[HN Gopher] Are the Persian Gulf city-states slave societies?
___________________________________________________________________
Are the Persian Gulf city-states slave societies?
Author : cmrdporcupine
Score : 187 points
Date : 2021-01-30 14:43 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (aeon.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (aeon.co)
| monadic3 wrote:
| Yes.
| joejohnson wrote:
| No more than any capitalist society. The gulf states are just an
| extreme examples of exploitation, but capitalism necessitates
| treating a slice of society as expendable labor.
| joejohnson wrote:
| Look at an example from the other end of the spectrum,
| Switzerland, a capitalist society with a good human rights
| record (at least that's the general consensus among western
| nations).
|
| One of their largest multinationals, Nestle, successfully
| fought a policy proposal last year that would require Swiss
| corporations to follow environmental and human rights
| regulations across their entire supply chain (the
| Konzernverantwortungsinitiative [1]).
|
| Weeks after this initiative barely failed to pass, Nestle won a
| decision in the US Supreme Court meaning the country could not
| be sued by former child slaves in US court [2].
|
| 1.
| https://www.srf.ch/news/abstimmung-29-november-2020/konzernv...
| (German) 2. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-
| slavery-idUSKBN...
| estaseuropano wrote:
| One company finding its way around the rules and manipulating
| lawmakers to change the rules for them is still far from the
| systemic and structural slavery in the UAE.
| joejohnson wrote:
| Companies finding their way around rules by manipulating
| lawmakers sounds "systemic" or "structural". And the
| example I gave was literally a law banning use of slave
| labor. Only difference is where the slaves are located.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| "The kafala (sponsorship) system binds all low-status migrant
| workers in the Gulf to their employers. Generally, the kafala
| system requires the worker to obtain the employer's permission to
| travel or leave the worksite to look for other employment.
| Regulations require a minimum of two years of work for the
| sponsor (kafeel) before such permission will even be considered.
| This encourages widespread wage suppression and conspiracies to
| deny such permission. Such 'labour bans' effectively bind the
| worker to the employer for a long period of time. More
| significantly, a worker can't get an exit visa from the
| government without permission of the kafeel. "
| trianglem wrote:
| Sounds like the H1-B
| Animats wrote:
| The US lets immigrants leave if they want. Most US
| immigration issues revolve around people being forced to
| leave.
| nradov wrote:
| Or around people being prevented from working rather than
| forced to work.
| dominotw wrote:
| I didn't have to get permission from my employer to look for
| another job. Not sure if you are trolling. Flagged the
| comment.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| H1-B is far from ideal to put it mildly, but it's about an
| order of magnitude away from what's described in the article.
| citizenkeen wrote:
| No it doesn't. Please educate yourself before contributing
| further.
| hef19898 wrote:
| A friend of mine worked there in the 70s. German civil
| engineer, and the conditions, albeit luxurious, have been what
| I would call a labour camp. There seems to be a pattern there.
| fakedang wrote:
| Three things:
|
| a.) your German friend would likely have not been in the
| kafala system since that is for the labour force.
|
| b.) the kafala system has been banned in the UAE since 2005,
| with a pretty punitive fine regime, although that hasn't done
| enough to eliminate it (Govt. lenient treatment for its
| cronies vs independent contractors, both who follow the
| practice). It's still in force in other countries in the
| region.
|
| c.) Your friend will likely have been staying at a township
| for workers, which is often the common pattern for mining
| towns in most countries in Asia. Conditions usually tend to
| be luxuriant, and nowhere near the labour camps (which are
| actual camps).
| oblio wrote:
| And don't forget Europeans and Westerners in general have a
| super privileged position compared to the other workers.
| grecy wrote:
| When I tried to get residency in Canada as a Software Engineer
| I was told by my local MP to get a minimum wage job for two
| years at Walmart, McDonalds or Canadian Tire because they had
| rubber-stamp approval with the government, and it was the
| easiest way.
|
| In my town, all the immigrants worked at those places, and they
| lived 15 to a small house. Not surprisingly, no Canadian was
| willing to do those jobs.
|
| While obviously not nearly as bad as the conditions in the
| article, it's certainly in a similar vein.
| api wrote:
| Yes, that is slavery.
|
| You could argue that a less organized de facto system of
| slavery exists for migrant workers in many other countries
| including the USA. Migrants roam in and work but really have no
| rights as they are undocumented. People can intimidate them or
| worse largely with impunity because who would bother
| investigating? Sure technically it's illegal to abuse migrants
| but nobody's watching.
|
| Migrant work is something that really demands a coordinated
| international effort to reform.
|
| Then you have Uyghur forced labor in China.
|
| Slavery has not been abolished in anything but name.
| blix wrote:
| In many ancient Roman and Greek societies, migrant labor was
| actually lower on the totem pole than slavery. If you are a
| slave, at least your owner theoretically has an interest in
| your survival.
| antman wrote:
| Let's point out that being a slave in those societies until
| very late in their existence did not always mean being
| locked with a chain.
|
| You would take out a loan or lose a costly war and there
| were whole shopping districts like Keramikos (pottery shops
| area) in Athens where the slaves had shops and tried to
| earn their way out of slavery. Any similarities with
| present societal structures purely circumstancial ofcourse.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| It's actually really depressing reading about this :/
| andrewjl wrote:
| Sounds really close to the current student loan regime in
| the US when you think about it.
| lupire wrote:
| No it doesn't. You came do whatever you want while you
| pay back loans.
| andrewjl wrote:
| The situation was almost the same in the Classical world.
| The only difference being the debt relationship was
| personal and not institutional.
|
| You can do whatever you want while you pay back loans
| today as long as you keep your contact information
| current. Just try and move without informing your
| lenders. That can be treated as a default. And if you can
| do whatever you want while maintaining a suitable income
| to make these sort of loan repayments, your experience is
| an outlier for all but a very small portion of Americans.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| It was actually the same way. Outside of their slavery
| obligations, they were allowed to do whatever they wanted
| to pay back their sum to earn freedom, more or less. And
| of course, they did have their housing and food covered
| meanwhile.
| juskrey wrote:
| In ancient Rome, selling oneself to slavery of prospective
| business owner was both a popular immigration path for
| foreigners and a career for poor citizens.
| rgbrenner wrote:
| Migrants, even illegal migrants, in the United States DO have
| rights. The bill of rights covers all people in our country,
| whether they are undocumented, tourists, students, or
| whatever. If you abuse them, they may be deported, but you
| can be prosecuted and serve prison time for abusing them.
|
| Taking away someone Visa is a crime too.. and preventing them
| from leaving is a felony. And we prosecute people all the
| time for that.. human traffickers, for example.
| TomSwirly wrote:
| Theoretically having rights, and actually being able to
| take advantage of those rights, are two very different
| things.
|
| For example, if the asylum seekers during Trump had been
| able to take advantage of their rights, they would not have
| had their children stolen from them.
| m463 wrote:
| You should read about migrants from central or south
| america - what they go through while traveling through
| intervening countries and mexico and then coyotes. And
| deportation back to that is a real threat which means they
| will shut up in the US.
|
| EDIT: wasn't picking on the US, just saying it's only part
| of their journey, and once they're in the US, lots of stuff
| goes unreported.
| rgbrenner wrote:
| There is a power imbalance between the employer and an
| illegal immigrant... they can certainly push that further
| than they could with a us citizen, but since they do have
| rights, there are limits to the abuse. The immigrant
| always has a way out, with the worst case penalty being
| deportation.
|
| Additionally:
|
| - In some cities ("sanctuary cities"), reporting a crime
| does not lead to deportation.
|
| - They can also apply for amnesty if the conditions in
| their home country are that bad.
|
| - Agencies accept anonymous reports. The immigrant doesnt
| even need to be working at the place at the time of the
| report.
|
| So depending on the circumstances of the abuse, there may
| be no consequences to the illegal immigrant for
| reporting.
| pseudo0 wrote:
| Sounds like the real issue is the pull factor of lax
| immigration enforcement and widespread under the table
| employment in the US. We should be emulating the
| Australian model which has saved thousands of lives by
| effectively deterring dangerous human trafficking. With
| robust work visa verification and strict border security,
| coyotes and other human traffickers would be put out of
| business.
|
| Solve the problem of employers hiring illegal immigrants,
| and the issue of these employers abusing the inherent
| power imbalance disappears as well.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Its a politcally untenable position on both sides sadly
| in the US. If employers were fined 2x, 3x, 4x salary for
| every single employee found to be working under the table
| the issue would solve itself. But democrats are of the
| position that people over staying their visas, illegally
| immigrating, are as an entire group people who will be
| killed if they go home so will do nothing to actually
| make life more difficult for people who do those things.
| Pro business republicans are happy to allow their
| constituents to get a leg up in their businesses off the
| back of immigrants before they deport them so the
| immigrants can't use any public services.
| ben_w wrote:
| I lack the perspective to say if the following point
| applies in this case, but one must not assume that what is
| written into law or constitution is what actually happens.
|
| To give a deliberately extreme example, Wikipedia says this
| about the Constitution of North Korea:
|
| """Citizens have the right to elect and be elected (Article
| 66), freedom of speech, the press, assembly, demonstration
| and association (Article 67), freedom of religious belief
| (Article 68), right to submit complaints and petitions
| (Article 69), right to work (Article 70), right to
| relaxation (Article 71), right to free medical care
| (Article 72), right to education (Article 73), freedom in
| scientific, literary and artistic pursuits (Article 74),
| freedom of residence and travel (Article 75) and
| inviolability of the person and home and privacy of
| correspondence (Article 79).""" - https://en.m.wikipedia.or
| g/wiki/Constitution_of_North_Korea#...
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Migrants, even illegal migrants, in the United States DO
| have rights. The bill of rights covers all people in our
| country, whether they are undocumented, tourists, students,
| or whatever. If you abuse them, they may be deported, but
| you can be prosecuted and serve prison time for abusing
| them._
|
| This means they will have to weight-in the deportation cost
| to them. So they have half-rights compared to someone who
| doesn't have to be concerned with that...
| standardUser wrote:
| I hope people understand that this is exactly why sanctuary
| city policies and government identification for
| undocumented individuals is so important. If an individual
| does not feel safe seeking recourse from the government,
| they are not capable of exercising the rights they do have
| in the US.
| pk_kinetic wrote:
| Not to mention the prison-industrial complex in the US.
| stonecraftwolf wrote:
| IIRC the first prison in the US was established in Auburn,
| NY specifically because slavery had been outlawed and some
| sociopath was like "ok, yeah, technically, but if we just
| convict them of a crime first..."
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_State_Penitentiar
| y serves as a notable modern example.
| lupire wrote:
| No. The Auburn prison was not the first prison, and it
| employed prisoner slave labor before slavery was
| outlawed.
|
| Prison slavery existed before chattel slavery was
| rerouted through the prison system.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auburn_system
| boxmonster wrote:
| I see nothing wrong with making prisoners earn their keep
| jnsie wrote:
| The cash doesn't refund taxes used to pay for said
| incarceration, to my knowledge. I don't see how they are
| earning their keep.
| trianglem wrote:
| When they work for a $1/hr and put actual contractors out
| of business you understand why it's like slave labor.
| Animats wrote:
| Even Alcatraz didn't do that. "You are entitled to food,
| clothing, shelter, and medical care. Everything else is a
| privilege" - Alcatraz rules.
| pretendscholar wrote:
| The idea that they should earn their keep implies that
| residing in prison is something of positive value for the
| prisoner that they should feel obligated to give
| something back.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Private businesses pay private prisons far more than the
| prisoners get paid but less than legit labor driving out
| fairly paid labor.
|
| Everyone who is benefiting lobbies far stricter laws and
| harsher sentences not for societies benefit but so their
| labor force can grow.
|
| This slave labor is disproportionately taken from
| minorities and the poor who it is more acceptable to
| enslave. Mostly by patrolling areas which have lots of
| minorities and shaking them down in hopes of finding
| drugs. See the fact that black and white people do drugs
| at the same rate but white people are far less likely to
| be prosecuted.
|
| In one case they actually caught 2 judges taking bribes
| from private detention to hand juvenile offenders maximum
| sentences. Effectively selling other people's kids.
|
| Banning private prisons only removes a fraction of the
| incentive.
| lupire wrote:
| It's not just private prisons. Public prisons also sieze
| prisoner labor for sale to private customers or for
| government work like makit license plates.
| ben_w wrote:
| Perverse incentives.
|
| When the prisoners make the prison owners (public or
| private) more money than they cost, there is pressure to
| imprison more people and for longer. That can lead to
| pressure on the enforcers to look harder for
| infractions... but they might turn a blind eye to
| infractions by their friends and bosses[0]. Pretty soon,
| you get feudalism.
|
| [0] _Seven_ of the candidates in the last Tory leadership
| contest (including the winner) admitted to using drugs.
| The government has no plans to decriminalise recreational
| use of any of those substances:
| https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/09/high-
| tories...
| coldtea wrote:
| Do you see anything wrong with having the most
| incancerated population in the world (25% of the global
| prison population for just 5% of the world population),
| or having the most horrendous prison conditions in all
| the western world?
|
| Do you see anything wrong with blacks and latinos being
| overrepresented?
|
| Do you see anything wrong with being such a backwater
| that you still have the death penalty, not to mention BS
| like "three strikes" laws?
|
| Do you see anything wrong with forced prison labor
| undercutting regular businesses in the same areas?
| goatinaboat wrote:
| _Not to mention the prison-industrial complex in the US._
|
| Kept well supplied with labour thanks to Kamala Harris and
| her draconian persecution of marijuana related "crimes".
| threatofrain wrote:
| Where does the wealth from such labor go?
| humbledrone wrote:
| The shareholders for the private prisons in which they
| are incarcerated:
| https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/10/how-private-
| prisons-p...
|
| :(
| garrettgrimsley wrote:
| "In 2015, just 8% of the nearly 1.53 million state and
| federal prisoners in the U.S. were in private facilities"
| [0]. Prison slavery is not concentrated in and won't
| disappear by closing private prisons. [1]
|
| [0]https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/11/u-s-
| private...
|
| [1]https://corpaccountabilitylab.org/calblog/2020/8/5/pri
| vate-c...
| rrsmtz wrote:
| Sometimes it's used by the state itself for cost savings,
| as in California under then-attorney general Kamala
| Harris (now Vice President):
|
| > "Extending 2-for-1 credits to all minimum custody
| inmates at this time would severely impact fire camp
| participation -- a dangerous outcome while California is
| in the middle of a difficult fire season and severe
| drought," lawyers from Harris's office wrote in a filing.
|
| https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/kamala-
| harris-of...
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| The benefits of reduced labour costs are the middle
| class.
|
| Similarly the middle class benefits from the lower
| working class wages that come from exploitation of
| illegal immigrants.
| lupire wrote:
| Well, the upper middle class who have higher tier jobs.
| Not the working middle class. (In USA everyone is
| "middle" class, because most are too proud to have class
| consciousness.)
| AndyMcConachie wrote:
| You can buy products from American prison slaves here.
|
| https://unicor.gov/index.aspx
| cheph wrote:
| > Migrants roam in and work but really have no rights as they
| are undocumented.
|
| If they don't want that situation they could always just not
| enter the US illegally.
| harimau777 wrote:
| In many cases they are fleeing violence or poverty. They
| don't really have other options.
| cheph wrote:
| Fleeing violence and poverty? By voluntarily becoming
| slaves (people who are owned by other people and have no
| agency in their lives) by illegally entering a
| systemically racist and white supremacist country where
| racist white supremacists cops hunt black people like
| dogs on the street with impunity?!
|
| And they are slaves inside the US but in no other country
| that they are in except the US?
|
| This logic does not square for me.
| wpietri wrote:
| > This logic does not square for me.
|
| So what? I imagine the very last concern of people
| deciding whether to move to another country in hopes of
| improving their family's life is whether some random
| internet commenter understands them.
|
| If you actually want to understand it, writing
| obstreperous and ignorant forum posts isn't going to
| change anything. Seek out their own voices and actually
| listen.
| cheph wrote:
| > So what? I imagine the very last concern of people
| deciding whether to move to another country in hopes of
| improving their family's life is whether some random
| internet commenter understands them.
|
| They did not call themselves slaves ... someone on HN
| did. The logic I cannot square is how someone can say
| these people are slaves with a straight face.
|
| I don't care what they do with their lives, if they want
| to illegally enter a racist facist hellhole where half
| the country are white supremacists that is their choice.
| What I object to is saying they are slaves because they
| voluntarily make this choice.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > they could always immigrate legally
|
| The current immigration system makes that impossible for
| most workers without degrees and from outside of a few
| select countries.
| cheph wrote:
| So then they can go somewhere else. There are billion of
| people living outside of the US. To suggest they are
| slaves because they chose to illegally enter the US makes
| no sense.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I never said that, just that legal immigration to the US
| is basically closed to everyone, which is historically
| unusual for the US. I also think it's antithetical to the
| American project.
| cheph wrote:
| So then how are these people slaves if they could just
| not voluntarily choose to illegally enter a systemically
| racist country where people of color are hunted by cops
| like dogs and treated as subhuman trash by all white
| people?
| jessedhillon wrote:
| Where are you getting that information? Near as I can
| tell, the share of foreign born people who have degrees
| is similar to the share of all Americans with degrees:
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pewresearch.org/fact-
| tank/2...
|
| Unfortunately this source doesn't break out those who
| entered with degrees from those who attained degrees in
| the US. But I have to imagine that many of those are in
| the latter camp, meaning they entered without degrees.
| Either way, the majority don't have any degree according
| to this.
|
| How does your claim square with these facts?
| questionably5th wrote:
| Except that they can't. If they came in legally then those
| sites wouldn't hire them. They're hired for the fact that
| they are undocumented, and therefore can be paid a fraction
| of what is legally required.
| goatinaboat wrote:
| _They 're hired for the fact that they are undocumented,
| and therefore can be paid a fraction of what is legally
| required._
|
| Completely correct. Undocumented workers compete with
| those on minimum wage. It's those who are harmed most.
| cheph wrote:
| So then they can just not enter the US illegally. There
| are Billions of people living outside of the US every
| day. And the people in the US is crying day in and day
| out that it is a racist hellhole and how cops are huting
| people of color on the streets like animals and burning
| down cities in protest. Seems like they would be better
| off somewhere else. I would not immigrate to US if
| someone paid me.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| There are, actually, worse places to live than the US.
| Just because the US is one of the worst countries _of its
| wealth level_ in the world, and just because the English-
| speaking web is full of US news, that doesn 't mean the
| US is the worst place to be.
| cheph wrote:
| Why not rather petition places that is not racist
| hellholes to take the undocumented immigrants and even
| some US citizens as refugees? Why try and get them into a
| racist hellhole in the first place? Just because it is
| not the worst place in the world, does not mean that the
| US is not a hellhole.
|
| Really it is abusive to let anyone into that place.
| standardUser wrote:
| Perhaps you are the kind of person who would rather see
| their family suffer instead of breaking immigration laws
| for a chance at a vastly improved life and future for your
| children. The undocumented workers you speak of are not
| those kind of people.
| cheph wrote:
| Perhaps you are the kind of person who thinks slavery is
| better than liberty as long as your masters look after
| you well enough. I on the other hand abhor slavery.
|
| You have to believe that being a free person anywhere
| else than US is worse than being a slave in US for this
| to make sense. And I'm not a slave, and not in US, and I
| would much rather be anywhere else than in US, so not
| sure what I'm missing.
|
| > a vastly improved life and future for your children
|
| In USA? A white supremacist and systemically racist
| hellhole where cops hunt people of color like dogs on the
| street and put the ones they don't kill into private
| slave prisons? How is it better than just not having
| that?
|
| I would not even visit USA if someone paid me, and I feel
| sorry for the people who have to live there every day of
| their lives and if I had more means I would do more to
| help the people who live in the US find other options.
| Surely it is some crime against humanity to make people
| live in a place like that.
| isaacremuant wrote:
| Maybe. Funnily enough. With the authoritarian and extremely
| damaging lockdowns in Europe, places like UAE feel 10 times more
| free than supposed democracies with a lot of freedom. Specially
| when it looks like dissenting in public (freedom of the press)
| might destroy your livelihood.
| sabujp wrote:
| This has been happening for decades, if western govt's look the
| other way then no one will do anything
| netsharc wrote:
| I remember a reddit response to someone saying "Why would you
| live there, you're just condoning the slavery", the person
| wrote (I'll paraphrase), "Look around you, who made your
| clothes (probably underpaid Bangladeshi working in unsafe
| factories), who made your tech [or who mined the rare-earth
| metals needed], the difference is, in the West, you're a few
| steps further from this slavery.".
| justnotworthit wrote:
| surely, the more "steps further from", the better.
| hardlianotion wrote:
| I guess the principled response to this is to take
| responsibility for what you use and wear.
|
| The responder is right but glib - his observation should not
| be a spur to silence and insensitivity to other people's
| living conditions make societies at all scales more unstable.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| I'm not sure things will improve much if Western governments
| start paying attention either.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Obviously what goes on there is a whole other level, but even in
| the the rest of the world, we should realize that allowing
| someone to a live and work in a country without enfranchising
| them is an affront to democracy.
| jhbadger wrote:
| But when? Immediately? As somebody who has worked abroad myself
| I wouldn't think it appropriate if I suddenly was granted
| citizenship in a country for just working there for a few
| years. There should always be a path to citizenship, but I
| think it is reasonable that you have to live somewhere a decade
| or so and show that you have a basic understanding of the
| culture and language first.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| You are thinking of you having a great boon where you are in
| a position to put onerous conditions upon it.
|
| Historically we have actually benefited greatly from being a
| top destination for immigrants and aquired a lot of talent
| and may wish ultimately that someone else hadn't skimmed the
| cream while we make it hard.
|
| I think that the primary requirements ought to be not being a
| criminal where you come from. People who go to school here
| ought to be offered citizenship at graduation others ought to
| wait a year. Even the folks that sneak over to work here
| illegally commit fewer crimes than natives as it stands.
|
| Our birth rate is less than replacement and our density is a
| fraction of Europes.
| bjelkeman-again wrote:
| In Sweden, for example someone from Iceland (2 years) and
| Ireland (5 years) can get citizenship "by just working there
| for a few years". Immediately I don't think happens many
| places, but less than a decade does.
| retrac wrote:
| Everyone who has permanent residency in Canada has a path
| to apply for citizenship, in principle. I do feel that is
| reasonable, even morally necessary. In practice it
| typically takes about 7 years from landing.
| brabel wrote:
| In Sweden, if you're from outside the EU, you can get
| citizenship after 5 years working in the country. I believe
| that for EU citizens it's less than that.
|
| In many other countries, like Australia and (I think?)
| Canada, for example, one can become a citizen after 4 years
| living and working in the country.
| BryanBigs wrote:
| Legally. I don't believe the path to citizenship is paved
| if you are working and staying in either of those
| countries illegally. Both Australia and Canada are quite
| picky on whom they let in. It's points based, supposed to
| be fit to the needs of the country. For giggles, I took
| my score for Canada. As a middle-aged individual, I
| wouldn't be able to get in under the normal program even
| while nearly topping out most other categories (I speak
| English and French, have advanced degrees, etc). Of
| course, you can buy your way in to almost any country.
| brabel wrote:
| I was talking about legal immigrants. If you're caught
| illegally in Australia you're basically immediately
| deported even if you've managed to stay in the country
| illegally for many years. There were some notorious cases
| of people being deported after 20 years in the country
| (not sure if the outcry from their supporters actually
| stopped any deportation)... Sweden is almost as
| dacronian. It is known to deport parents of children born
| in Sweden (who are legally Swedish citizens) because they
| were illegally in the country.
| chmod600 wrote:
| What about multi-generaltional requirements, like "one of
| your parents must have been born here"?
|
| Also, it gets complex when discussing illegal immigration.
| What if an immigrant is laying low for an extended time? Is
| it different if the host country looks the other way and
| doesn't really enforce the laws, because some sectors benefit
| from the cheaper labor?
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| I'm pretty materialist. So let's igmore culture/language: if
| you have a job, they are getting benefits of your presence
| immediately. So shouldn't you get some franchise immediately?
| If you _don 't_ vote, aren't you effectively a scab on
| democracy?
|
| The US is kinda hypocritical in that on one hand there is a
| tacit desire to lord it over non-citizens, and in the other
| hand there is a vocal concern about exacerbating the glut of
| labor.
|
| Well, an individual American can't have it both ways: you're
| either a net worker or net owner.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Another nest trick, what if instead of waiting to accrue
| the franchise, there was a way to retroactively remove the
| franchise of those that leave. Why should the past rule
| over the future?
| chmod600 wrote:
| What do you mean exactly and how would that work?
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| I don't really know how that would work. But I could
| imagine a partial implementation would be automatically
| triggering recall elections if enough voters for the
| victor moved away before the victor's term was up.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Anybody who transferred flights in places like Dubai could see
| _huge_ asymmetry in employees of airport between natives and
| foreign workers mostly from south east asia. Natives hardly do
| any work, look utterly bored and either chat or stare at phones
| all day long.
|
| Foreigners do all the actual hard work (unless they can't like
| security/immigration work).
|
| I am not surprised, after many stories how badly folks from ie
| Nepal are treated there. I don't see even a slight international
| pressure from big players like US or EU. Maybe similar reasons
| like with China - don't mess with important players, in this case
| oil providers?
|
| Man, I sure do miss traveling...
| grecy wrote:
| > _Anybody who transferred flights in places like Dubai could
| see huge asymmetry in employees of airport between natives and
| foreign workers mostly from south east asia. Natives hardly do
| any work, look utterly bored and either chat or stare at phones
| all day long._
|
| Every time I go to the USA I'm shocked when I see that exact
| same asymmetry between service workers and the white-collar
| class.
| dang wrote:
| Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25972311 and
| stop posting nationalistic flamebait to HN. It doesn't matter
| which country you have a problem with--you're breaking the
| site guidelines and it needs to stop. Please don't do it
| again.
| smabie wrote:
| All Emiraties in Dubai get paid huge salaries and as you say,
| do pretty much nothing. Police officers might make 200k/yr.
| It's pretty much a giant welfare state.
|
| Many foreigners do very well over there as well, but a much
| larger percent (Africans, Indians, and southeast Asians) do
| not. Also the number of women imported on tourist visas for
| prostitution is _staggering._
| ibn_khaldun wrote:
| There is no doubt that the conditions in these areas are horrid.
|
| But trying to rectify them under an Islamic pretense will prove
| fruitless because the countries involved are not Islamic
| territories.
| johnyzee wrote:
| Maybe. But singling them out while happily consuming products
| produced under similar, or worse, conditions reeks hippocracy. It
| is fully in our power to force companies to source manufacturing
| to places where you have more than one day off in a year, or are
| paid in more than lodging and rice, but we don't like to talk
| about this, although that is actually within our power to change.
| Why is this?
|
| And, preemptively, this is not 'whataboutism'. As I said, our own
| consumption patterns are in our hands to change (arguably this
| includes enabling these gulf states with our tourism dollars but
| that's another point). But we hear a lot of whining about this
| 'slavery', however accurate that may be, but hardly any
| discussion about the outsourced manufacturing processes that we
| wholly depend on, which almost certainly fit the bill as much as
| anything.
| 1996 wrote:
| No, the kafala makes it indentured servitude, as was done in the
| US hundreds of years ago to pay for the expansive one-way trip.
|
| Migrant workers generally benefitted from it, which is why it
| never ran short of volunteers.
|
| Slavery does not benefit workers, which is why it requires
| physical capture and subjugation.
| antihero wrote:
| Did you miss the part where they are deceived into taking the
| jobs and prevented from leaving?
|
| > They often end up in the Persian Gulf after responding to
| deceptive and misleading advertising in their home countries,
| causing them to either pay large sums or to borrow such sums
| from employment agents to secure employment in the Gulf and to
| pay for their transportation, housing and food. When they
| arrive, they learn that, based on the value of their wage in
| real terms, it will be nearly impossible to pay off any debt
| they have incurred or replenish the sums they have expended.
| This encourages their employers to withhold, delay or simply
| not pay wages, coercing the workers to remain on the job,
| sometimes for a lifetime.
| tt433 wrote:
| FWIW this did happen to some indentured Europeans in the New
| World. I'm nevertheless surprised GP thinks that's excusable
| or defensible in the 21st century.
| DenisM wrote:
| > I'm nevertheless surprised GP thinks that's excusable or
| defensible in the 21st century
|
| They did not say that.
| hitekker wrote:
| If you look a few comments below, you can see the poster
| in question defending modern-day slavery:
|
| > We may disagree, but it's their country. And people who
| don't like it can always leave
| tokai wrote:
| Indentured servitude or debt bondage is considered slavery with
| international agreement.[0] It's by far the most common form of
| slavery in the modern world.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplementary_Convention_on_th...
| khuey wrote:
| Do these people get to stay in and become citizens of the host
| country after the term of their contract is up? I've never
| heard of that happening.
| 1996 wrote:
| Can anyone at all become a citizen of the persian countries?
|
| No, because they care about preserving their political system
| and way of life- a bit like Japan
|
| We may disagree, but it's their country. And people who don't
| like it can always leave (yes, I have heard the stories about
| passports being taken, I'd call that enforcing the contract
| for the initial term period, and it's not like consulates
| don't exist)
| danans wrote:
| > Can anyone at all become a citizen of the persian
| countries?
|
| They are not Persian countries. They are _Arab_ countries
| that lie on the southwest shore of the Persian Gulf. There
| are huge cultural and linguistic differences between the
| two, to say nothing of the political differences, both
| historically and down to current moment.
|
| Furthermore, those Arab countries have been trying to
| change the international standard name of the body of water
| to "Arabian Gulf" to counter their adversary Iran.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Gulf_naming_dispute#:
| ~...
|
| > Can anyone at all become a citizen
|
| No, unless you are ancestrally connected to the country or
| it's co-ethnic neighbors, or are a foreign woman who
| marries an Arab UAE citizen.
|
| Some selected naturalization requirements from the UAE's
| website (https://u.ae/en/information-and-
| services/passports-and-trave...):
|
| - An Arab individual from Omani, Qatari or Bahraini origin
|
| - Arab individual who enjoys full legal capacity, has
| continuously and lawfully resided in the member emirates
| for at least seven years
|
| - Any person, other than those mentioned above, who enjoys
| full legal capacity if he has continuously and legally
| resided in the member emirates for a period of no less than
| 30 years
|
| - A foreign woman married to a UAE National may be granted
| nationality by citizenship after the lapse of seven years
|
| As out of touch as this might seem with modernity, remember
| that the United States had anti-miscegenation laws on the
| books until 1967, and only opened immigration from non-
| white countries in 1965.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-
| miscegenation_laws_in_the...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_A
| c...
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| You can't preemptively "enforce a contract" by denying
| someone their basic human rights. Can you explain the
| ethical system that could possibly lead you to believe
| otherwise?
| michaelmrose wrote:
| I'll take libertarian fantasies safely incubated in a
| society that won't allow the worst abuses that their
| philosophy would lead to unchecked for 500 Alex
| michaelmrose wrote:
| You shouldn't be able to sell yourself into slavery.
|
| Putting minimum standards you can't opt out of is the only
| way to maintain basic right in the face of inevitably
| growing asymmetry that is the inevitable outcome of even a
| small amount of initial inequality. Having a slightly
| higher share of current resources makes it possible to tilt
| the board to obtain a larger share of future resources
| until an increasingly small portion owns more and more.
|
| Ultimately slavery would be the alternative for starvation.
| khuey wrote:
| So it's not really anything like the indentured servitude
| in the American colonies then.
| preommr wrote:
| I think a really big problem with these discussions is that
| "slavery" is too broad a term. There's a huge difference between
| the brutal chattel slavery of black people in early American
| history and what some people call being "corporate slave" where
| someone has to work long hours in a white collar job. And yet,
| people still use the word "slave" for both. And the usage is both
| serious and unironic.
| tokai wrote:
| No it's not a broad term. It is precisely defined by
| international conventions.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1926_Slavery_Convention
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| The actual article goes into a lot of analysis of exactly what
| they mean by slavery in relation to ancient slave societies.
| [deleted]
| vixen99 wrote:
| The 'problem' is introduced by you. The subtitle is "The
| glittering city-states of the Persian Gulf fit the classicist
| Moses Finley's criteria of genuine slave societies" and
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century which
| expands on the topic worldwide, isn't about working long hours
| in a white collar job.
| monadic3 wrote:
| Did you mean blue collar? The articulation of american wage
| slavery does not typically orient around white collar jobs.
| eplanit wrote:
| This is well-depicted in the movie "Syriana". One of the
| characters and his uncle are working for the oil industry in such
| circumstances. Spoiler alert: the nephew becomes and
| extremist/terrorist, showing how easy it is for a young person
| with no options and in such circumstances to be so persuaded.
| ficklepickle wrote:
| You are dangerously close to empathizing with terrorists,
| citizen. How dare you try and understand them. We have always
| been at war with terrorism. This incidence of extremism has
| been added to your social credit report.
|
| /s
| mellosouls wrote:
| That's a terrific film, but a bit misleading in its central
| message; many of the most infamous terrorists and extremists in
| the real world (bin Laden an example) seem to have middle-
| class/privileged backgrounds.
| fakedang wrote:
| Actually I think it was really good at showing exactly that.
| The young Pakistani guy was just a pawn in the game
| controlled by somebody way above, whom we don't even see in
| the movie. His immediate superior in the militant ranks, the
| Arab, looks clearly more educated than he is.
|
| That is exactly how these terrorist organizations are
| structured.
| rayiner wrote:
| What's deeply messed up is that in Bangladesh, where I'm from,
| people are way more outraged at Israel (which they have zero
| connection to personally) than quasi-slavery of other
| Bangladeshis in the Gulf States. It's the product of powerful
| propaganda.
|
| It's kind of horrifying to see the effect of that same propaganda
| here in the US recently.
| joejohnson wrote:
| You can be outraged at two things at the same time.
|
| But the apartheid situation in Israel is perhaps a more blatant
| example of ongoing human rights abuse, and thus easier to
| understand compared to the more subtle racism as class
| subjection in the US.
| rayiner wrote:
| > You can be outraged at two things at the same time.
|
| Sure, but what they choose to be outraged about can be
| telling. You see so many people talking about "apartheid" in
| Israel, but almost no one complaining about modern day
| slavery in the Gulf States. Your typical American has no
| reason to be more "outraged" about one than the other. The
| fact that one is vastly more prominent in the public
| consciousness speaks volumes.
| lupire wrote:
| Hatred of Jews is the most powerful unifying force in world
| history.
| danans wrote:
| > than quasi-slavery of other Bangladeshis in the Gulf States.
| It's the product of powerful propaganda.
|
| Why is it surprising? It's not complicated. Gulf states - not
| Israel - pay the bills in Bangladesh. It also throws in
| religious fundamentalist indoctrination schools for free,
| schools that preach hatred of Israel.
|
| > It's kind of horrifying to see the effect of that same
| propaganda here in the US recently.
|
| The majority of the US supports both Israel's and the
| Palestinians' right to exist without oppression and fear of
| attack. People are largely opposed to either party violating
| that principle.
|
| Perhaps you missed the outrage in the US at the murder of Jamal
| Khashoggi, or the bipartisan condemnation of the Saudis' war
| against Yemen while the previous president and his family
| courted them, or the US renewable energy industry that is
| trying to decouple us from Gulf petroleum dependency.
|
| The US public has deeply soured on the Gulf States across the
| political spectrum. The only people who are still warm to them,
| as ever, are those who seek access to their immense capital or
| are enamored with their theocratic and authoritarian system of
| government.
| rayiner wrote:
| I wonder if Khashoggi's murder would have gotten a much
| attention if Trump hadn't commented about it.
| dimitar wrote:
| What percentage of the migrant labourers are slaves? The article
| seems to site examples of abuse (no doubt existing and still
| horrible), but seems to extrapolate them into the norm.
|
| I'm skeptical that it is the majority of cases since migrants
| send a huge amount of remittances to their home countries and a
| lot of people depend on this labor. In the article it was
| mentioned that a builder gets paid $28k per year which is still
| great for the majority of the world.
|
| This is one article on the dependence of some areas of India to
| remittances from the Gulf states:
| https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/forex-and-remittanc...
| r00f wrote:
| The article says that it is not your traditional slavery. Yes
| they are getting paid and they support their families back
| home, and yet I am not surprised that they die in such numbers
| (according to article). You would understand if you came and
| just witnessed their living and working conditions. I've worked
| in Dubai for 4 years and despite I was paid well (and no income
| tax), it really felt like slavery. And seeing those poor souls
| in construction sites didnt add to my happiness either. Btw, i
| personally knew people who were paid 300$ per month (hotel room
| cleaning staff). That $28k average per year seems more like
| officially reported number, not the real one.
| afrcnc wrote:
| short answer, yes, if you're a migrant
| amir734jj wrote:
| As someone who grew up in the middle east near the gulf
| countries, this is a well-known problem for a long time. The
| labor is extremely cheap there and none of the Arab natives of
| these countries work as laborers. Unfortunately it doesn't stop
| at labor workers, there is a lot of human trafficking there as
| well. The skyscrapers and the shiny downtowns don't get built by
| themselves. Someone pays the price.
| hkai wrote:
| As a general rule, if the headline of an article is a question,
| the answer is "No".
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I believe Kurt Godel once wrote an article called "Is
| Betteridge's Law Of Headlines Always Correct?"
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