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Loading... Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy (1999)by Kevin Bales
   Top Five Books of 2014 (961) No current Talk conversations about this book.   PendleHillLibrary | Jun 23, 2022 |  In each instance book thoroughly examines the social, political, and economic factors that facilitate slavery. The primary mechanism used to enslave people is debt bondage, where a person is forced to work until they pay off a debt claimed by the slaveholder. The one exception is Mauritania, which practices a traditional form of chattel slavery with a racial component. One critique I had was that, despite the book's subtitle, the connection between slave production and the global economy was not explored in depth. In most of the examples studied, the products and services produced by slave labor served a primarily local market, with the exception of charcoal production in Brazil which feeds into the steel industry. In fact, it seemed to be not the global economy per se, but rather the global spread of Western capitalist culture, and the accompanying social and economic changes, which contributed most to these examples of modern slavery. It would have been interesting to compare an example where slave labor is used to produce commodities primarily for international export, such as in the fashion industry. Another limitation of the book was that there was a fair amount of redundancy among the case studies. For example the mechanisms of slavery in the Brazil and Pakistan studies seemed quite similar, despite surface differences. Conversely, some forms of modern slavery such as government use of compulsory labor were not covered by any of the studies. Again, perhaps choosing a different example for one of the studies could have rounded out the book a bit more. Despite these shortcomings, this proved to be an interesting read about a little-known facet of the modern world. (  ) gcthomas | Jul 3, 2021 | WandsworthFriends | May 28, 2018 | ) 2wonderY | Sep 2, 2016 | DevizesQuakers | Mar 2, 2016 | no reviews | add a review
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Slavery is illegal throughout the world, yet more than twenty-seven million people are still trapped in one of history's oldest social institutions. Kevin Bales's disturbing story of slavery today reaches from brick kilns in Pakistan and brothels in Thailand to the offices of multinational corporations. His investigation of conditions in Mauritania, Brazil, Thailand, Pakistan, and India reveals the tragic emergence of a "new slavery," one intricately linked to the global economy. The new slaves are not a long-term investment as was true with older forms of slavery, explains Bales. Instead, they are cheap, require little care, and are disposable.Three interrelated factors have helped create the new slavery. The enormous population explosion over the past three decades has flooded the world's labor markets with millions of impoverished, desperate people. The revolution of economic globalization and modernized agriculture has dispossessed poor farmers, making them and their families ready targets for enslavement. And rapid economic change in developing countries has bred corruption and violence, destroying social rules that might once have protected the most vulnerable individuals.Bales's vivid case studies present actual slaves, slaveholders, and public officials in well-drawn historical, geographical, and cultural contexts. He observes the complex economic relationships of modern slavery and is aware that liberation is a bitter victory for a child prostitute or a bondaged miner if the result is starvation.Bales offers suggestions for combating the new slavery and provides examples of very positive results from organizations such as Anti-Slavery International, the Pastoral Land Commission in Brazil, and the Human Rights Commission in Pakistan. He also calls for researchers to follow the flow of raw materials and products from slave to marketplace in order to effectively target campaigns of "naming and shaming" corporations linked to slavery. Disposable People is the first book to point the way to abolishing slavery in today's global economy.All of the author's royalties from this book go to fund anti-slavery projects around the world. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)306.362Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Culture and Institutions Economic institutions Systems of labor, industrial sociology SlaveryLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4.07)
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