Slavery: Now New and Improved!

For those of you who have been out of the loop, slavery has been illegal in the United States for the  past century and a half.  Many people are still wondering why?  After all it seemed to be working out so well. The common assumption is the decision involved the dignity of human life, the inherent wrongness of slavery and the realization that all people deserve equal and fair treatment, regardless of their skin color.  If you think for just a moment you'll realize how ridiculous that assumption is, since fair and equal treatment is still a long way off.

When it comes down to cold, hard facts, slavery turns out to only be economically feasible in a non-industrialized society.  Any slave is a capital investment that requires constant maintenance, is prone to a wide range of failures, requires trained (and paid) personnel for utilization and comes with no warranty. Slaves tend to be dissatisfied with their servitude and require close, often brutal, supervision, in order to ensure completion of any assigned task.  In an agricultural setting, the damage a disgruntled slave can cause is minimal, but in a factory setting the potential revenue loss is staggering.

There are still many who miss the institution of slavery and many who would happily bring it back, regardless of the economic ramifications.  After all, nothing really compares with the feeling of raping, torturing and murdering and being able to tell your friends all about it.

Fortunately, certain people have been putting a great deal of thought and effort into finding a way to bring back slavery without all of the negatives (from a slave owner's standpoint).  Success looks to be only a few years away.

The first issue to overcome:  Acquisition.  Capturing people and transporting them halfway around the world (unless you claim they are potential terrorists) tends to generate negative publicity.  They are also likely to seek ways to end their involuntary servitude.  If only some way could be found to get slaves to volunteer.

Next is the issue of cost.  Not only is there a significant cost in acquisition, but there is food, lodging, security and medical care.  On the plus side, through a careful breeding program, the slaves can be used to create their own replacements.  Still, this is a significant cost and drastically reduces profits.  If only the slaves would carry some of these costs, everything would be much better (for the slave owners, but they are the only ones who matter).

Finally, the problems of supervision and low productivity must be dealt with.  If you require a trained supervisor to directly and constantly oversee just a few slaves to ensure they stay on the job and stay productive, the profit margin will suffer.

The work of creating the new slavery has been going on for years, and finally we are on the verge of making this dream a reality.  The first step was to convince a significant portion of the population they have no hope of improving their life.  This has required effort on many fronts, but has been remarkably successful.  We had to take the "education" from the education system and turn it into a simple accounting game, leaving young adults ill-equipped to seek higher education.  Next, higher education needed to become prohibitively expensive, further entrenching those from low income families, by keeping a better future just out of reach. The last, and most brilliant step, was to use propaganda to discourage people from seeking higher education

Now that we have a significant pool of potential slaves, we need to convince them to take care of their own expenses.  Once again propaganda has been very useful, in convincing the population, anyone who seeks any sort of assistance for housing or subsistence, is a freeloading, drug-abusing criminal.  Many thanks to the Republican party for this effort.  You've made up for that whole Abraham Lincoln fiasco.

The last, and most crucial step is to convince these potential slaves, slavery is better than their current situation.  This has been accomplished by placing a WalMart and McDonald's within reach of every American so they can go and see people who are much worse off, and has been extremely successful. Employees who are paid an hourly wage make up about 60% of the workforce with 4.7% of those making the Federal Minimum Wage or less.  This is up from 3% only 10 years ago, and the rate is increasing. Within 30 years, over 50% of the workforce can be expected to earn no more than the Federal Minimum Wage.

One of the few remaining obstacles is the Federal Minimum Wage, but we are working on that.  What use is slavery, if the government can turn around and increase their wages to the point where they can live comfortable, happy, healthy and productive lives?

Of course with the new slavery, we will no longer be able to rape, torture and murder our slaves, but we can at least laugh at them for believing in "Employee of the Month" awards.