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Republicans were cooler back when Marx liked them
(lemmy.world)
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If it exists it wasn't ended or abolished. Definitionally. I agree that there were some Republicans that felt that way. Not enough and not all. The fact that they held on to it for punitive reasons only proves my point.
I would argue that forced labor without profit motive or ownership of a person is so far removed from slavery as to not warrant the term. Community service is slavery under that definition (and, in fact, challenges on the basis of the 13th have been [unsuccessfully] leveled against community service), yet I think few of us would view some rich twat getting a hundred hours of community service for a DUI to be slavery in any form, even on a purely technical level.
Labor as punishment is not effective or worth keeping as a tool for ensuring the compliance of a free citizenry by its government, but I also don't think that it is inherently slavery. My point thus is that the 13th Amendment was not meant simply as a punishment, but as a genuine attempt (emphasis on 'attempt') to end slavery as an institution.
Many of our prisons are privately owned. A profit motive is securely attached at this point at least. And I would argue it has been for a long time.
I 100% agree with you that it isn't effective. I just don't partake in the semantics on it. It is slavery. It's called slavery in the amendment. That means it's slavery. Just of a different kind.
Just FYI, a very small percentage of our prisons are privately owned. Something like 20%. However, the percentage of jails that are privately owned is more like 80%
And capitalists profit off of both because phone calls and commissary are monopolostic contracts awarded by the state. Often to corporations who in turn lobby for harsher jail and prison sentences.
Plus, prisons and jails don't build themselves. And often the medical services are outsourced to corporations, rather than being county or state employees.
Incarceration is big business. It doesn't really matter who owns the prison or jail.
20% is still 100% too many, and it doesn't matter if the prison is publicly or privately owned, or if the labor is profitable. Forced labor while in another's custody is slavery. It doesn't matter if it's the government that owns you. It doesn't matter if they are losing money on your labor. It doesn't matter if you are guilty of a crime. The definition of "slavery" is very straightforward.
Anyone arguing otherwise is arguing in favor of slavery. There are no acceptable defenses for slavery.