLETE silence on the human rights abuses in NK. The operating motto of all 'liberals' and 'human rights advocates' is about trying to get rid of the human rights abuses that are so rampant in NK. And yet you really cannot find much criticisms from him criticizing NK. WHY? Does he owe something to NK?

> I am Korean btw, and shame on you for attacking me and being flagkilled earlier.

That comment certainly deserved to be flagkilled, but your comment would also be better without this.

I have better things to do than try to argue Korean politics in Hacker News (and I have a hard time keeping my voice calm with this), so I'll just point out a few obvious points, for posterity.

Park Chung Hee was drinking whiskey with his aides, a singer, and a girl "recruited" by special services, while talking about rampant protests that were sweeping the country. One aide, Cha Ji-chul, had reportedly said a few days eariler: "Cambodia killed three millions. Is it a big deal if we kill a million or two?" Mind you, he was talking about the particular wave of protest that was sweeping Park's own political base, the Southeast (Gyeongsang) region[1].

Probably fearing that Cha and Park were serious, another aide, Kim Jae-gyu, shot them in the party scene (Oct 26, 1979), thus ending more than a decade of dictatorship.

South Koreans finally had a chance of democracy, which my fellow Korean here referred to as "a major state of chaos". Unfortutely, during the hectic moment, another general, Chun Doo-Whan, staged a coup on December 12th, gaining power.

Of course South Koreans throughout the country didn't like it a bit. There were massive protests everywhere, including Seoul, which is (somewhat poetically) called "Seoul's spring on 1980". This is what it looked like [2].

Nobody will know exactly what was in Chun's mind, but he might have thought that he should make an example, probably not Seoul itself (too dangerous: he probably didn't want to murder people right in front of the US embassy's eyes) but big enough that people would take notice. A "strong response" to "stabilize the country", indeed.

The rest, as they say, is history.

While Chun was in power, the May 18th massacre was officially called "Gwangju incident (광주사태)", and the official version was of course that communists infiltrated the city of Gwangju, started a revolt, and the soldiers put things back to order. Stories and gruesome pictures of people shot on the street and flattened by military vehicles slowly circulated, with angry whispers in low voices. When a university student, Park Jong-chul, was tortured to death in 1987, people finally decided they had enough, which ignited the June 10th movement [3].

"Bring Park Jong-Chul back to life!" they shouted. "Murderer Chun Doo-Hwan, step down!"

Sure, South Korea is a free country. If you want to claim these hundreds of thousands of people were mislead by communists, go ahead. But it's thanks to those people who stood against soldiers and militarized police, in the street of Geumnam-ro in Gwangju or in front of Myeongdong Cathedral in Seoul, that I or you can say what's in our mind without fearing imprisonment, torture, and death.

* There was no happy ending. On June 29th, the government finally relented, promising a popular election for the next president. Unfortunately, because of an age-long feud between two opposition leaders (Kim Young-Sam and Kim Dae-Jung), they both entered as candidates in the election, resulting in Chun's minion, Roh Tae-Woo, becoming the next president. Several years later, Kim Young-Sam did one of the worst about-face in South Korea's short political history, and joined Roh Tae-Woo's party, creating a mega-party that basically surrounded Kim Dae-Jung's Southwestern region, and basically cementing the Southeast region as the bastion of conservatism for decades to come.

(It's slowly changing these days, though.)

[1] http://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EB%B6%80%EB%A7%88%EB%AF%BC%EC%...

[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=80%EB%85%84+%EC%84%9C%EC%9A%...

[3] https://www.google.com/search?q=6+10+%ED%95%AD%EC%9F%81&&tbm...

So they are drinking beer and some comments were passed around, and the guy just shoots him? The only people who buy this crap are the pro-North koreans in South Korea. Everybody else who live in a sane reality don't believe this ludicrous story made to make Park Chung Hee seem like a monster.

The rift between Park Jong Chul (President's head of security) and Kim Jae Kyu (KCIA director) well preceded that evening when the president was assassinated. He premeditated the assassination by having the security detail paralyzed by his own loyal followers (who were all executed and jailed). The bullshit about how Kim Jae Kyu, the mastermind behind all the torture and brutal political suppression did it for democracy is laughable at best. The motive was simple, Kim Jae Kyu thought he could usurp power, he falsely mistook the American CIA's approval and repeatedly sought CIA's help after assassination. He was foolish because US fully supported PCH's dictatorship as a strong buffer against North Korea. They continued to support president Chun and Noh, both military generals and it was only until Kim Young Sam finally was elected through a democratic vote.

Was Park Chung Hee a dictator? Was he brutal in some of his methods? Of course. But he is also the reason why South Korea was allowed to thrive economically. Without the political stability brought on by a military rule with the backdrop of a serious security threat like North Korea (they were richer than South in 1960s), you'd have to be a hopeless romantic and naive to think that someone could've done a better job by "democratic" means.

Anyways, I think I'm done being trolled here. I suggest you to not try to twist and distort the post-Korean war history of South Korea with inaccuracies and ignorant statements.

I really cannot take Kim Dae-Jung or his party or his successors seriously. They rose to power with the call for honoring human rights, which is noble. However, when it comes to the human rights abuses in NK, they are silent.

Very very weird to me.

I think that it's just sheer naivety that you can get along with a crazed failed state based on ethnic unity, the idea of being the same race or 민족.

Another reason I think is Kim Dae Jung had a radically different vision of what Korea could be, anti-American, pro-socialist and one that is based on nazi like nationalistic views based on the purity and superiority of the Korean people.

What makes me remember that so many western democratic countries are silent about human rights when it happens at an military Allied country.

This is not about Korea but about humanity falling apart at fringes. We value truth because we fear lies. We value kindness because we fear brutality. We value order because we fear mayhem.

We fear because we know we are capable, of all these shadows.

This is awful :(

Some will forget what the government of South Korea chooses to ignore. Some will not. In my books, tolerance of chattel slavery by a democratically elected government earns the voters of that country a boycott.

It's not easy to avoid everything that contains parts by the likes of Hyundai and Samsung (Yes, that still includes Apple), but an honest effort by enough people might just make a difference.

Are you not reading other comments in this thread that talk about similar slavery in some places in US and Germany?

No. Only Korea has slaves. Korea bad.

No, I think you r bad. Not knowing how to participate in this forum.

This is no revelation - Asia is rife with slavery and indentured servitude. That friendly Bhutanese waiter? Slave. That Philippino maid? Slave? That stripper in Macau? Dead slave by now.

More curious is why Stars and Stripes is running this now - did they confuse which Korea they were meant to be teaching their troops to hate?

Downvotes for pointing out obvious agitprop, and that this is a far broader issue? Ok then. America #1. Go USA. I can only think you're wilfully blinkering yourselves, or someone deemed this comment not helpful to America's political cause?

Go read about the fine art of squid fishing, and the makeup of the crews who man those brigs. It's not just Korea. Fuck, there are slaves (honest to god slaves) in the UK.

> Sinan County has more than 850 salt farms that produce two-thirds of South Korea's sea salt. To make money, however, farmers need labor, lots of it and cheap. Around half of Sinui Island's 2,200 people work in salt farming, according to a county website and officials.

Sadly, this is the underbelly of consumerist abstraction. Unpaid Slaves, wage slaves, salary slaves living unhealthy lives; where those without voice are scorned. Mere abstractions.

This makes me think of the article "5 Studies that Show How Wealth Warps Your Soul".

http://www.alternet.org/economy/5-studies-show-how-wealth-wa...

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I'm willing to take the downvotes, if it leads to someone connecting the dots; looking beyond ideology.

It's easy to blame the perpetrators. However, we all live in the same system & our choices influence many. It's time to stop passing the buck. This story is too common.

I'll explain why I downvoted you. You are deliberately conflating slavery like what is described in this article (e.g. where attempts to quit result in being beaten with a rake), and voluntary work situations which fall short of some hypothetical ideal (i.e., "wage slavery", where slaves are free to quit if they wish).

As a result of such hyperbole, it's often difficult for news consumers to tell whether a problem is real, or whether it's just activists making stuff up.

Except that the term wage slavery is typically used in situations where the worker is either already in debt, or on the edge of debt.

Obviously situations change depending on time, place, and the particular social conditions, but typically, when you use the term 'wage slavery', the implication is a situation where yes, technically the worker has the ability to quit their job whenever they want, but practically, they don't.

There surely is a distinction between even those forms of wage slavery and out right chattel slavery (or whatever), but the distinction isn't nearly as great, nor really, from a human stand point, really all that different. This is especially true the more 'brutal' the wage slavery gets.

Put it another way. Imagine you simply magically eliminated all forms of chattel slavery, but then immediately put all those magically freed ex-slaves in deep debt to their ex-owners (with heavy interest), and left them just as socially isolated as they are right now, and then gave them a chance to either take their chances and try to find a job somewhere else, or let them work off their debts to their ex-owners. Are they in a better position than they were before? Yes. Are they in anything remotely close to a good position? No.

If you are describing various forms of debt bondage (as practiced in India and other such places), I agree, particularly when most debt bondage involves beating those who try to quit.

This problem more or less does not exist in the west, with rare exceptions like sex trafficking from eastern Europe (or from rural areas here in India). Most people using the term "wage slavery" are not restricting it to such situations - they are instead using it to describe people who might need to reduce their consumption to globally rich levels (e.g., $20k/year in the US) if they quit their job. In fact, I've never heard anyone use the term "wage slavery" to describe real labor abuses such as what you hint at.

Illegal immigrants in Western countries can easily be led into situations that may be described as "debt bondage" or "wage slavery." They do not have legal recourses, yet are afforded a place as a "hidden" workforce of temps, day laborers, migrant workers, and sweatshop employees, with the threat of deportation used to ensure dependence.

Guest workers also tend to receive discriminatory treatment, even though they have a legal status. The Bracero program in the United States was critiqued along these lines, and the situation today has not improved in a real sense, as illegal immigrants continue to be used in similar ways for similar work.

These situations share a common thread with the original article in that class is created through legal status, and subsequently magnified by abuses. Enslaved workers are blocked from using resources that could get them out of their situation.

There are examples in these comments. This quote is apt: “This is what happens when we don’t pay attention.”

How much attention do you have to pay?

You seem to have a dualistic view on this. Your definition of "bad" is a salt field slave being beaten or debt bondage and "not bad" is anything "better" than that. It's a low bar to set.

I agree, salt field slaves are worse off than McDonalds slaves; McDonalds slaves have the "freedom" to work for Burger King after all. There's also a slippery slope. In many 3rd world countries, people have the "freedom" to leave their farms to work in factories with poor conditions.

I define the word "slave" as someone who has freedom taken away by another person or a system. Some people are in more slavery than others. The salt field workers have very little freedom. The McDonalds workers have a little more freedom, but you or I would not want to be one.

I notice that you are a wealthy white male financial trader. It must be nice to be in a position where you have such freedom. Please have compassion for people with significantly less freedom than you, even if you don't see them as slaves. People are more than our abstractions.

Many people work hard:

You know where it ends Yo, it usually depends On where you start - Everlast

http://genius.com/Everlast-what-its-like-lyrics/

---

There are also more unpaid slaves today than any other time in history.

https://www.freetheslaves.net/page.aspx?pid=301

I merely said that by using the word slave to describe voluntary employment, you desensitize people to it. Without reading the article, I cant tell if the article is about forced labor or just some activist whining about how bad their mcjob is.

FYI I live in one of those third world countries. I still reserve the word slave for people who are not permitted to quit.

> I merely said that by using the word slave to describe voluntary employment, you desensitize people to it.

I feel the opposite. We can look at these horrible conditions and say, "thank goodness it doesn't happen here in America" and "at least we aren't that bad". Our sense of responsibility is wiped clean because "we are better than them".

> FYI I live in one of those third world countries. I still reserve the word slave for people who are not permitted to quit.

Treating slavery as a rare anomaly encourages abuses that aren't considered "slavery". We then complain that people are "whining"; they should be grateful because they aren't "slaves". Disrespecting the "complainers" results in the "complainers" becoming marginalized and censored.

Some racial minorities have a long history of being marginalized and censored. Just because black people are no longer unpaid slaves does not wipe the slate clean and make everything ok.

The dichotomy is even stronger in India, so maybe that desensitizes the nuances of income inequality in 1st world countries. However, I don't know of too many who would want to live in poverty working in a McJob.

There's also a malaise of people who work in relatively high paying jobs they don't enjoy. This addiction to money & convenience motivates people to do strange things and to view others & the planet in an unhealthy way.

Your argument is based on the fallacy of the excluded middle. Something can be bad without being slavery. If the high paying job with money/convenience addiction were really so terrible, why do you need to fallaciously compare it to plantation slavery to make that case?

Also, talking about inequality completely masks the issue. India has lower inequality than the US. If you want to talk about desperately needing a job, you need to either exclude 1/6 of humanity or else recognize that the lack of rich people doesn't make open defecation more fun.

> If the high paying job with money/convenience addiction were really so terrible, why do you need to fallaciously compare it to plantation slavery to make that case?

I'm correctly, not fallaciously, using the word slave. Words are patterns with fuzziness.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slave

> One who has lost the power of resistance; one who surrenders to something.

I chose the word slave, because it highlights a pattern of people being marginalized and losing their freedom. It's slavery in a different form.

Think of boiling a frog with small changes in temperature. If we see words with fixed lines, like a chained slave in the 1800s south, then we fail to see people systemically losing their freedom due to economic inequality & being on the wrong side of leverage.

> Also, talking about inequality completely masks the issue. India has lower inequality than the US. If you want to talk about desperately needing a job, you need to either exclude 1/6 of humanity or else recognize that the lack of rich people doesn't make open defecation more fun.

A False Dilemma; that it's either income inequality or everybody is poor. We have more than enough resources to ensure that nobody lives in poverty. Economic competition & pooling of capital has fundamental issues, particularly with inequality & environmental problems. Cooperation, transparency, & decentralization seems likely to yield better results.

We live in a world where many people are required to waste time working in a job that they don't enjoy. Consumerism is deemed "essential" to the social well being, yet consumerism encourages environmental problems & social marginalization. Instead, we could be working to improve the environment & giving everybody freedom to act on their desires. Instead we celebrate the rich, shame the poor, consume, create wars, plunder the Earth.

"Wage slavery," every time I have seen it used, is used to describe any situation where someone trades their own labor for some payment other than the complete product of that labor.

"Put it another way. Imagine you simply magically eliminated all forms of chattel slavery, but then immediately put all those magically freed ex-slaves in deep debt to their ex-owners (with heavy interest), and left them just as socially isolated as they are right now, and then gave them a chance to either take their chances and try to find a job somewhere else, or let them work off their debts to their ex-owners. Are they in a better position than they were before? Yes. Are they in anything remotely close to a good position? No. "

I don't think you understand the difference between voluntarily entering debt, and being forced into a situation against your will. Whether they are in a "good position" or not is irrelevant so long as they weren't forced into it. We all make stupid mistakes, and we have to live with them. Sometimes those mistakes are huge, and we will spend the rest of our lives "repaying" or fixing the damage.

Though, it's different with the mentally handicapped. They're not able to make informed decisions for themselves, and could quite easily (and voluntarily) get into huge debt. That is why they need to be protected by their family, which we are sorely neglecting by increasingly injecting the state as a surrogate parental figure when the parents(or family) are available and it is not necessary.

Wage slavery does not imply free choice.

Here's an article about people who had their arms hacked off with axes when they tried to leave their bonded labour.

http://bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27486450

Doesn't sound like they agreed to or chose to have their hands chopped off, though. They were tricked, kidnapped and held for ransom from a family too poor to pay anything. So I don't see what you're getting at?

Wikipedia has a good write up about wage-slavery, if you're curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery

You seem to be saying that people who voluntarily enter into bonded slavery need to take responsibility for the choice they made. You appeared in your comment to suggest that bonded labour is not actual slavery - but it is.

http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/bonded_labo...

People do not freely enter into arrangements to become wage slaves. You said they did.

No, he's pointing out that bonded slavery is not the same as wage slavery, as the element of free choice/freedom from harm doesn't exist in bonded slavedy.

I see the equivocation of suffering between bonded and 'wage' slavery to be incredibly disingenuous. Working at McDonald's doesn't make you a slave in the same sense as a person who has their limbs cut off for trying to escape, and to insist that 'wage slavery' is comparable is disturbingly detached from reality.

Wage Slavery is not the same as bonded slavery.

Wage slavery is usually used to describe the situation where a person's wage only just pays their living expense, so they are forced to keep the job because if they lose it they will be unable to survive.

They still have free choice though, in that no one is forcing them to work.

That's quite different to "real" slavery where there is some kind of involuntary nature. In the case of bonded slavery a person is forced to work until their "loan" is paid off.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery

The link you supply clearly says that wage slaves do not have freedom to leave the work they're doing. They are forced to continue working, just not always with threats of violence.

Most "wage slaves" have no freedom. They're not free to chose the work they do, nor to control how that work is performed, nor to leave if working conditions are unacceptable. http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/domestic_wo...

You appear to be saying that "wage slavery" is clearly separate from "slavery". I am saying that there are considerable overlap between them and that most people who are "wage slaves" are just "slaves".

Your link clearly talks about forced and bonded labor. People in those arrangements are compelled to keep working by another person.

In wage slavery a person is compelled to keep working by their bodily needs. That is sad, and I would love to see the day when it isn't the case. But it isn't the same thing as being compelled by another person.

It's quite disingenuous to argue my link says that wage slaves do not have freedom to leave the work they're doing. Put in context my link says this:

"Wage slavery refers to a situation where a worker's livelihood depends on wages, especially when the dependence is total and immediate."

To make it clear: under wage slavery a person is free to leave, but must immediately find another job.

If we ignore those of us who have made their FU money, most of us differ from that situation only by degree: if we leave a job we have to find another one. Perhaps not immediately, but for many it is with a degree of urgency. Some would argue that makes us all wage slaves to some degree, and that may well be true.

But to say that is the same thing as those in actual, real chattel slavery, bonded labor or similar diminishes the real outrage we should feel at their lack of basic rights.

About your link, its an interesting study of causation vs correlation. Does too much money really make you more stingy or is being stingy how you got that much money in the first place? Does too much money make you difficult to satisfy or is it because you are difficult to satisfy that you pursue more money? etc.

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