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What is a slave and what is a prisoner? (rough notes)

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Carlofirst
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21 Sep 2009, 3:44 am

A prisoner is in jail.

Slaves nowadays are the working class, the wage slaves. Salary has replaced slavery.



Sand
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21 Sep 2009, 4:06 am

Carlofirst wrote:
A prisoner is in jail.

Slaves nowadays are the working class, the wage slaves. Salary has replaced slavery.


There are other ideas. We are prisoners of our planet, of our solar system, of our commitments, of our ignorance, of our unshakeable beliefs, etc. We are slaves of our physiology, of our limitations, of our ambitions, and, on rather unusual and delightful situations, of some very attractive person of the opposite sex (or perhaps the same sex), and of our children. On occasion I am a slave of the internet, of a hobby, of a hot cup of coffee, etc.



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21 Sep 2009, 6:19 am

Sand wrote:
"Slave" and "prisoner" are words. They are used in many ways. Humans have this habit of inventing words and then wrangling endlessly about their definitions. There are all sorts of people held captive in all sorts of ways for all sorts of reasons. To choose one word or another to describe their situation is often an oversimplification of a circumstance. No doubt there are parameters to limit how widely the words can be used but, in general, a great deal of the personal definition of each state is a matter of personal viewpoint.

That is true, a large section of what passes for argument is in fact semantic.



ruveyn
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21 Sep 2009, 7:29 am

Carlofirst wrote:
A prisoner is in jail.

Slaves nowadays are the working class, the wage slaves. Salary has replaced slavery.


No one is chained to his place of work, nor are any threatened by a gun to the head. "Wage Slavery" is a stolen concept beloved by the Marxists who think a society in which everything is for free is possible.

ruveyn



Sand
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21 Sep 2009, 7:43 am

ruveyn wrote:
Carlofirst wrote:
A prisoner is in jail.

Slaves nowadays are the working class, the wage slaves. Salary has replaced slavery.


No one is chained to his place of work, nor are any threatened by a gun to the head. "Wage Slavery" is a stolen concept beloved by the Marxists who think a society in which everything is for free is possible.

ruveyn


I know you think yourself very bright, ruveyn, but your knee jerk reaction to Marx seems to short circuited your capabilities. If you appreciated the trouble people would be without their very lousy jobs you would have a different perspective. On the same basis, no one can keep a slave from freeing himself by committing suicide.



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21 Sep 2009, 8:01 am

Vana wrote:
The slave obeys. The slave subjugates his will to that of an other or others. The slave is never under duress -- that is the prisoner. The prisoner makes no pretension of submission. From the outside the two may be indistinguishable -- but they are totally different -- opposites. The slave is a slave in mind, the prisoner is always really free.

There is no shame in being a prisoner. Anyone can be overpowered, outwitted, outnumbered.


Excellent point.

People like to see America as a land of "freedom," and certainly we must surrender some "freedom" to live in a a coherent society that respects EVERY PERSON'S rights to be free without infringing on one another, but more and more, we are a nation of slaves and people don't see it.

I did a long discourse about the law and how every man is a slave under the law, and one of my peers commented if it really mattered because even I was still a slave in spite of my raging against the system. I had to think of that, and I came to the same conclusion you posted.

A SLAVE is enslaved in his mind. He thinks he has freedom and liberty as he licks the boots of his master.

A PRISONER may have to lick his "master's" boots, but he knows he is doing it under the threat of violence. He despises his master and has no illusion as to his status in society. The prisoner strives at every opportunity to resist the oppressor and strive to be free. The slave does none of this.



ruveyn
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21 Sep 2009, 8:12 am

Sand wrote:

I know you think yourself very bright, ruveyn, but your knee jerk reaction to Marx seems to short circuited your capabilities. If you appreciated the trouble people would be without their very lousy jobs you would have a different perspective. On the same basis, no one can keep a slave from freeing himself by committing suicide.


Marx's poisonous ideas about the dialectical process of revolution have been thoroughly falsified by historical fact. Marx is a pseudo philosopher.

I pay attention to facts. What do you pay attention to?

And I am very bright. I am smarter than 95 percent of the human species now alive.


ruveyn



Carlofirst
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21 Sep 2009, 8:29 am

And wealthier than 95% now alive perhaps?



ruveyn
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21 Sep 2009, 9:07 am

Carlofirst wrote:
And wealthier than 95% now alive perhaps?


Probably not. I am more interested in comfort than wealth.

ruveyn



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21 Sep 2009, 10:15 am

ruveyn wrote:
Carlofirst wrote:
A prisoner is in jail.

Slaves nowadays are the working class, the wage slaves. Salary has replaced slavery.


No one is chained to his place of work, nor are any threatened by a gun to the head. "Wage Slavery" is a stolen concept beloved by the Marxists who think a society in which everything is for free is possible.

ruveyn


That is rather short sighted. These are both recent.

"Spa kept sex slaves, police say"
http://www.globaltvedmonton.com/world/s ... id=1982657

"Sex slave survivor speaks out"
http://www.edmontonsun.com/news/alberta ... 1-sun.html

"No one is chained to his place of work, nor are any threatened by a gun to the head" - ruveyn.

No, but they are threatened with retribution against their families. Do you have any missing relatives ruveyn?


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21 Sep 2009, 11:57 am

Fuzzy wrote:
That is rather short sighted. These are both recent.


The coal industry for many years had the practice of paying X to mine workers but mandate that they live in company housing, buy company supplied goods, etc. However, such mandatory things cost more than they were ever paid.

Not "slaves" but because they owed the company store, they couldn't leave until they (or someone) paid their debt in full.

Government actually supported that practice for many years.

Today, it doesn't exist in that form, but we live in a society where you are encouraged to go into debt and the laws for bankruptcy protection are gradually being stripped away...making it much harder for debtors to get out from under their burden.



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21 Sep 2009, 12:31 pm

Fuzzy wrote:

No, but they are threatened with retribution against their families. Do you have any missing relatives ruveyn?


No I don't. By the way you are talking about criminal activity, which if revealed to the police will be stopped and eventually punished. In the U.S. involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for convicted felons is illegal (see 13th amendment, U.S. Constitution and associated laws).

We also have going on, murder, theft and rape. Which does not mean this is accepted as normal or permissible behavior. There are always criminals doing their dirty work and it is up to the law to deal with them.

ruveyn



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21 Sep 2009, 1:05 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Fuzzy wrote:

No, but they are threatened with retribution against their families. Do you have any missing relatives ruveyn?


No I don't. By the way you are talking about criminal activity, which if revealed to the police will be stopped and eventually punished. In the U.S. involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for convicted felons is illegal (see 13th amendment, U.S. Constitution and associated laws).

We also have going on, murder, theft and rape. Which does not mean this is accepted as normal or permissible behavior. There are always criminals doing their dirty work and it is up to the law to deal with them.

ruveyn


If an employee who is his family's sole source of income is threatened continually with being fired if he does not accept daily abuse and who is over 40 or 50 years old when it is almost impossible to get another job with an adequate income in a labor market of high unemployment is not recognized as a wage slave by a reactionary idiot then it does not require Marx to describe his condition. His family is held hostage to his son-of-a-bitch of a boss and it is not recognized as illegal. This is not an uncommon condition. It also does not help if his health insurance is tied to his job.



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21 Sep 2009, 1:24 pm

claire333 wrote:
Am I the only one who did not think this was literally about prisons and indentured slaves? I think there are more possible implications within, rather than just tricky pronouns. I read it in more abstract terms...more of a statement of the state of mind of any member of a given society, all being either prisoners or slaves. Kind of a poetic feel to it in a way, but maybe it is just me.

I look forward to the OP giving further explaination.

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PS, pronouns are all interchangeable; solipsism you know; a legal person is one, is two (a married couple), is a whole corporation...

ruveyn wrote:
A slave is bound for his labor. A prisoner is just bound or caged.

In some prison systems, prisoners are compelled to work for sub standard wages. So a prisoner is both a prisoner and a slave in that case.

pakled wrote:
A slave is owned. There's no real possibility of the ending of servitude. That is the one thing that differentiates one from a prisoner.

ruveyn wrote:
Under Hebrew law, a slave was to go forth free in the seventh year, unless he, the slave, chose to remain bound for life.

carlofirst wrote:
A prisoner is in jail.

Slaves nowadays are the working class, the wage slaves. Salary has replaced slavery.

ruveyn* wrote:
No one is chained to his place of work, nor are any threatened by a gun to the head. "Wage Slavery" is a stolen concept...

Nothing has changed. Slavery is still a matter of consent. 'Give me liberty or give me death.'

'Forced' labor does not make anyone a slave. Slavery is a choice. You are free to die.

Duress is an admission, not a defense. "No body can make you do things against your will".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvt-xPlj4M0

- A slave's body is free, but his mind is 'not'.

- A prisoner's body is not free, but her mind is free.

Do you have a will? I mean, a will of your own? At death: "There is no property in the body." Though in life, some body can have very many properties. And one corp can own another corp. But human slavery is an illusion, a slave is not ever 'really' the property of some body.

They were only foolin'. It's all just made up. (Morality, Reality, social norms, everything!) All arguments are fallacy.

Sand wrote:
"Slave" and "prisoner" are words. They are used in many ways. Humans have this habit of inventing words and then wrangling endlessly about their definitions. There are all sorts of people held captive in all sorts of ways for all sorts of reasons. To choose one word or another to describe their situation is often an oversimplification of a circumstance.

Maybe I am mistaken? What do you think is the difference between a slave and a prisoner?


* ruveyn, one small point of disagreement, Marxists do not believe in freedom; 'the people' has the same meaning as the abstraction: 'money' for capitalism.



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21 Sep 2009, 2:57 pm

Vana wrote:
claire333 wrote:
Am I the only one who did not think this was literally about prisons and indentured slaves? I think there are more possible implications within, rather than just tricky pronouns. I read it in more abstract terms...more of a statement of the state of mind of any member of a given society, all being either prisoners or slaves. Kind of a poetic feel to it in a way, but maybe it is just me.

I look forward to the OP giving further explaination.

Good eye!

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Coincidence: I'm listening to Bill Hicks right now. (Rant in E Minor - Love List (No Future))


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21 Sep 2009, 5:26 pm

Vana wrote:
PS, pronouns are all interchangeable;
I disagree, but no biggie. I will take it you did not intend any further implication through your use of gender.
Vana wrote:
solipsism you know; a legal person is one, is two (a married couple), is a whole corporation...
My understanding of solipsism is much different than yours but I see little need to debate the concept, as I only have my own knowledge and thoughts on the subject of solipsism to rely on and yours most likely do not exist. :wink: I forgot to mention yesterday, I like your writing style.