The automatist society manifesto
1.2. The inequitable profit
From now on I will publish a series of 6 interconnected entries on the very critical issue of the classical slavery as it has remained in the modern labor relations reflexes, even after its official abolition. I will start with a first group of three entries focused on the similarities and differences between the two types of labor relationships. Then I will continue with the 4th entry in which I will show clear examples of what I said in the first 3 ones. In the 5th entry I will make a comparative analysis concerning the slavery evolution from the ancient times to the present. Finally in the 6th entry I will try to theoretically counter those social structures that allow and encourage this type of unhealthy human relationships in the shape of the legislative implications. I, therefore will begin with describing the inequitable profits as a first similarity between the classical slavery and modern labor relationship.
According to the official vision, the slave is that kind of past servant or laborer that can be sold, punished or even killed by his master. Of course, the slave is not entitled to leave the workplace. Such a work relationship is forbidden today. It exists only inside the unofficial mafias. The contemporary worker radically differs from the classical slave in this regard. It is neither killed nor corporally punished if resigns from work or refuse to work more efficiently. Moreover, its employer does not sell it to another employer. In the modern society there is no need for this. The modern society problem is to persuade through various means to make the servant accept the obedience. If an employer wants a more efficient worker it is sufficient to grant him a higher wage and it will come alone freely.
These differences are considered to be essential, but in the next entries I will show that they are not the main differentiators, although they are important in terms of morality. Beyond these clear differences, between the two types of labor relations there are larger or smaller similarities. The most important similarity between them is the subordination. Both the worker and the slave accept orders from the master or employer. But not just any subordination relationship is equivalent to slavery or worker status. The concept of "subordination" is broader than the "slave" and "worker" combined. There are different from of subordination than that of the slave and the worker. For example, a child who is under the command of parents or guardians is not a slave. The adults around the child are supervisors of its experimentation and social integration behavior. They help the child to avoid irreversible mistakes or to easier pass those made of inexperience.
Then the slave’s subordination is different from that of the worker. An adult who accepts subordination to another adult orders is not necessarily a slave. Originally, the human being wants to make certain services to society if pays respect and brings its own services in exchange. This is the human evolution principle that everyone has deep etched in blood. An order received from a client for a particular product or service does not necessarily involve slavery although in this case there is a subordination relationship: one orders and the other runs the order. But here we are talking about the goods and services free exchange relationship. This working relationship is a subordination partnership type. The beneficiary exchanges a product or service that is generally equivalent to its determined on the open market value, according to supply and demand of all the market participants. This exchange type is either team relationship (indirect exchange) or direct exchange. The direct exchange relationship involves a simple goods and services exchange between the two partners. The indirect exchange relationship (team) involves producing a product or a service within in a team which led by a manager, that uses the famous labor division. The product is then exchanged out into the society on other products and services, and then they are secondary redistributed between the team members.
The subordination to another more experienced adult is fair if it helps to achieve a common goal and involves a fair profit sharing. For example, a sportsman accepts the coach vision and orders about winning competitions strategy in which he is involved either individually or inside the team. The coach is a guide in this case. He sees the game as a whole. On the contrary, the player sees the game only partially, limited by the level in which it plays. Focusing on this side, that player can not see the whole picture and needs this guide. We have here a partnership relationship between the authority and the subordinate guide.
Unfortunately, the line between slavery and free relationship of subordination to the team or direct exchange of goods and services is very fragile. The slavery can imperceptibly infiltrate within this fair relationship and here must be said that the greed for huge profit is causing this. Any attempt to influence in a way the environment in which this exchange happens, in terms of a disproportionate profit for one certain part, makes the working relationship to become an abusive one. For example, the ancient slave is involved into an abusive exchange relationship with his master; the first provides products and services and other one offers "in exchange" the life or bodily integrity of the other. Given that these goods must be free, it is an abuse to trade them.
The slavery specific subordination is a hermetical one as the beneficiary (slave’s owner) does not really offer in exchange a product or a service generally equivalent to the determined in the free market value for the product or service offered by the slave. Inside the classical slavery system, the exchange value is unilateral, made from the slave’s owner only interest and not that of the free market. Offering a product or service in exchange for not receiving corporal punishment from the master or for allowing the classical slave to "benefit" (!!!) form its life is not free trade but a kind of theft. Unfortunately, the rumors about water privatization in Western society, rather threatens to return to classic slavery. We are dealing here with an abusive transformation of a free good into an economic good. As the slave’s life was “privatized” by the classical master, as the slave must pay to accepting slavery to “benefit” from it, the same way such a measure turns a free good, namely the water, into an economic one. In the famous America there are areas where the rainwater collection is illegal and those who practice might bear the consequences.
Any exaggerated or unfair profit from an exchange relationship is a sign of slavery, because most often it is the result of an abuse over the vulnerable part of this labor relationship. The more unfair profit is distributed the bigger slavery degree infiltrated into the interpersonal exchange relationships. In classical slavery’s case the uneven profit lies in the lack of remuneration as the relationship between those involved is based on free exchange but on threatening. The classical slave services are not paid according to natural free trading relations, but simply stolen by force. In modern slavery’s case its sign is the excessive profits achieved by deception without improving the life of those who are involved in this exchange relationship. In fact either there is no retribution at all or it is a symbolic one only, so there is no fair, equitable distribution of the profit realized from this collaboration. Sometimes, not only that from this toxic relationship the other part living standards are not improved, but these standards even decrease. And the result is poverty and diseases, as I will show in one of the future entries.
This stealing / deception distinction is able to compare the classical slavery and modern labor relationship. It mainly consists of two general features. The first one is the false free trading relationship that the slave owner uses to give some respectable appearance slavery crime. The other one is the indirect threats coming not directly from the master, but from the mediators that the master controls. In the next entry I will develop the false free trading relationship theme and in the next after that theme I will analyze the indirect threats, in addition to those previously mentioned here and here.