The abolition of slavery

[DaughterJones]

Since about 6th grade and my first real civics courses I've heard logical arguments for and against anarchy and frankly those on the anarchist side have made much more sense. The problem is every teacher I have ever had framed anarchy as crime sprees and running in the streets like madmen. The textbook definition of anarchy was "chaos". I didn't want violent chaos and cities burning. Who does ? So I shoved my feelings about anarchy down.

Recently I have revisited them thinking that perhaps the problem with anarchy is that it needs to be reframed. The structure of the state is a structure of slavery. Have you ever sat back and thought "Why am I working so hard and not getting ahead while the rich sit on their asses and get paid?" ? The reason is they own slaves who do their work for them. We work in their factories. We till their fields. We pick their cotton. We built their comfortable castles while they sit back and watch. We get paid for our labor but think about it. Most of the people get paid enough for their essentials food, clothing, and a roof over their heads. Slaves get those same essentials because they need to be kept alive to perform their tasks.

In many people's minds at this point they may say "Hey I dont have it as bad as a slave im not living in a shack being beaten and I can come and go as I please. " That is absolutely true and there is a reson for that as well. If people are in conditions that are bad they will become unhappy with their condition and feel the need to do something about it. If people are kept pacified they don't act. People used to say " slavery wasn't always bad some people had nice masters.". The point is that the people had masters and the condition of being stripped of your humanity and treated as a means of production and wealth is deplorable reguardless of if someone does it to you with a smile or a punch in the face. The end result is the same.

What the hell does this have to do with anarchy ? It's simple anarchy seeks to abolish slavery by abolishing the concept of master. Masters in the workplace, masters in government, masters in the realm of ideas (the master manipulators that are the media) , and masters in the realm of faith (gurus,ministers,priests, popes and anyone who sets themself up as a holyman who knows the will of God).

I know this reads more like a blog than a post but it's a topic i think could use some discussion...

[Rebel_Serigan]

People assume slavery requires a whip or something but in reality it only needs an opressing master. Now I totaly agree that people are being desensitized to the slavery of the work place. The use job titles and corner office to motivate you as opossed to physical whips. I agree that the goverment and the elite need a good old fasioned ass whooping but at the same time I am not an anarchist. I believe in limited gov but not the anti-goverment of anarchy. With the lack of authority there is the potensial for terrible things, for instance a military minded man could get some guns and some people and create a tyrany. I would rather have anarchy then what we have now but I think the people would need to be very connected or else someone would get it in thier heads to start an empire.

[Kassad]

Slavery exists today is an identical form, to be totally honest with you. Truly, though, we are much less blunt about it. In the United States, at least, with the abolition of slavery after the Civil War and the subsequent events of the 1860's and 1870's, the landowning class lost a significant amount of their labor force. The economy sure didn't boom at that time and for obvious reasons. With the loss of nearly free labor, the landowners had to find a new means of exploitation for profit. Fortunately, the bourgeoisie are quite witty and productive and the industrialization that followed the war helped promote a new type of slavery.

I mean, hell. Let's be honest. In the pre-Civil War era of slavery, landowners were required to house, feed and maintain their laborers. In the current system of wage slavery, the people are forced to feed, house and maintain themselves, as well as paying for other basic necessities that the bourgeoisie exploit, such as education and healthcare. Is there anything in society without a dollar sign? The basic resources of the world are no longer commonly owned as our earliest ancestors practiced, but instead, they are owned by the corporate hierarchy.

Slavery was never really abolished. Like most socially controversial issues, it was forced into the back of our minds through linguistical manipulation ('slaves' are now known as 'working class peoples'), propaganda (how many people were forced to blindly fight for the stars and stripes for the imperialist machine?) and the general industrialization and modernization of the world. The bourgeoisie oligarchy has consistently promoted new forms of slavery and the current one they promote is that of wages.

And does slavery still exist? Of course it does. We have sweatshops across the globe that produce cheap products and resources. The corporate elitists do not use their obtained wealth to produce for the economy they received the resources from, but instead, they use it for their own monetary gain. This is how wealth is concentrated through economic and social manipulation and imperialism, in the face of modern colonial occupation and coercion.

So in truth, the Emancipation Proclamantion didn't mean a thing. The Civil War was just another petty struggle that divided the American people, when in truth, both sides were quick and are still quick to embrace imperialistic hegemony and dominance in the form of corporate exploitation. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

[Niccolò Rossi]

I find it hilariously ironic that someone such as yourself who can draw a clear distinction between the exploitation of the workers by private capital and the exploitation of the workers by the state and, not only this, but defend the latter; someone who can defend the 'right of nations to self-determination' and the military campaigns of so-called 'anti-imperialists' can draw no distinction between slavery and wage labour, and condemn the American civil war as “just another petty struggle that divided the American people”. Besides these open contradictions you completely reject historical materialism and the method of Marx in understanding history.


Slavery exists today is an identical form, to be totally honest with you.
The form of exploitation in wage-labour is in no way identical to chattel slavery. Engels notes this in the Principles of Communism:
In what way do proletarians differ from slaves?

The slave is sold once and for all; the proletarian must sell himself daily and hourly.
The individual slave, property of one master, is assured an existence, however miserable it may be, because of the master’s interest. The individual proletarian, property as it were of the entire bourgeois class which buys his labor only when someone has need of it, has no secure existence. This existence is assured only to the class as a whole.
The slave is outside competition; the proletarian is in it and experiences all its vagaries.
The slave counts as a thing, not as a member of society. Thus, the slave can have a better existence than the proletarian, while the proletarian belongs to a higher stage of social development and, himself, stands on a higher social level than the slave.
The slave frees himself when, of all the relations of private property, he abolishes only the relation of slavery and thereby becomes a proletarian; the proletarian can free himself only by abolishing private property in general.
Of course you yourself acknowledge some of these distinctions in your post, to then regress to say that chattel slavery and wage slavery are identical is nonsense.


Slavery was never really abolished. Like most socially controversial issues, it was forced into the back of our minds through linguistical manipulation ('slaves' are now known as 'working class peoples'), propaganda (how many people were forced to blindly fight for the stars and stripes for the imperialist machine?) and the general industrialization and modernization of the world. The bourgeoisie oligarchy has consistently promoted new forms of slavery and the current one they promote is that of wages.

Slavery is not a 'socially controversial issue', it is a particular exploitative relation. Chattel slavery did not evolve into wage slavery by the Machiavellian scheming of the ruling class, the slave mode of production collapsed and feudalism springing up upon its ashes, itself in time proving a fetter with wage labour and the capitalist mode of production coming to replace and sweep it away. The chattel slavery of the southern states was not however the slavery of the antique mode of production, it was however the same relation co-opted and integrated to meet the needs of global capital. When slavery had grown to become a fetter to the development of capitalism (where once it was a necessity) it had to demolished and it was demolished by force (at least in the US, slavery does still exist in some parts of the globe, however this is an anomaly of the normal functioning of capitalism).


So in truth, the Emancipation Proclamantion didn't mean a thing. The Civil War was just another petty struggle that divided the American people,

Marx would of course disagree, himself being an active supporter of the North in the American Civil War. The reason lays in both Marx's recognition of capitalism as a progressive social force in overcoming the fettered and backward slave relation and unifying the nation, but also with regard to the class struggle, creating a unified working class. Today such wars no longer exist and the proletariat can not support any faction of the ruling class, however this position is based on the use of an historical framework, Marx's method of historical materialism, something you here shrug off in defence of principle (old exploitation being replaced with new).

[Kassad]

It's obvious here that we have someone with no real comprehension of the American Civil War. The American Civil War was a dispute between, broadly speaking, the Northern industrial states and the Southern agricultural states. The notion that the North was so opposed to slavery because of their morality is absurd. The only reason the vast majority of those in the North opposed slavery was due to the fact that they really didn't gain from the forced labor produced through the legalization of slavery. The Northern economy was focusing on the industrialization, modernization and manufacturing production in their economy, which is why they would not advocate the despicable act. The reason those in the South, which focused on agrictultural development, were so active in their advocacy for slavery was because it made them significant profits through not having to pay for labor. Thus, the South was incredibly racist, but I see that as menial in comparison to the South's desire for cheap labor, which gave the landowners a means of exploitation. The North, while many were morally opposed to slavery, had no real reason to allow it, as they gained nothing from it. This was the primary spark for the Civil War, as it was a total governmental failure by the Buchanan administration to maintain unity and the failure of the Founders to address this issue well before it became so divisive, but the Founders were elitists, so this is no surprise. The prime cause of the Civil War was not racism and the opposition to slavery, but more the differing economies of the the United States, which led to this issue. It was a petty squabble between the two areas that was incredibly divisive on an issue that should have been dealt with properly before this. Oh, and also, I don't care what you tell me I'm rejecting. Ever. I interpret the world through facts, observation and analysis and I don't give a fuck if that meets your standards or not.

The term 'identical', according to Webster's Dictionary, does not always mean totally the same and indistinguishable. It can mean that or incredibly similar, in this case, which is what I mean. They are incredibly similar and the failure to observe that is absurd.

It's also incredibly narrow-minded to assume that 'wage labor' is merely an American factory worker or the average American worker. In fact, many slaves made very menial amounts of money through different means, which many used to buy their freedom. Is this still slavery, or does it become wage labor? It's still slavery, as it is the ownership of a human being, but then again, so is the general employment of some workers. When you become an employee of a company, you literally become that company's property, as you are representing the company. Truly, though, it is narrow-minded to assume that all corporations are different, separate and disenfranchised, as the corporate bourgeoisie works very closely together. A slave could not 'quit', but neither can a worker. I can quit my job at McDonald's, but I must get a job somewhere else to sustain myself or I will run out of funds. So can you truly quit? Again, not indistinguishable, but there are similarities. And you're going to infer that I support the exploitation of the proletariat by the state, somehow justified by the right to self-determination? Where is this bile coming from?

But back to my original point in the last paragraph. A sweatshop worker in Taiwan is a slave to the wage system who will often make cents a day, often less, which is rarely enough to sustain basic human life and necessities. Would you deny that this is a wage laborer, for this is the exploitation of the capitalist system through free trade and deregulation. Just because you make a wage does not make you any less a slave of the bourgeoisie dictatorship.

Frankly, the only thing that the industrial North truly advocated was the enslavement of the working class through industrial labor as opposed to agricultural labor. Support for the North is narrow-minded, as it clearly ignores the events and situations that caused the bloodbath that was the Civil War of the United States. It ignores the exploiters in the North, the previous presidential administrations and the total failure of the constitutional American framework. Unless feudalism is replaced by a revolutionary workers movement, such as in Tibet, there will be absolutely no chance that the exploiters will not rise in a similar form to regain control. That's uncritical support for the North. Thanks to the fact that I am not simplistic and narrow, I realize that the destruction of feudalism can come from many progressive forces, including the force of capitalism which is another progression before the socialist emancipation, much like how the Bolshevik revolutionaries were forced to use capitalist means to industrialize certain areas to sustain the revolution. Regardless, I do not criticize the North for wanting to abolish slavery, despite the fact that I truly doubt most Northerners comprehended the situation as well as we do in hindsight. I am, however, uncritical of those who would uncritically support the inception of a new form of exploitation and the failure to acknowledge it.

[DaughterJones]

People assume slavery requires a whip or something but in reality it only needs an opressing master. Now I totaly agree that people are being desensitized to the slavery of the work place. The use job titles and corner office to motivate you as opossed to physical whips. I agree that the goverment and the elite need a good old fasioned ass whooping but at the same time I am not an anarchist. I believe in limited gov but not the anti-goverment of anarchy. With the lack of authority there is the potensial for terrible things, for instance a military minded man could get some guns and some people and create a tyrany. I would rather have anarchy then what we have now but I think the people would need to be very connected or else someone would get it in thier heads to start an empire.


I don't even think it's the prospect of the corner office that keeps people working everyday because frankly the guy working at mcfastfoodking probably doesnt have the illusion in their mind that they are going to be district manager. They just want to collect their paycheck and go home. They know that their options are either work or be homeless.

I've toyed with the idea of limited government but I cannot in my own mind solve the problem of "what if the leaders get greedy" which they always do. Power seeks more power and the rich seek more riches. How do you regulate a system that is based upon the idea of a person or group of people having dominion over other people whether it be in practice or ideology?

On the issue of war and hostile take overs I generally consider myself a pacifist but people do need to protect themselves and anarchism affords them that right. Militia groups who were workers not trained soldiers managed to defend against the english during the revolution with the help of the French. Much like capitalist societies unite to defend their capitalist interests I believe anarchist societies would fight to defend anarchist interests. At least we can agree on one thing this system is severely fucked and it needs to be stopped.

[Niccolò Rossi]

The notion that the North was so opposed to slavery because of their morality is absurd.

Something of course I have never asserted. If you are implying that this is something I am claiming, quote me on it, otherwise retract this claim and do not misrepresnt my argument again.

Most of what you have written in this new post in completely correct. The war was not one waged in defence of morality or ideology – a war of freedom against bondage – it was a clash between ruling classes, a clash for the unity of the nation, a clash to ensure the fullest and fastest development of capitalism, something the slave labour of the south was holding back.


Oh, and also, I don't care what you tell me I'm rejecting. Ever. I interpret the world through facts, observation and analysis and I don't give a fuck if that meets your standards or not.

It certainly is a great day when members of the proletarian camp shrug off debate and clarification in defence of individual interpretations. You made points, you were, in my opinion, incorrect and contradictory, I point you out on them. This is the nature of debate and clarification. If you think my criticisms incorrect, defend yourself, you don't have to 'meet my standards' and I never asked you to. Pull it together.


The term 'identical', according to Webster's Dictionary, does not always mean totally the same and indistinguishable. It can mean that or incredibly similar, in this case, which is what I mean. They are incredibly similar and the failure to observe that is absurd.

Oh please you're playing with semantics here, I thought you could do better. Besides you are dishonest. According to Websters' Dictionary 'identical' is defined as:


being the same
having such close resemblance as to be essentially the same
- "identical." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/identical>



It's also incredibly narrow-minded to assume that 'wage labor' is merely an American factory worker or the average American worker. In fact, many slaves made very menial amounts of money through different means, which many used to buy their freedom. Is this still slavery, or does it become wage labor? It's still slavery, as it is the ownership of a human being, but then again, so is the general employment of some workers. When you become an employee of a company, you literally become that company's property, as you are representing the company. Truly, though, it is narrow-minded to assume that all corporations are different, separate and disenfranchised, as the corporate bourgeoisie works very closely together. A slave could not 'quit', but neither can a worker. I can quit my job at McDonald's, but I must get a job somewhere else to sustain myself or I will run out of funds. So can you truly quit? Again, not indistinguishable, but there are similarities.

Yes, wage-labour is wage-slavery, however chattel slavery and wage slavery are two desinct relations and it is naïve to equate them to justify a principled opposition to the American Civil War and the abolition of chattel slavery.


And you're going to infer that I support the exploitation of the proletariat by the state, somehow justified by the right to self-determination? Where is this bile coming from?

No, you missread me. I said it was contradictory for someone who calls the exploitation of the working class by the state socialism to call chattel slavery, wage labour; for someone who calls the American Civil War 'just another petty struggle that divided the American people' to defend the 'right of nations to self-determination' and the military struggles of 'anti-imperialists'. Does this make sense now?


A sweatshop worker in Taiwan is a slave to the wage system who will often make cents a day, often less, which is rarely enough to sustain basic human life and necessities. Would you deny that this is a wage laborer, for this is the exploitation of the capitalist system through free trade and deregulation. Just because you make a wage does not make you any less a slave of the bourgeoisie dictatorship.

Yes, the worker in Taiwan is a 'wage slave'. The worker in Taiwan is not a chattel slave. To explain this as simply as I can: wage slavery =/= chattel slavery.


Frankly, the only thing that the industrial North truly advocated was the enslavement of the working class through wage labor as opposed to (chattel) slave labor.

Fixed*


Support for the North is narrow-minded, as it clearly ignores the events and situations that caused the bloodbath that was the Civil War of the United States.

Marx of course disagreed. A text you might be interested in is Karl Marx on American Slavery, it deals with the position of Marx and the IWA on the civil in the last section.


I am, however, uncritical of those who would uncritically support the inception of a new form of exploitation and the failure to acknowledge it.

Neither I nor Marx uncritically defend the North in the civil war. You are arguing against a straw man.

[Bilbo Baggins]

Wage slavery-that is the current arrangement.

Boss/subordinate is just another master/slave relationship-it really isn't all that different.

Think of anarchy as a form of direct democracy no "middleman"("elected representative") involved as they are still acting masters.

Anarchy="government" of and by the people literally!

Capitalist governments are merely the "hitmen" for the capitalist gangster/masters!