"Slave" like any word has contextual meaning. In this context I'm using it to refer to the workers who find themselves caught in a coercive political-economic system. Other similar words are wage slave, proletariat, or just working class. The point is that there is an involuntary aspect which likens it to slavery in the more narrow sense. (The narrow meaning of slave I have in mind being "someone forced into labor without pay".)

All that said, in the U.S. there are still slaves as defined narrowly as people who are forced to work without pay. Slavery is used in prison systems, for example, and is not uncommon among human trafficking victims and immigrants (e.g. read Tomatoland). If your children are women, indigenous, black, are born or become disabled, or belong to various other minority statuses they are at even greater risk of getting swallowed into those forms of "literal" slavery as well.

[–] Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 7 months ago

I would also lump military service under "coercive". The incentives are significant and can be life changing, but it still leads to people being considered government property at the end of the day

[–] Minotaur@lemm.ee 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Ok. How about you say working class and not fucking “slave” then lol. It’s insulting to compare working at TJ Maxx for 40 hours a week to literal slavery.

[–] Zirconium@lemmy.world 24 points 7 months ago (1 children)

there are different forms of slavery brah.

[–] Minotaur@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah sure, as long as you don’t associate any meaning with the word.

Slavery is people literally kidnapped and forced to work in fields without wages or actual housing. Well, also, it’s kind of just when you make kind of close to minimum wage. Well, actually, it’s when you’re a computer programmer but you wish you got paid more. Who cares. It’s all the same word.

[–] BluesF@lemmy.world 23 points 7 months ago

That is not the only form of slavery, and modern slavery very rarely resembles the specifics of the Atlantic slave trade.

Regardless, neither has very much to do with wage slavery, but it nonetheless remains a term in use and not a totally random use of the word.

[–] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 7 months ago

why didn't I say working class instead of slave? I don't think most people have in mind the same meaning of "working class" as I intended, while the term slave immediately communicates the situation and the reasoning of the meme

Sure, my communication could have been more specific, but then it would have been more verbose as well. This is just how we use language, to communicate effectively. I don't want to dismiss your point that being too glib or broad with our language can be offensive to some, but I also think the TJ Maxx worker is closer to that literal slave in the field than you think. To me, solidarity for the working class and cooperation is preferable and pragmatically more likely to achieve political successes than gatekeeping suffering.

[–] NickwithaC@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

What's the minimum wage where you live?

[–] Minotaur@lemm.ee 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

More than literal slaves got.

[–] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 7 months ago (2 children)

In your view, what's the most important feature of slavery that makes it slavery and not something else?

[–] mojo_raisin@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Not the same person but the answer is non-biological coercion of labor even if that's not the way it's often defined. If one lives in a system where they are compelled to sell their labor to survive so that someone can skim value from their labor this is a form of slavery.

[–] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I wonder what you mean by non-biological here, why is that a helpful distinction?

I don't see why we couldn't think of human coercion of other humans isn't "biological" in some sense, so I also don't understand what distinction exactly you are making with "non-biological", but I might just be a bit slow today.

Still, I agree with you that coercion seems central to the idea of slavery.

[–] mojo_raisin@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Ah, it may have been unneeded. What I meant by that is that every living being is compelled to work on some level to survive and I wanted to be clear that I wasn't including that. Like, a lion must hunt for food, a lion is biologically compelled to do this work to survive but this isn't slavery.

To continue with that silly analogy, if some lions coerced other lions to hunt extra and took their extra food, that would be a form of slavery.

[–] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 7 months ago

ah, I see what you mean - it's an important distinction, and one that I think some existentialists looked at (not necessarily in terms of slavery, per se, but certainly in terms of freedom). Ultimately we can't avoid constraints and in that sense there is always coercion from the environment. However, there is a big difference between those inescapable constraints and the immoral and unjustified hierarchies a tiny minority of humans have successfully imposed on the rest, and pointing that out is definitely worthwhile.

Thanks for the clarification!

[–] Minotaur@lemm.ee 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I think it’s insulting to compare working 40 hours a week to afford to live to literal slavery

[–] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

First of all, I think I completely understand where you are coming from. This was the same reaction I had when I heard words like "slave" or "slavery" being thrown around to describe contemporary working conditions.

Coming from a U.S. context where slavery overlaps with racism, it seemed even racially insensitive to me that an office worker would be compared to a slave, which in my mind was an African slave working in a cotton field.

The reality is that working conditions vary considerably in the U.S., so when we speak of the working class we include everyone from the undocumented immigrant who is forced to live in shacks and pick crops without pay or even basic access to sanitary or safe conditions all the way up to cozy financial workers who work in skyscrapers. Something as big as an economic or political system is a difficult thing to analyze and talk about.

But I noticed you did not answer my question. If you're not open to a discussion I understand, at least I have had a chance to put some of my thoughts out there. I just want to offer the opportunity to discuss the topic if you would like to, but no worries either way.