The rebirth of prison labor foretells a disturbing future for America's "free market" capitalism.Read it at Salon.com
21st century chain gangs
by Steve Fraser, Editor-at-Large of New Labor Forum magazine, and Joshua B. Freeman, Joseph S. Murphy Labor Institute, Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York
(h/t Kevin Fathi via email)
Thought US workers were competing against low paid foreign workers and illegal immigrants? Well, add prison labor to that.
Fraser and Freeman trace the history of forced labor in the US. Many think it was first appeared in the south but it was actually a Yankee "innovation."
If you grew up in America, I'll bet you didn't learn about this when you took American History as required in high school.
1 comment:
The article doesn't explain what the prison guards do to force people into this near-slave labor. Beat them? Starve them? Throw them in solitary confinement?
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