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Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy
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 contemporary slavery reaches from Pakistan's brick kilns and Thailand's brothels to various multinational corporations. His investigations reveal how the tragic emergence of a "new slavery" is inextricably linked to the global economy. This completely revised edition includes a new preface.
All of the author's royalties from this book go to fund antislavery projects around the world.
All of the author's royalties from this book go to fund antislavery projects around the world.
298 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
About the author
Kevin Bales
27 books94 followersWhy I had to write Blood and Earth ...
For years I traveled the world meeting people in slavery trying to understand the depth and truth of their lives. What I saw, heard, and learned changed me, and led me deeper into the work of ending slavery, but I was missing something important. Where there are slaves, the environment is under assault, forests are being destroyed, endangered species are dying, and climate change is worsening – and all of this destruction is driven by profits from products we buy.
Children, especially, are suffering: in the fish camps of Bangladesh, in the mines of Eastern Congo feeding the electronics industry, in mercury-saturated gold pits in Ghana, and when brutally used and disposed of by criminals decimating the Amazon forest. And beside the children, endangered species are being wiped out, or pressed to fight back - like the ‘protected' Bengal tigers that prey on child slaves in fishing camps.
After seven years of research and travel we now know that if slavery were a country it would be the third largest producer of CO2 in the world after China and the USA, though its population is only the size of Canada’s. The scale of this joint disaster has been too big to see, until now. Yet, it is precisely the role that slaves play in this ecological catastrophe that opens a new solution, one that unleashes the power of abolition to save and preserve the natural world.
To hear more about Blood and Earth tune in to NPR’s Fresh Air on Tuesday 19 January, and check out an excerpt in Scientific American HERE.
I'm a guy that grew up in Oklahoma thinking if the whole world is as quiet as this place I better cram life to the fullest. The good news: the world is often much more interesting than Oklahoma. I lived a long time in London, and now live in DC. For the last 14 years all my work has been about modern slavery - real slavery, not sweatshops, or bad marriages, or not being able to stop shopping. Back in 1999 I published a book about contemporary slavery that changed my life. It went into 10 languages, got made into a movie, won some prizes, stuff like that. Since then I've published three more books, and three more will come out in 2008.
In Sept 2007 I published a book that is a plan for the eradication of global slavery. It's called Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves. This is what people said about it:
“None of us is truly free while others remain enslaved. The continuing existence of slavery is one of the greatest tragedies facing our global humanity. Today we finally have the means and increasingly the conviction to end this scourge and to bring millions of slaves to freedom. Read Kevin Bales' practical and inspiring book and you will discover how our world can be free at last.” -- Archbishop Desmond Tutu
“I was enslaved at age 11 as part of a human trafficking plot. I know modern slavery from the inside, and since coming to freedom I am committed to end it forever. Every human life has value. People have been sold for far too long and it's time to stop it. This book shows us how to make a world where no more childhoods will be stolen and sold as mine was.” Given Kachepa, former child slave in the United States.
“Ever since the Emancipation Proclamation, Americans have congratulated themselves on ending slavery once and for all. But did we? Kevin Bales is a powerful and effective voice in pointing out the appalling degree to which servitude, forced labor and outright slavery still exist in today's world, even here. This book is a valuable primer on the persistence of these evils, their intricate links to poverty, corruption and globalization--and what we can do to combat them. He's a modern-day William Lloyd Garrison.”
--Adam Hochschild, author of Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves
Here's the other bio. stuff: My book Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy published in 1999, was nominated for the
For years I traveled the world meeting people in slavery trying to understand the depth and truth of their lives. What I saw, heard, and learned changed me, and led me deeper into the work of ending slavery, but I was missing something important. Where there are slaves, the environment is under assault, forests are being destroyed, endangered species are dying, and climate change is worsening – and all of this destruction is driven by profits from products we buy.
Children, especially, are suffering: in the fish camps of Bangladesh, in the mines of Eastern Congo feeding the electronics industry, in mercury-saturated gold pits in Ghana, and when brutally used and disposed of by criminals decimating the Amazon forest. And beside the children, endangered species are being wiped out, or pressed to fight back - like the ‘protected' Bengal tigers that prey on child slaves in fishing camps.
After seven years of research and travel we now know that if slavery were a country it would be the third largest producer of CO2 in the world after China and the USA, though its population is only the size of Canada’s. The scale of this joint disaster has been too big to see, until now. Yet, it is precisely the role that slaves play in this ecological catastrophe that opens a new solution, one that unleashes the power of abolition to save and preserve the natural world.
To hear more about Blood and Earth tune in to NPR’s Fresh Air on Tuesday 19 January, and check out an excerpt in Scientific American HERE.
I'm a guy that grew up in Oklahoma thinking if the whole world is as quiet as this place I better cram life to the fullest. The good news: the world is often much more interesting than Oklahoma. I lived a long time in London, and now live in DC. For the last 14 years all my work has been about modern slavery - real slavery, not sweatshops, or bad marriages, or not being able to stop shopping. Back in 1999 I published a book about contemporary slavery that changed my life. It went into 10 languages, got made into a movie, won some prizes, stuff like that. Since then I've published three more books, and three more will come out in 2008.
In Sept 2007 I published a book that is a plan for the eradication of global slavery. It's called Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves. This is what people said about it:
“None of us is truly free while others remain enslaved. The continuing existence of slavery is one of the greatest tragedies facing our global humanity. Today we finally have the means and increasingly the conviction to end this scourge and to bring millions of slaves to freedom. Read Kevin Bales' practical and inspiring book and you will discover how our world can be free at last.” -- Archbishop Desmond Tutu
“I was enslaved at age 11 as part of a human trafficking plot. I know modern slavery from the inside, and since coming to freedom I am committed to end it forever. Every human life has value. People have been sold for far too long and it's time to stop it. This book shows us how to make a world where no more childhoods will be stolen and sold as mine was.” Given Kachepa, former child slave in the United States.
“Ever since the Emancipation Proclamation, Americans have congratulated themselves on ending slavery once and for all. But did we? Kevin Bales is a powerful and effective voice in pointing out the appalling degree to which servitude, forced labor and outright slavery still exist in today's world, even here. This book is a valuable primer on the persistence of these evils, their intricate links to poverty, corruption and globalization--and what we can do to combat them. He's a modern-day William Lloyd Garrison.”
--Adam Hochschild, author of Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves
Here's the other bio. stuff: My book Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy published in 1999, was nominated for the
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 141 reviews
January 26, 2011
In his book, Bales recounts how the escaped slave and abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, was invited to give a keynote speech for a large Fourth of July celebration in New York in 1852.
Instead of delivering a rousing speech about the greatness of living in freedom, Douglass basically asked how we can be proud of our freedom if there were still slaves in existence?
And while most of us think of the word “slavery” in terms of something that happened a long time ago, it actually still exists today — it exists in Thailand where the sex industry keeps thousands of young women enslaved as prostitutes; it exists in Pakistan, where bonded laborers work in furnace-like heat, making bricks; it exists in charcoal-making camps in Brazil, where the poor are lured into debt bondage, where measly rations are often their only payment for their work.
And all of it continues to exist, in part, because a lot of us don’t question it.
It sort of hit home for me when Bales wrote, “…consumers do look for bargains, and they don’t usually stop to ask why a product is so cheap. We have to face facts: by always looking for the best deal, we may be choosing slave-made goods without knowing what we are buying.” p. 23-24
Instead of delivering a rousing speech about the greatness of living in freedom, Douglass basically asked how we can be proud of our freedom if there were still slaves in existence?
And while most of us think of the word “slavery” in terms of something that happened a long time ago, it actually still exists today — it exists in Thailand where the sex industry keeps thousands of young women enslaved as prostitutes; it exists in Pakistan, where bonded laborers work in furnace-like heat, making bricks; it exists in charcoal-making camps in Brazil, where the poor are lured into debt bondage, where measly rations are often their only payment for their work.
And all of it continues to exist, in part, because a lot of us don’t question it.
It sort of hit home for me when Bales wrote, “…consumers do look for bargains, and they don’t usually stop to ask why a product is so cheap. We have to face facts: by always looking for the best deal, we may be choosing slave-made goods without knowing what we are buying.” p. 23-24
August 3, 2020
"I nuovi schiavi sono strumenti usa e getta per far denaro"
Questo libro fa parte della categoria:
"leggi e guarda il mondo con occhi nuovi."
Perchè anche se pensi già di sapere non ne sai mai abbastanza.
L'analisi delle moderne forme di schiavitù può sembrare datata (pubblicata nel 1999) ma in realtà (ahimè!) basta farsi un giro su internet per accorgersi che ciò di cui ci parla Bales sopravvive se non addirittura si inasprisce a dispetto delle iniziative portate avanti dalle varie organizzazioni antischiaviste.
La tesi di fondo in merito alle nuove schiavitù è che (Mauritania a parte) non si tratti di una questione razziale ma di un affare assai vantaggioso e gli alti profitti sono una giustificazione più che sufficiente .
Assolutamente da leggere!
EDIT- 25 Novembre 2017
https://www.agi.it/estero/mappa_100_p...
http://www.repubblica.it/solidarieta/...
http://www.ilpost.it/2017/11/14/merca...
Questo libro fa parte della categoria:
"leggi e guarda il mondo con occhi nuovi."
Perchè anche se pensi già di sapere non ne sai mai abbastanza.
L'analisi delle moderne forme di schiavitù può sembrare datata (pubblicata nel 1999) ma in realtà (ahimè!) basta farsi un giro su internet per accorgersi che ciò di cui ci parla Bales sopravvive se non addirittura si inasprisce a dispetto delle iniziative portate avanti dalle varie organizzazioni antischiaviste.
La tesi di fondo in merito alle nuove schiavitù è che (Mauritania a parte) non si tratti di una questione razziale ma di un affare assai vantaggioso e gli alti profitti sono una giustificazione più che sufficiente .
Assolutamente da leggere!
EDIT- 25 Novembre 2017
https://www.agi.it/estero/mappa_100_p...
http://www.repubblica.it/solidarieta/...
http://www.ilpost.it/2017/11/14/merca...
May 23, 2023
The horror! The horror! Chains do not a slave make, nor jail bars. Modern-day slavery, defined as men, women, and children working without pay, unable to leave their job space and physically abused for terror's sake, is estimated by Kevin Bales to trap at least 35 million people worldwide, and that figure only keeps rising as demand for products in the neoliberal economic order demands diamonds, copper, bricks, wood, sugar and the human body itself, for sex work. An equal opportunity enforcer, neo-slavery can be found in Brazil, Pakistan, China, and inside the United States, among other horror zones. The new slavery is craftier than the old. It does not require slave ships to go a-hunting for human cargo and rarely physical kidnapping. Most child slaves are sold off to labor contractors to pay off debts; a prominent example is underage girls sold into prostitution. Children are also valued by slavers for their soft bodies. In Pakistan, they make the best workers in brick furnaces. Female sex traffic is an international phenomenon, ranging from Eastern Europe to Mexico. Eastern European girls are sold to pimps from the Netherlands to Thailand. (Japanese businessmen have a special yearning for them.) In the U.S. female sex slaves are brought across the Mexico-U.S. border and put by force in brothels in Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico. Oddly, but perhaps inevitably, male slaves are less valued and sought after than women and children. They are mostly contracted to do the same type of work as the old slaves, from gold mining in the Amazon rainforest to scratching for coal in North and South America. Bales has done a prime job of documenting the unspeakable. Now, it is time to bring it to light and the culprits to justice. They belong at the ICC, along with warlords and political bandits.
September 13, 2016
overall, bales does a good job of connecting these insanely messed up situations of "new slavery" with changes in the global economy. the author's descriptions transport you into these horrifying worlds where people are definitely seen as... disposable. in that sense, i am really glad i read this and i learned a lot about what people have to deal with on a daily basis, stuff that my little woes hardly measure up to.
as a side note, i do worry that reading these social justice-y books allows me to exploit other people's pain for my own "self development" or something... like i am using them to become a more knowledgeable and "sensitive" person, ultimately just to feel better about myself. i don't want to be this way though.
i can only give this book three stars because, while it is absolutely a valuable book to read and these stories really need to be heard, there were some points where i just felt like bales was too simplistic. this is partly stylistic, in that he's writing to get you to do something about it, but it was a little annoying at times and maybe a little patronizing to the people in these f*cked up situations.
as a side note, i do worry that reading these social justice-y books allows me to exploit other people's pain for my own "self development" or something... like i am using them to become a more knowledgeable and "sensitive" person, ultimately just to feel better about myself. i don't want to be this way though.
i can only give this book three stars because, while it is absolutely a valuable book to read and these stories really need to be heard, there were some points where i just felt like bales was too simplistic. this is partly stylistic, in that he's writing to get you to do something about it, but it was a little annoying at times and maybe a little patronizing to the people in these f*cked up situations.
April 3, 2017
I read this book for my history class. I really enjoyed the way this book was written. It was written more as a story than an information heavy textbook. This book talked about how slavery still exists in our world today, just in a different form that it did in the past. We explored slavery in Brazil, India, Mauritania, Pakistan, and Thailand.
Rating: 4/5
Rating: 4/5
September 30, 2022
Don't want to sound too dramatic, but everyone should read this book.
September 30, 2015
It is not without some shortcomings, but definitely a book people should read. The testimony of modern day slaves should move people to action. I had only two issues with the book. The first is that it is in need of updating. There is a new preface on the 2012 edition but that is not enough. Also, as a historian I take issue with some of the distinctions he makes between the "new" and the "old" slavery. Much of what he said was new, was true of slavery in Brazil during the colonial period and even 19th century. He seems to have made these distinctions solely on the study of 19th century slavery in the American South.
Shelved as 'did-not-finish'
June 8, 2023DNF Not for me.
Ideological differences about what defines slavery. Also, I hate the way he writes about some of his female interviewees, describing their appearance just before providing harrowing description of the torture they endured. It was an uncomfortable read for me.
Ideological differences about what defines slavery. Also, I hate the way he writes about some of his female interviewees, describing their appearance just before providing harrowing description of the torture they endured. It was an uncomfortable read for me.
April 19, 2020
Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy presents an at times quite sobering view of the survival of what might still be called slavery in the 20th (and 21st) century. It does so via five case histories oriented around the persistence of slavery in Thailand, Mauritania, Brazil, Pakistan and India. While it is at times a helpful reminder of the enormous cruelty that continues to exist throughout the world and, correspondingly, the enormous work that remain to be done to counter it, Disposable People ends up undermining its own message by, at times, shoddy scholarship (it is simply not true that the first president of Mauritania "was Charles de Gaulle's son-in-law" (92)), and a tendency towards discrediting hyberbole. Since it raises other issues of significant pertinence to Bales' book, it is worth discussing one such example of hyperbole in some detail.
On page 173, Bales writes that "the Pakistani brick kiln owners" - owners who rely on bonded workers whose inability ever to repay their loans leaves them effectively enslaved - "used exactly the same words [to justify their treatment of their workers -ew] I heard from racists in Alabama (...). 'You have to understand,' one told me, 'they're not capable of planning or saving; they only live for the moment - if they get a little money they just drink it up or throw it away.'" But of course, the Pakistani brick kiln owners did not use "exactly the same words." In all likelihood, they didn't even use the same language. While Bales' point may be that they expressed similar sentiments, in their own language, as Alabama racists did in English, in his rush to find commonalities, again and again, he overlooks difference - here, linguistic difference. Indeed, at no point does Bales discuss, in any detail, the problem of translation, even as he appears to rely on others to mediate between him and his sources, and even as his paradigmatic notion of slavery remains based (albeit through opposition) on the "old slavery" of the Christian West. It does not seem to occur to him that this model's application to different cultural and linguistic communities - communities that are, for example, predominantly Buddhist, Hindu, or Muslim - might be problematic.
No doubt Bales would insist that what he calls slavery can be identified in these different communities regardless of linguistic and cultural differences. This amounts to saying that the term "slavery" (and its corresponding lexicon) is perfectly translatable across different languages, cultures, histories and so forth. What makes such an article of faith so problematic, however, is that Bales' own fundamental insight - the one that makes his book possible in the first place - is precisely that "slavery never disappeared; instead, it took a different form" (12). If slavery has not simply disappeared but instead has taken different forms, then what would be at stake in any rigorous scholarship on the question of slavery would be its survival in its difference from itself. By reducing all slavery to a paradigm - a reduction that allows him to overlook the problem of translation across different languages and cultures - Bales not only blinds himself to his own insight, he blinds himself to other forms of what might still be called slavery. Whence his anxiety to distinguish "real slavery" such as what he discovers in third world countries, from the rhetorical use of the word "slavery" found predominantly, it seems, in the first world. Yet is it in fact true that those in the United States who claim, for example, that "anyone in prison [is] a slave" (xix) are simply speaking rhetorically? They might be speaking hyperbolically - though Bales should perhaps not be the first to cast a stone here - but it's certainly not sheer fiction: as numerous people have pointed out in recent years, the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in the United States does so "except as punishment for a crime" - which is why prisoners in the United States can be forced to work for wages as farcical as any Bales discovers in Pakistan or India (on the continuity between the institution of slavery and the American prison system, see Shane Bauer's American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment).
My point, in any case, is that by insisting on a proper meaning to "slavery" that is applicable across different linguistic, religious and cultural communities, Bales blinds himself to the implications of his own insight, namely that what we call "slavery" can never simply disappear, that it will survive in different forms indefinitely, and thus that the duty and the task of contesting it, as rigorously as we can, remains forever before us. Bales' blindness enables his optimism - he claims, in the 2004 preface to the new edition, that "this could be the generation that brings slavery, after five thousand years, to an end" (xii) - but it does so at a significant price: the day when slavery finally meets its end for Bales will in fact be the day he simply closes his eyes to how it merely "took a different form."
On page 173, Bales writes that "the Pakistani brick kiln owners" - owners who rely on bonded workers whose inability ever to repay their loans leaves them effectively enslaved - "used exactly the same words [to justify their treatment of their workers -ew] I heard from racists in Alabama (...). 'You have to understand,' one told me, 'they're not capable of planning or saving; they only live for the moment - if they get a little money they just drink it up or throw it away.'" But of course, the Pakistani brick kiln owners did not use "exactly the same words." In all likelihood, they didn't even use the same language. While Bales' point may be that they expressed similar sentiments, in their own language, as Alabama racists did in English, in his rush to find commonalities, again and again, he overlooks difference - here, linguistic difference. Indeed, at no point does Bales discuss, in any detail, the problem of translation, even as he appears to rely on others to mediate between him and his sources, and even as his paradigmatic notion of slavery remains based (albeit through opposition) on the "old slavery" of the Christian West. It does not seem to occur to him that this model's application to different cultural and linguistic communities - communities that are, for example, predominantly Buddhist, Hindu, or Muslim - might be problematic.
No doubt Bales would insist that what he calls slavery can be identified in these different communities regardless of linguistic and cultural differences. This amounts to saying that the term "slavery" (and its corresponding lexicon) is perfectly translatable across different languages, cultures, histories and so forth. What makes such an article of faith so problematic, however, is that Bales' own fundamental insight - the one that makes his book possible in the first place - is precisely that "slavery never disappeared; instead, it took a different form" (12). If slavery has not simply disappeared but instead has taken different forms, then what would be at stake in any rigorous scholarship on the question of slavery would be its survival in its difference from itself. By reducing all slavery to a paradigm - a reduction that allows him to overlook the problem of translation across different languages and cultures - Bales not only blinds himself to his own insight, he blinds himself to other forms of what might still be called slavery. Whence his anxiety to distinguish "real slavery" such as what he discovers in third world countries, from the rhetorical use of the word "slavery" found predominantly, it seems, in the first world. Yet is it in fact true that those in the United States who claim, for example, that "anyone in prison [is] a slave" (xix) are simply speaking rhetorically? They might be speaking hyperbolically - though Bales should perhaps not be the first to cast a stone here - but it's certainly not sheer fiction: as numerous people have pointed out in recent years, the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in the United States does so "except as punishment for a crime" - which is why prisoners in the United States can be forced to work for wages as farcical as any Bales discovers in Pakistan or India (on the continuity between the institution of slavery and the American prison system, see Shane Bauer's American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment).
My point, in any case, is that by insisting on a proper meaning to "slavery" that is applicable across different linguistic, religious and cultural communities, Bales blinds himself to the implications of his own insight, namely that what we call "slavery" can never simply disappear, that it will survive in different forms indefinitely, and thus that the duty and the task of contesting it, as rigorously as we can, remains forever before us. Bales' blindness enables his optimism - he claims, in the 2004 preface to the new edition, that "this could be the generation that brings slavery, after five thousand years, to an end" (xii) - but it does so at a significant price: the day when slavery finally meets its end for Bales will in fact be the day he simply closes his eyes to how it merely "took a different form."
December 24, 2020
This is an important book. Despite its defects I can highly recommend it to pretty much everyone because the entire world would benefit from its being read. I greatly admire Bales for his part in spreading the word on modern-day slavery, and I plan on doing my part by telling people and passing the book on to others.
The most interesting chapters are the first two on prostitution in Thailand and "old slavery" in Mauritania. The shock value probably has a lot to do with it, as well as the dumbfounding surprise of learning about the vestiges of ancient slavery still alive and well in West Africa. Before reading this book or talking to someone who had, how many people would imagine that houseslaves still exist as a matter of course throughout an entire country?
The subsequent chapters (Brazil, Pakistan and India) lose some of their power, probably as a result of following these first two. The information and Bales' discourse gets a little repetitive. Also, his writing style is a little irritating. I would have preferred a more rigorous and academic style. As it is, Bales writes a little too informally and emotionally, which sacrifices some of his argument's strength. The facts are compelling enough to support his case without resorting to sentimentality.
Additionally, there are some holes that he touches upon but leaves largely unexplored, mostly in relation to Mauritania. He mentions the extremely entrenched nature of slavery in the country and the huge obstacles abolitionists face not only in providing incentives for slaveholders to give up their slaves, but also in convincing the slaves that freedom is preferable to slavery. It is the ultimate case where the slaves actually want to remain enslaved. To me, this is a jumping off point for an incredibly fascinating moral and philosophical discussion, although I'll admit that it's probably outside the scope of Bales' work. The same mentality is present to a lesser degree in every single country he discusses.
More relevant to this book (and a less forgivable omission) is the fact that virtually none of the solutions he mentions in the last chapter would be feasible in Mauritania. None of the economic incentives to end slavery could be brought to bear since the country itself is so poor and barely affects the global economy in the first place. Likewise, the government could not be pressured because they are owned by the slaveholders, and they would simply align themselves further with other hardline Muslim nations such as Iran and Saudi Arabia in response to international pressure. If Bales sincerely could not think of any solutions to that specific case, he should have at least mentioned it.
Also, in discussing debt bondage in Brazil, Pakistan and India, it struck me that he somewhat arbitrarily separates "slaves" from the rest of the oppressed wage laborers and sweatshop workers. To me it seems very much a sliding scale, especially when he's emphasizing the subtlety of modern-day slavery. He doesn't fully convince on why battling slavery is so much more important than the battle against all unfair working/sweatshop conditions. They seem too similar to me to really be able to separate the way he does. For that reason as well the chapters on Thailand and Mauritania really stand out.
Overall it is a good and informative read. It is perhaps not as shocking to me because I've already read most of Derrick Jensen's stuff, and he is harsher in his analysis of modern-day civilization.
Not Bad Reviews
@pointblaek
The most interesting chapters are the first two on prostitution in Thailand and "old slavery" in Mauritania. The shock value probably has a lot to do with it, as well as the dumbfounding surprise of learning about the vestiges of ancient slavery still alive and well in West Africa. Before reading this book or talking to someone who had, how many people would imagine that houseslaves still exist as a matter of course throughout an entire country?
The subsequent chapters (Brazil, Pakistan and India) lose some of their power, probably as a result of following these first two. The information and Bales' discourse gets a little repetitive. Also, his writing style is a little irritating. I would have preferred a more rigorous and academic style. As it is, Bales writes a little too informally and emotionally, which sacrifices some of his argument's strength. The facts are compelling enough to support his case without resorting to sentimentality.
Additionally, there are some holes that he touches upon but leaves largely unexplored, mostly in relation to Mauritania. He mentions the extremely entrenched nature of slavery in the country and the huge obstacles abolitionists face not only in providing incentives for slaveholders to give up their slaves, but also in convincing the slaves that freedom is preferable to slavery. It is the ultimate case where the slaves actually want to remain enslaved. To me, this is a jumping off point for an incredibly fascinating moral and philosophical discussion, although I'll admit that it's probably outside the scope of Bales' work. The same mentality is present to a lesser degree in every single country he discusses.
More relevant to this book (and a less forgivable omission) is the fact that virtually none of the solutions he mentions in the last chapter would be feasible in Mauritania. None of the economic incentives to end slavery could be brought to bear since the country itself is so poor and barely affects the global economy in the first place. Likewise, the government could not be pressured because they are owned by the slaveholders, and they would simply align themselves further with other hardline Muslim nations such as Iran and Saudi Arabia in response to international pressure. If Bales sincerely could not think of any solutions to that specific case, he should have at least mentioned it.
Also, in discussing debt bondage in Brazil, Pakistan and India, it struck me that he somewhat arbitrarily separates "slaves" from the rest of the oppressed wage laborers and sweatshop workers. To me it seems very much a sliding scale, especially when he's emphasizing the subtlety of modern-day slavery. He doesn't fully convince on why battling slavery is so much more important than the battle against all unfair working/sweatshop conditions. They seem too similar to me to really be able to separate the way he does. For that reason as well the chapters on Thailand and Mauritania really stand out.
Overall it is a good and informative read. It is perhaps not as shocking to me because I've already read most of Derrick Jensen's stuff, and he is harsher in his analysis of modern-day civilization.
Not Bad Reviews
@pointblaek
September 9, 2008
If a friend hadn't invited me to a discussion group on this book, I never would have picked it up. Somehow the author managed to interview current and former slaves from Mauritania to Paris, retell their stories, contextualize the economic systems that slavery exists in, and still not get bogged down in the darkness. Or maybe that's due to the discussion with other compassionate, engaged readers. Overall, solid investigative journalism about a topic most people don't know exists. {note: skim through the textbook-style first chapter; each subsequent one profiles slavery in a different country}
February 3, 2008
I picked this up on a trip to Arkansas. I got this one at the headquarters for Heifer Project International. Desmond Tutu says this book is "A well-researched, scholarly and deeply disturbing expose of modern day slavery with well-thought-out strategies for what to do to combat this scourge." And, you know I love me some Mr. Tutu. Please read this book.
October 18, 2007
You must read this book, which is enlightening and terrifying, but also talks about the specific reasons these horrors have happened, and continue to happen.
February 9, 2020
This was researched 20 years ago, but Bales argues that the conditions for new kinds of slavery (not a metaphor for being born into poverty) are fueled by globalization and wealth inequality combined with other factors such as caste systems. The title says it — there are millions of people owned as property by others — particularly girls who have no value to their families except in the sex trade. Unlike women who choose prostitution or escorting, they work under the threat of violence to them and their families, until they are used up and left to die of AIDS or starvation. Bales strives to distinguish slavery from other evils such as child labor, by the fact of people being literally owned by the brothels. These are extremely lucrative businesses often held by groups of middle class “investors.”
February 7, 2022
These are depressing times, and I'm reviewing a depressing book about contemporary slavery. Yes, existing slavery now! To many, the existence of contemporary slavery is a shocker. It's illegal, but that doesn't prevent it from existing in a number of countries.
Author Kevin Bales tells us that there are more slaves now than the number of people who were taken from Africa during the transatlantic slave trade. The main characteristic that they share is poverty. Most modern slaves are debt slaves. People become slaves to satisfy a debt.
Bales points out that slavery will always be a temptation for employers who have a low profit margin. Not paying the workers will raise their profits.
After reading this survey of slavery in various nations, I came to the conclusion that contemporary slavery might be more enduring than contemporary American democracy. Now that's definitely a sobering thought.
For my complete review see https://shomeretmasked.blogspot.com/2...
Author Kevin Bales tells us that there are more slaves now than the number of people who were taken from Africa during the transatlantic slave trade. The main characteristic that they share is poverty. Most modern slaves are debt slaves. People become slaves to satisfy a debt.
Bales points out that slavery will always be a temptation for employers who have a low profit margin. Not paying the workers will raise their profits.
After reading this survey of slavery in various nations, I came to the conclusion that contemporary slavery might be more enduring than contemporary American democracy. Now that's definitely a sobering thought.
For my complete review see https://shomeretmasked.blogspot.com/2...
August 30, 2017
I don't consider myself a naïve person, but I sure became aware of some aspects of life around the globe that I was totally in the dark about. Kevin Bales walks the reader through several different types of human slavery around the globe, and outlines the difficulties encountered by anyone trying to bring about systemic change to the human rights atrocities being committed around the world. this was published in 2004, so I am hopeful that some progress has been made since that time. It has definitely spurred me to do some more reading.
March 2, 2024
świetna książka, nie zdawałam sobie wcześniej sprawy ze skali problemu, eat the rich
June 24, 2020
I am almost a hundred per cent certain that I have read this book before. Not only is the information and even the layout familiar to me, but there are so few books like it, out there. Which is a shame. See, the story goes like this:
It was the beginning of the pandemic stay-at-home order and I was already tiring of social media. One of the main reasons for this was watching as a few of my friends seemed to be going up in flames of their own ire and bile, hell-bent on destruction for a solitary truth that I didn’t also see as our salvation. I couldn’t take it, so I unfollowed those friends, but not before one of them said something that got me thinking beyond their usual tirade (which was growing increasingly bizarre and twisted) and about what social issues make me passionate. This was months ago, before the urgent siren song of Black Lives Matter grew to fever pitch, and I knew that yes, there have always been a few things that bugged me in a way that made we want to do something about them. One of these things is human trafficking.
In the past, I have gone so far as to volunteer and travel halfway around the world for the sake of helping a few victims, to two different countries. I have marched. I have donated. I have bought items and read books. I even wrote an article that was used on a website (and was supposed to be in a magazine, but they bought it and never published it). But the twirly-swirly life of the modern, middle class American woman-with-family has a way of stripping one of one’s passions and even one’s will to do anything that isn’t related to excelling at that particular day. What had I done recently? What could I do? And like so many people have been revealing about themselves on the internet, lately, I turned to books as a first step (back).
I began with my TBR and the nonfiction and philosophy lists, but found that they came up short on this particular topic. So I did a little more searching and decided to begin with two books: one about trafficking acound the globe and the other about trafficking at home, in the US. To be frank, the list of well-rated books on this topic was s-lim pickin’s. When I ordered a gently used copy of Disposable People by Kevin Bales, I did not realize it was a book I had already read nor that it was twenty years old, sixteen years since the revision. (There is another version which was updated in 2012.) Even so, it remains a titan in the world of slave trafficking information, and it is an excellent book for several reasons. I am glad that I read it (again).
Kevin Bales is like the authority on trafficking, what he would call slavery, especially when it comes to books. He seems to come out with a book every few years, which is no small feat since he has to do a majority of the leg-work himself since reporting and studies can be sparse and unreliable. His other books which have made it onto my TBR are Blood and Earth (2016) and The Slave Next Door (2010; which I believe I might have read, as well). His other books include Ending Slavery (2006) and some collaborations with others including Modern Slavery, To Plead Our Own Cause (stories told in the words of the slaves, themselves), and Slavery Today. Those all seem like excellent places to start educating oneself about the reality of modern slavery throughout the world. His books consistently garner great reviews, both critical and pedestrian.
Disposable People was Bales’ first comprehensive book about modern slavery, maybe the first anywhere. It focuses on educating the public, one reader at a time, about what modern slavery is, how it is different from “old” or even ancient slavery, and how diverse and widespread it is. He makes examples of slave systems in a half-dozen countries, focusing on one scenario from each place that will teach us something about modern slavery and give us a handle. The sections of the book break down into an introduction, followed by sex trafficking in Thailand, leftover old slavery in Mauritania, labor camps in Brazil, debt bondage in Pakistan, and bonded labor in India (basically). Most of these situations include child labor. His conclusion is a chapter titled “What Can Be Done?” He uses stories and lots of undercover research to let us in on a big, dirty secret: slavery still exists today and in many places is booming. The new slavery is insidious, in that it does not look to operate legally, but still uses violence to hold people against their will and without basic freedoms in order to get the most capital gain it can out of them in a relatively short time, and then discard them. It relies on government and police corruption and our desire not to see that our own purchasing and investing habits contribute to others’ enslavement in a truly global economy. Not that he’s preaching or shaming: Bales is more of an informed guide and a fellow seeker of the truth. He shares some facts and figures, but he specializes in this book with plopping the reader down right in the middle of the slaves’ quarters and walking them through a day in the life, then weaving it all together to draw some comprehensive conclusions. It is rare that a nonfiction book is written fluidly enough to hold the reader’s attention, but I didn’t feel any need to set the book down, at any point. True, it’s something that really interests me, but it is also written well, though not at all flowery.
Since the book is twenty years old, there are some things that I am sure have changed (even one major thing about India’s relationship with NGOs that even I noticed), involving the particulars of this book. I am going to keep reading and follow that up with some internet research, especially on some of the organizations that he mentioned. Even so, the most up-to-date version of this book is still a great place to begin exposing oneself to the reality of worldwide modern slavery. While situations may have changed in any one of the countries he exposes, the awareness is still there and the understanding of what slavery looks like now as opposed to a couple hundred years ago or a couple thousand. It also offers some ways to move forward, throwing your weight into the arena on behalf of the enslaved. Bales does make some basic assumptions, but they are really basic, like “slavery should end and most people want it to end” or “everyone should be free and all people are created equal.” In a way, his voice is dispassionate, but not in a bad way. He’s presenting facts and anecdotes, but you are also sure that he cares about these people and about you.
However, because of it being relatively outdated, I decided to do a little more searching and moving of some more titles over to the TBR, including Bales’ most recent book. I will keep you updated, as always, as I read. I also decided to extend my reading into a series on social passion, that I have woven into my usual TBR. The topics that I plan to cover more in depth include slavery, racism, native peoples, abortion, and adoption, which are all topics that make me passionate and/or are specifically relevant to this time and place. It might get a little uncomfortable up in here, but I will concentrate on reviewing the books rather than venting my opinions.
_______________
QUOTES
(I underlined like half the book, but here are a few choice quotes.)
“…the law can do little against the combined strength of a sexist culture, rationalizing religion, amoral exploitive economy, and corrupt government” (p78).
“The idea of bearing total responsibility for oneself and one’s family, which total freedom would require, can be frightening. Freedom of movement does not guarantee food to eat or work to do” (p108).
“The media, especially the Western media, are enormously powerful in confronting slavery, but their impact tends to be short-lived” (p147).
“It is a sad commentary on Pakistani society that its almost complete segregation of men and women tends to place women in one of two categories. There are the women a man respects and protects, normally his family members; and there are all other women, whom many men are willing to violate if given the chance” (p160).
“The tale, like so many stories …. is a twisted one, full of characters who change from good guys to bad guys depending on who’s telling it” (p186).
“Here we are presented with one of the fundamental dilemmas of slavery: which is preferable, freedom with starvation or bondage with food?” (p194).
“…in India interest rates can be as high as 60 percent; but the basic arrangement is that all the worker’s labor equals the interest and the principal must be paid in cash” (p203).
“Without oversight the opportunities for cheating and graft were plentiful” (p228).
“We couldn’t be more wrong if we believed that because the Black Death ended in the Middle Ages, we don’t have to worry about epidemics anymore. In fact, new diseases are evolving all the time; slavery is also evolving and changing, erupting wherever the conditions are right” (p233).
“In the ballooning populations, rapid economic change is bringing some people into the modern world of good medicine and technology, ‘Western’ lifestyles, and a new sense of self and achievement. Other people are being consumed” (p234).
“The best contraceptives in the world—education and social protection against poverty in old age and illness…” (p234).
“There are already pilot programs showing the effectiveness of targeting profits” (p240).
“The crucial question is: Which is stronger, the corruption or the bonds of social consent?” (p245).
“When law enforcement—and the violent potential of gun and jail behind the law—is selective and profit-seeking, the law has effectively ceased to exist” (p245).
“Governments and businesses are more likely to suffer international penalties today for counterfeiting a Britney Spears CD than for using slave labor” (p249).
“Slavery will never be stopped if freed slaves can be easily replaced with new slaves” (p250).
“Some of the well-known writers of this century, such as Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison, have explored how the trauma of slavery is passed down even through subsequent free generations” (p253).
“…Rehabilitation means more than just freedom plus a pair of goats” (p255).
“…minds must become free as well as bodies…” (p255).
“If we can learn anything from the lives of freed slaves, it is that liberation is a process, not an event” (p256).
“They are trapped by public ignorance: most people believe that slavery ended in the nineteenth century” (p259).
“They fought to stop legal slavery, and they won that fight. We must fight to stop illegal slavery” (p260).
“Otherwise, what we like to call the ‘free world’ will continue to feed on slavery” (p261).
***REVIEW WRITTEN FOR THE STARVING ARTIST SERIES***
It was the beginning of the pandemic stay-at-home order and I was already tiring of social media. One of the main reasons for this was watching as a few of my friends seemed to be going up in flames of their own ire and bile, hell-bent on destruction for a solitary truth that I didn’t also see as our salvation. I couldn’t take it, so I unfollowed those friends, but not before one of them said something that got me thinking beyond their usual tirade (which was growing increasingly bizarre and twisted) and about what social issues make me passionate. This was months ago, before the urgent siren song of Black Lives Matter grew to fever pitch, and I knew that yes, there have always been a few things that bugged me in a way that made we want to do something about them. One of these things is human trafficking.
In the past, I have gone so far as to volunteer and travel halfway around the world for the sake of helping a few victims, to two different countries. I have marched. I have donated. I have bought items and read books. I even wrote an article that was used on a website (and was supposed to be in a magazine, but they bought it and never published it). But the twirly-swirly life of the modern, middle class American woman-with-family has a way of stripping one of one’s passions and even one’s will to do anything that isn’t related to excelling at that particular day. What had I done recently? What could I do? And like so many people have been revealing about themselves on the internet, lately, I turned to books as a first step (back).
I began with my TBR and the nonfiction and philosophy lists, but found that they came up short on this particular topic. So I did a little more searching and decided to begin with two books: one about trafficking acound the globe and the other about trafficking at home, in the US. To be frank, the list of well-rated books on this topic was s-lim pickin’s. When I ordered a gently used copy of Disposable People by Kevin Bales, I did not realize it was a book I had already read nor that it was twenty years old, sixteen years since the revision. (There is another version which was updated in 2012.) Even so, it remains a titan in the world of slave trafficking information, and it is an excellent book for several reasons. I am glad that I read it (again).
Kevin Bales is like the authority on trafficking, what he would call slavery, especially when it comes to books. He seems to come out with a book every few years, which is no small feat since he has to do a majority of the leg-work himself since reporting and studies can be sparse and unreliable. His other books which have made it onto my TBR are Blood and Earth (2016) and The Slave Next Door (2010; which I believe I might have read, as well). His other books include Ending Slavery (2006) and some collaborations with others including Modern Slavery, To Plead Our Own Cause (stories told in the words of the slaves, themselves), and Slavery Today. Those all seem like excellent places to start educating oneself about the reality of modern slavery throughout the world. His books consistently garner great reviews, both critical and pedestrian.
Disposable People was Bales’ first comprehensive book about modern slavery, maybe the first anywhere. It focuses on educating the public, one reader at a time, about what modern slavery is, how it is different from “old” or even ancient slavery, and how diverse and widespread it is. He makes examples of slave systems in a half-dozen countries, focusing on one scenario from each place that will teach us something about modern slavery and give us a handle. The sections of the book break down into an introduction, followed by sex trafficking in Thailand, leftover old slavery in Mauritania, labor camps in Brazil, debt bondage in Pakistan, and bonded labor in India (basically). Most of these situations include child labor. His conclusion is a chapter titled “What Can Be Done?” He uses stories and lots of undercover research to let us in on a big, dirty secret: slavery still exists today and in many places is booming. The new slavery is insidious, in that it does not look to operate legally, but still uses violence to hold people against their will and without basic freedoms in order to get the most capital gain it can out of them in a relatively short time, and then discard them. It relies on government and police corruption and our desire not to see that our own purchasing and investing habits contribute to others’ enslavement in a truly global economy. Not that he’s preaching or shaming: Bales is more of an informed guide and a fellow seeker of the truth. He shares some facts and figures, but he specializes in this book with plopping the reader down right in the middle of the slaves’ quarters and walking them through a day in the life, then weaving it all together to draw some comprehensive conclusions. It is rare that a nonfiction book is written fluidly enough to hold the reader’s attention, but I didn’t feel any need to set the book down, at any point. True, it’s something that really interests me, but it is also written well, though not at all flowery.
Since the book is twenty years old, there are some things that I am sure have changed (even one major thing about India’s relationship with NGOs that even I noticed), involving the particulars of this book. I am going to keep reading and follow that up with some internet research, especially on some of the organizations that he mentioned. Even so, the most up-to-date version of this book is still a great place to begin exposing oneself to the reality of worldwide modern slavery. While situations may have changed in any one of the countries he exposes, the awareness is still there and the understanding of what slavery looks like now as opposed to a couple hundred years ago or a couple thousand. It also offers some ways to move forward, throwing your weight into the arena on behalf of the enslaved. Bales does make some basic assumptions, but they are really basic, like “slavery should end and most people want it to end” or “everyone should be free and all people are created equal.” In a way, his voice is dispassionate, but not in a bad way. He’s presenting facts and anecdotes, but you are also sure that he cares about these people and about you.
However, because of it being relatively outdated, I decided to do a little more searching and moving of some more titles over to the TBR, including Bales’ most recent book. I will keep you updated, as always, as I read. I also decided to extend my reading into a series on social passion, that I have woven into my usual TBR. The topics that I plan to cover more in depth include slavery, racism, native peoples, abortion, and adoption, which are all topics that make me passionate and/or are specifically relevant to this time and place. It might get a little uncomfortable up in here, but I will concentrate on reviewing the books rather than venting my opinions.
_______________
QUOTES
(I underlined like half the book, but here are a few choice quotes.)
“…the law can do little against the combined strength of a sexist culture, rationalizing religion, amoral exploitive economy, and corrupt government” (p78).
“The idea of bearing total responsibility for oneself and one’s family, which total freedom would require, can be frightening. Freedom of movement does not guarantee food to eat or work to do” (p108).
“The media, especially the Western media, are enormously powerful in confronting slavery, but their impact tends to be short-lived” (p147).
“It is a sad commentary on Pakistani society that its almost complete segregation of men and women tends to place women in one of two categories. There are the women a man respects and protects, normally his family members; and there are all other women, whom many men are willing to violate if given the chance” (p160).
“The tale, like so many stories …. is a twisted one, full of characters who change from good guys to bad guys depending on who’s telling it” (p186).
“Here we are presented with one of the fundamental dilemmas of slavery: which is preferable, freedom with starvation or bondage with food?” (p194).
“…in India interest rates can be as high as 60 percent; but the basic arrangement is that all the worker’s labor equals the interest and the principal must be paid in cash” (p203).
“Without oversight the opportunities for cheating and graft were plentiful” (p228).
“We couldn’t be more wrong if we believed that because the Black Death ended in the Middle Ages, we don’t have to worry about epidemics anymore. In fact, new diseases are evolving all the time; slavery is also evolving and changing, erupting wherever the conditions are right” (p233).
“In the ballooning populations, rapid economic change is bringing some people into the modern world of good medicine and technology, ‘Western’ lifestyles, and a new sense of self and achievement. Other people are being consumed” (p234).
“The best contraceptives in the world—education and social protection against poverty in old age and illness…” (p234).
“There are already pilot programs showing the effectiveness of targeting profits” (p240).
“The crucial question is: Which is stronger, the corruption or the bonds of social consent?” (p245).
“When law enforcement—and the violent potential of gun and jail behind the law—is selective and profit-seeking, the law has effectively ceased to exist” (p245).
“Governments and businesses are more likely to suffer international penalties today for counterfeiting a Britney Spears CD than for using slave labor” (p249).
“Slavery will never be stopped if freed slaves can be easily replaced with new slaves” (p250).
“Some of the well-known writers of this century, such as Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison, have explored how the trauma of slavery is passed down even through subsequent free generations” (p253).
“…Rehabilitation means more than just freedom plus a pair of goats” (p255).
“…minds must become free as well as bodies…” (p255).
“If we can learn anything from the lives of freed slaves, it is that liberation is a process, not an event” (p256).
“They are trapped by public ignorance: most people believe that slavery ended in the nineteenth century” (p259).
“They fought to stop legal slavery, and they won that fight. We must fight to stop illegal slavery” (p260).
“Otherwise, what we like to call the ‘free world’ will continue to feed on slavery” (p261).
***REVIEW WRITTEN FOR THE STARVING ARTIST SERIES***
Shelved as 'abandoned'
July 19, 2014"When I sat with Siri in the brothel in Thailand and looked into the flat deadness of her eyes, listened to the hopelessness in her voice, and saw the destruction of her personality and her will to escape, I glimpsed the horror of a life captured and destroyed to feed the greed of the slaveholder. It is not easy to crush a human mind, but with enough brutality, time, and indifference to suffering it can be done. Around the world it is being done."
Oh no, I'm adding this to my abandoned shelf! It's not the book's fault, I swear! This is a good and important book and you should read it!
I am just in a rut when it comes to reading and I can't do this right now. I read to page 144 and it took me months because I would pick the book up, read a few pages, and set it aside again. I'm just not in an emotionally receptive place right now. It's messy. It's overwhelming. It's weighing heavy on my heart that is already weighed down. I have to come to terms with the fact that in this instance knowledge is not making me a better activist; it is immobilizing me with depression. That's not quite fair to say as the depression was pre-exisiting, but the result is the same. When I finally accepted the fact that I can't do this now, I did at least skip to the last chapter titled "What Can Be Done?" I will at the very least try to get this book in the hands of someone else so that it is no longer collecting dust.
Oh no, I'm adding this to my abandoned shelf! It's not the book's fault, I swear! This is a good and important book and you should read it!
I am just in a rut when it comes to reading and I can't do this right now. I read to page 144 and it took me months because I would pick the book up, read a few pages, and set it aside again. I'm just not in an emotionally receptive place right now. It's messy. It's overwhelming. It's weighing heavy on my heart that is already weighed down. I have to come to terms with the fact that in this instance knowledge is not making me a better activist; it is immobilizing me with depression. That's not quite fair to say as the depression was pre-exisiting, but the result is the same. When I finally accepted the fact that I can't do this now, I did at least skip to the last chapter titled "What Can Be Done?" I will at the very least try to get this book in the hands of someone else so that it is no longer collecting dust.
January 5, 2009
This book's strength lies a) in exposing the variety of slavery in today's world, b) not overstating his argument, and c) proposing concrete actions for readers. Five chapters detail five different kinds of slavery with facts and without hyperbole.
Bales as much as admits to one weakness of the argument. Only the conditions in Mauritania will strike most readers as true slavery, rather than wage slavery or exploitation (though the sex workers in Thailand are perhaps in worse conditions than the slaves of Mauritania).
More should be made of the situation in Mauritania, where the U.S. is supporting the current regime (tacitly condoning slavery) in order to oppose fundamentalist Islam.
If he is going to take on the kind of exploitation taking place in Brazil, he should expand the argument further to draw parallels with more common forms of wage slavery and economic exploitation.
Bales as much as admits to one weakness of the argument. Only the conditions in Mauritania will strike most readers as true slavery, rather than wage slavery or exploitation (though the sex workers in Thailand are perhaps in worse conditions than the slaves of Mauritania).
More should be made of the situation in Mauritania, where the U.S. is supporting the current regime (tacitly condoning slavery) in order to oppose fundamentalist Islam.
If he is going to take on the kind of exploitation taking place in Brazil, he should expand the argument further to draw parallels with more common forms of wage slavery and economic exploitation.
July 30, 2013
Kevin Bales takes the reader on an emotional and heartfelt journey to several places throughout the world including India, Tailand, and Brazil among others where we met people who are being used and then disposed of when they have no use anymore because the man can always get another sex slave from Taiwain or another charcol maker from Brazil because conditions of poverty and a desperate wanting of a better life for their family will always lure more people into the new slavery. I like books that can mix statistics with actual human stories because it is one thing to say x is a problem because xx percent of people live like y. It is quite another to look at a girl like Siri or a family of charcol workers and Brazil and not say that slavery is still a problem.
August 9, 2024
1.财产奴隶制是最接近旧奴隶制的形式。一个人被俘获、出生于或 贩卖进永久的奴役中，并且所有权有所属。奴隶的孩子通常也会被 视作 财产而被奴隶持有人贩卖。这些奴隶偶尔也会被当成炫耀性 消费的物品。 这种形式常见于非洲北部、西部和一些阿拉伯国家， 但它仅代表当今世 界奴隶中的一小部分。我们在第三章会看到毛 里塔尼亚的财产奴隶制。 2. 债务质役是世界上最常见的奴隶制形式。个人为贷款抵押自己， 20 但服务的性质和年限并不明确，并且工作并不能减少最初的债 务，同时 债务可以传递给下一代，这样就可以继续奴役其后代；更 有甚者，拖欠会 受到惩罚，孩子将会被抓走或卖进更长的债务质
役中。所有权通常不会 被明确宣称，但抵债劳工受到彻底的人身控 制。债务奴隶在印度次大陆 最常见。我们会在第五章和第六章见到。 3. 契约奴隶制展示了现代劳动关系如何被用来隐藏新奴隶制。契 约 提供就业担保，或是在工作坊，或是在工厂，但当工人们被带到 工作场 所时，他们发现自己是被奴役了。契约���常被用作诱惑，把 人骗进奴隶 制之中，同时它也是使得奴隶制看起来合法的方式。如 果被提起法律问 题，就可以拿出契约，但现实情况是，“契约工 人”就是奴隶，被暴力所 威胁，缺少任何行动的自由并且一无所 得。这种奴隶制迅速增长，如今 已是第二大形式。契约奴隶制经常 在东南亚、巴西，一些阿拉伯国家和 印度次大陆的部分地区见到。 我们会在第二章和第四章谈到泰国和巴西 的契约奴隶制。
第一章 新奴隶制
第二章 泰国：因为她像个小孩
第三章 毛里塔尼亚：未曾忘却的过去
第四章 巴西：生活在边缘
第五章 巴基斯坦：奴隶何时才不是奴隶？
第六章 印度：农夫的午餐
第七章 我们能做什么？
尾七声 关于结束奴隶制，你能做的三件事
役中。所有权通常不会 被明确宣称，但抵债劳工受到彻底的人身控 制。债务奴隶在印度次大陆 最常见。我们会在第五章和第六章见到。 3. 契约奴隶制展示了现代劳动关系如何被用来隐藏新奴隶制。契 约 提供就业担保，或是在工作坊，或是在工厂，但当工人们被带到 工作场 所时，他们发现自己是被奴役了。契约���常被用作诱惑，把 人骗进奴隶 制之中，同时它也是使得奴隶制看起来合法的方式。如 果被提起法律问 题，就可以拿出契约，但现实情况是，“契约工 人”就是奴隶，被暴力所 威胁，缺少任何行动的自由并且一无所 得。这种奴隶制迅速增长，如今 已是第二大形式。契约奴隶制经常 在东南亚、巴西，一些阿拉伯国家和 印度次大陆的部分地区见到。 我们会在第二章和第四章谈到泰国和巴西 的契约奴隶制。
第一章 新奴隶制
第二章 泰国：因为她像个小孩
第三章 毛里塔尼亚：未曾忘却的过去
第四章 巴西：生活在边缘
第五章 巴基斯坦：奴隶何时才不是奴隶？
第六章 印度：农夫的午餐
第七章 我们能做什么？
尾七声 关于结束奴隶制，你能做的三件事
April 29, 2013
A- Recently, someone sent me some thing "How many slaves do you have" and it was abt how slaves supported everyone's lifestyle, w clothes, food, tea, electronics, whatever. And honestly, it's a bit of a wake-up bc I didn't realize HOW MANY slaves there still are. Bales does an excellent job dealing with a difficult topic - it's obvious which side he takes, but he is really great, factual. It is divided into sections abt different types of slaves in different countries. Often, you meet individual slaves which provides a clearer picture of the situation. Great book. Very interesting.
December 14, 2015
The world wide jungle, non fiction. What is a human life worth? For over 27 million people, not much. This book explores the types of slavery that exists across the globe in the name of the bottom line.
December 14, 2014
Please borrow this book from me. Slavery did not end in the 1800s.
December 27, 2019
Excerpt:
- The girls may, in fact, be the products of rape, and their slavery is seen as a way of appeasing the gods for that or other crimes committed by their male relatives. A girl, who must be a virgin, is given to the local priest as a slave when she is about ten years old. The girl then stays with the priest—cooking, cleaning, farming, and serving him sexually—until he frees her, usually after she has borne several children. At that point the slave’s family must provide another young girl to replace her. Ghana’s constitution forbids slavery, but the practice is justified on religious grounds by villagers and priests.
- Without protection or alternatives, the poor become powerless, and the violent, without state intervention, become supremely powerful.
- Legal remedies that enforce prohibitions against ownership are ineffective, since enslavement and control are achieved without ownership.
- Food and noodle vendors are scattered between the brothels. The woman working behind the noodle stall outside Siri’s brothel is also spy, warder, watchdog, procurer, and dinner-lady to Siri and the other twenty-four girls and women in the brothel.
- Rice in the Field. Fish in the River. Daughters in the Brothel
- For hundreds of years many people in the north, struggling for life, have been forced to view their own children as commodities. A failed harvest, the death of a key breadwinner, or any serious debt incurred by a family might lead to the sale of a daughter (never a son) as a slave or servant.
- In the advice recorded as his own words, Buddha warns his disciples about the danger of women: they are impure, carnal, and corrupting.
- Direct enslavement by trickery or kidnapping is not really in the economic interest of the brothel owners. The steadily growing market for prostitutes, the loss of girls due to HIV infection, and the especially strong demand for younger and younger girls make it necessary for brokers and brothel owners to cultivate village families so that they might buy more daughters as they come of age.
- Recent research found that young girls know that their sisters and neighbors have become prostitutes, but when asked what it means to be a prostitute their most common answer was “wearing Western clothes in a restaurant.”
- Until it was officially disbanded in 1910 the king maintained a harem of hundreds of concubines, a few of whom might be elevated to the rank of Royal Mother or Minor Wife. This form of polygamy was closely imitated by status-hungry nobles and the emerging rich merchants of the nineteenth century.
- All-male groups out for a night on the town are considered normal in any Thai city, and whole neighborhoods are devoted to serving them. Most Thais, men and women, feel that commercial sex is an acceptable part of an ordinary outing for single men, and about two-thirds of men and one-third of women feel the same about married men.7
- In the footsteps of the Japanese came investment by the so-called Four Tigers (South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore) who also found marvelous opportunities in commercial sex. (All five of these countries also proved to be strong import markets for enslaved Thai girls, as discussed below.)
- Deflowering often takes place away from the brothel in a hotel room rented for the occasion. The pimp or his assistant will often attend as well, since it is usually necessary to beat the girl into submission.
- In Nouakchott I met an elderly slave woman who, though she made beautiful quilts, could not count above ten. It is this level of enforced ignorance that works to keep people enslaved, even in the less strictly supervised atmosphere of the capital.
- When slavery can be cast as part of a “traditional” culture that serves as a kind of primitive social security, then even countries like the United States and France can turn a blind eye. If their memories were less self-interested they would recall the same arguments being made in favor of slavery in the American South.
- I felt like I was back in Alabama again: “Slavery is good,” “It provides security for these people," “You know they can’t take care of themselves,” “Why, I’m like a father to them . . . Not surprisingly, his numbers didn’t add up either.
- The freedom of human beings must have priority over the free market in goods.
- The girls may, in fact, be the products of rape, and their slavery is seen as a way of appeasing the gods for that or other crimes committed by their male relatives. A girl, who must be a virgin, is given to the local priest as a slave when she is about ten years old. The girl then stays with the priest—cooking, cleaning, farming, and serving him sexually—until he frees her, usually after she has borne several children. At that point the slave’s family must provide another young girl to replace her. Ghana’s constitution forbids slavery, but the practice is justified on religious grounds by villagers and priests.
- Without protection or alternatives, the poor become powerless, and the violent, without state intervention, become supremely powerful.
- Legal remedies that enforce prohibitions against ownership are ineffective, since enslavement and control are achieved without ownership.
- Food and noodle vendors are scattered between the brothels. The woman working behind the noodle stall outside Siri’s brothel is also spy, warder, watchdog, procurer, and dinner-lady to Siri and the other twenty-four girls and women in the brothel.
- Rice in the Field. Fish in the River. Daughters in the Brothel
- For hundreds of years many people in the north, struggling for life, have been forced to view their own children as commodities. A failed harvest, the death of a key breadwinner, or any serious debt incurred by a family might lead to the sale of a daughter (never a son) as a slave or servant.
- In the advice recorded as his own words, Buddha warns his disciples about the danger of women: they are impure, carnal, and corrupting.
- Direct enslavement by trickery or kidnapping is not really in the economic interest of the brothel owners. The steadily growing market for prostitutes, the loss of girls due to HIV infection, and the especially strong demand for younger and younger girls make it necessary for brokers and brothel owners to cultivate village families so that they might buy more daughters as they come of age.
- Recent research found that young girls know that their sisters and neighbors have become prostitutes, but when asked what it means to be a prostitute their most common answer was “wearing Western clothes in a restaurant.”
- Until it was officially disbanded in 1910 the king maintained a harem of hundreds of concubines, a few of whom might be elevated to the rank of Royal Mother or Minor Wife. This form of polygamy was closely imitated by status-hungry nobles and the emerging rich merchants of the nineteenth century.
- All-male groups out for a night on the town are considered normal in any Thai city, and whole neighborhoods are devoted to serving them. Most Thais, men and women, feel that commercial sex is an acceptable part of an ordinary outing for single men, and about two-thirds of men and one-third of women feel the same about married men.7
- In the footsteps of the Japanese came investment by the so-called Four Tigers (South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore) who also found marvelous opportunities in commercial sex. (All five of these countries also proved to be strong import markets for enslaved Thai girls, as discussed below.)
- Deflowering often takes place away from the brothel in a hotel room rented for the occasion. The pimp or his assistant will often attend as well, since it is usually necessary to beat the girl into submission.
- In Nouakchott I met an elderly slave woman who, though she made beautiful quilts, could not count above ten. It is this level of enforced ignorance that works to keep people enslaved, even in the less strictly supervised atmosphere of the capital.
- When slavery can be cast as part of a “traditional” culture that serves as a kind of primitive social security, then even countries like the United States and France can turn a blind eye. If their memories were less self-interested they would recall the same arguments being made in favor of slavery in the American South.
- I felt like I was back in Alabama again: “Slavery is good,” “It provides security for these people," “You know they can’t take care of themselves,” “Why, I’m like a father to them . . . Not surprisingly, his numbers didn’t add up either.
- The freedom of human beings must have priority over the free market in goods.
September 22, 2024
Overall, Disposable People is a valuable work that offers a wealth of original research which is primarily composed of interviews with enslaved people and some slaveholders. The geographical breadth of the original research is also of considerable value, covering three continents through chapters dedicated to Thailand, Mauritania, India, Pakistan, and Brazil. It is certainly worth the read if for no other reason than to engage with the original research and the many testimonies of enslaved people interviewed by the author. Nevertheless, there are still a number of areas where this work falls short, and they are by no means insignificant.
First, to write a monograph covering countries in South America, Asia, and Africa and to not once reckon with the ongoing legacy of colonialism or to consider any of the many Indigenous, African, Asian, and Latin American postcolonial theorists who have detailed in great length the ongoing presence of colonialist structures—social, political, and economic—is a major weakness of this work and plays directly into the author's unfounded faith in the WTO, IMF, American and British political establishments and police, and NGOs as agents of change (what a cabal of agentive bodies, to be sure). Only a white Westerner whose privilege and position are served so completely by these institutions could produce such a myopic analysis that on the one hand asserts quite correctly that "slavery has not, as most of us have been led to believe, ended" (p. 5) and that on the other hand regards colonialism as confined to the waste bin of history. It is a tension that goes unaddressed, which is particularly curious for a work of such scope. With the exception of the Frederick Douglass quote in the final pages, to not reference the enormous bodies of work by Black, Indigenous, African, Latinx, or Asian thinkers about any of these issues is simply unacceptable and reeks of a white savior complex that said thinkers have resoundingly critiqued (and with excellent cause).
Second, the work is overly confident that we can simply lobby, raise awareness, and NGO our way out of the one of the most virulent ills of neoliberalism. The author would do well to engage with any of the writing that has been done by thinkers in the Global South who have detailed the many issues arising out of the NGO-industrial complex.
Third, the author argues against referring to prison labor as slave labor, believing that it somehow waters down the term, which is weirdly dismissive of the views of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color's contributions to this topic. Here again, the author does not feel compelled to engage with the (then) extant literature and media on the issue.
The threadbare theoretical grounding and lack of engagement with a breadth of secondary sources significantly undermine what is otherwise a largely meaningful contribution to the research on the issue of contemporary slavery.
First, to write a monograph covering countries in South America, Asia, and Africa and to not once reckon with the ongoing legacy of colonialism or to consider any of the many Indigenous, African, Asian, and Latin American postcolonial theorists who have detailed in great length the ongoing presence of colonialist structures—social, political, and economic—is a major weakness of this work and plays directly into the author's unfounded faith in the WTO, IMF, American and British political establishments and police, and NGOs as agents of change (what a cabal of agentive bodies, to be sure). Only a white Westerner whose privilege and position are served so completely by these institutions could produce such a myopic analysis that on the one hand asserts quite correctly that "slavery has not, as most of us have been led to believe, ended" (p. 5) and that on the other hand regards colonialism as confined to the waste bin of history. It is a tension that goes unaddressed, which is particularly curious for a work of such scope. With the exception of the Frederick Douglass quote in the final pages, to not reference the enormous bodies of work by Black, Indigenous, African, Latinx, or Asian thinkers about any of these issues is simply unacceptable and reeks of a white savior complex that said thinkers have resoundingly critiqued (and with excellent cause).
Second, the work is overly confident that we can simply lobby, raise awareness, and NGO our way out of the one of the most virulent ills of neoliberalism. The author would do well to engage with any of the writing that has been done by thinkers in the Global South who have detailed the many issues arising out of the NGO-industrial complex.
Third, the author argues against referring to prison labor as slave labor, believing that it somehow waters down the term, which is weirdly dismissive of the views of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color's contributions to this topic. Here again, the author does not feel compelled to engage with the (then) extant literature and media on the issue.
The threadbare theoretical grounding and lack of engagement with a breadth of secondary sources significantly undermine what is otherwise a largely meaningful contribution to the research on the issue of contemporary slavery.
January 5, 2020
"Everyone knows what slavery is--yet almost no one knows."
"There is an important link between population and economic growth ... Given the penetration of multinational companies into developing countries, that debt might mean a slave is ultimately serving a global business."
"If responsibility for slaveholding is extending to those who profit from it, we have confront a shocking ethical problem. Those who profit from slavery might include anyone--even you or me ... We mist accept that here are several layers of responsibility. We have to decide how much responsibility we, as citizens and human beings, carry for the eradication of slavery."
"If we have not indirectly participated in slavery through investment, we almost certainly have through consumption. Slave-produced goods and services flow into the global market, making up a tiny but significant part of what we buy ... How much are YOU willing to pay to end slavery?"
"In the lean, mean global economy slavery is stripped of its moral justifications: slaves equals profits. Part of that income pays for the violence needed to ensure that the profits keep coming."
"Here is an absolute truth--the human and economic relationships of modern slavery are complex. It would be so much easier to understand and combat slavery if there were a very clear good guy and bad guys, if all slaveholders were cruel and all slaves yearned for freedom, if the solution were simply to set slaves free. But being free means more than just walking away from bondage. Freedom is a condition both physical and mental, and liberation is a bitter victory if it leads only to starvation and re-enslavement ... If slavery is to end, we must learn how ex-slaves can best secure their own freedom."
"There is an important link between population and economic growth ... Given the penetration of multinational companies into developing countries, that debt might mean a slave is ultimately serving a global business."
"If responsibility for slaveholding is extending to those who profit from it, we have confront a shocking ethical problem. Those who profit from slavery might include anyone--even you or me ... We mist accept that here are several layers of responsibility. We have to decide how much responsibility we, as citizens and human beings, carry for the eradication of slavery."
"If we have not indirectly participated in slavery through investment, we almost certainly have through consumption. Slave-produced goods and services flow into the global market, making up a tiny but significant part of what we buy ... How much are YOU willing to pay to end slavery?"
"In the lean, mean global economy slavery is stripped of its moral justifications: slaves equals profits. Part of that income pays for the violence needed to ensure that the profits keep coming."
"Here is an absolute truth--the human and economic relationships of modern slavery are complex. It would be so much easier to understand and combat slavery if there were a very clear good guy and bad guys, if all slaveholders were cruel and all slaves yearned for freedom, if the solution were simply to set slaves free. But being free means more than just walking away from bondage. Freedom is a condition both physical and mental, and liberation is a bitter victory if it leads only to starvation and re-enslavement ... If slavery is to end, we must learn how ex-slaves can best secure their own freedom."
January 15, 2019
Before reading Disposable People, my knowledge about modern slavery was very limited, and I had no idea how large a problem slavery continues to be. It is very easy to be ignorance about still existing slavery, especially as something people often make out to be totally in the past. Reading this book was enlightening and I would recommend it. The main content of the book was case studies of five different types of slavery in five different countries. The author laid out their causes and their historical contexts in a way that was very informative, but still had an element of storytelling that made the book an easier read, despite being hard to digest. Bales did well in aiding the reader in seeing connections between different people participating in different systems of slavery, as well as connections between types of slavery. The main flaw in my eyes was the repetition in his explanations that sometimes grew tiresome, but that flaw is easy to overlook given the importance and quality of the actual content.
July 3, 2018
This is a very interesting and enlightening book. If you've ever thought of slavery and thought about the various ways it presents itself in the world this book will give your thoughts some clarity. Even if you haven't thought about slavery this will educate you and will in moments make your stomach sink. Slavery isn't gone as many think it has.
In the beginning the author states that even though this is a research book he has written it in such a way that people can read it and become engaged in the subject matter. I believe he has done a good job at creating the book he wanted.
I am feeling more educated on slavery and how slavery manifests itself in different countries. I am disheartened to learn that the country I love the most uses slaves to manage it's sugar cane fields. I don't know what I will do about slavery after finishing this book but I am more aware now and with awareness comes change.
In the beginning the author states that even though this is a research book he has written it in such a way that people can read it and become engaged in the subject matter. I believe he has done a good job at creating the book he wanted.
I am feeling more educated on slavery and how slavery manifests itself in different countries. I am disheartened to learn that the country I love the most uses slaves to manage it's sugar cane fields. I don't know what I will do about slavery after finishing this book but I am more aware now and with awareness comes change.
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