OUTSOURCE THIS!

PRIVATIZING FOR DOLLARS

The other night I was listening to KPFT FM, 90.1. On this show they were discussing how the jails were the slave camps of today, how private jails use Black inmates as economic resources. They went on about several points-pretty good points, too-that were centered on the economic exploitation during the pre-Civil and post-WWII and how it had transformed into outsourcing and privatizing the jails, etc.

There were not many novel concepts between the guests, but it was pretty good. People called in, so did I.

I said that I would connect a few points, and proceded to explain my idea of how slaves were dependent on the master or institution for the food and shelter and support of the entire slave household, cradle to grave. After Emancipation, the former slaves became private contractors, or contract labor. I compared this shift to the outsourcing or privatizing.

This change relieved the institution of raising the capitol--the slave being considered an asset, it had to be maintained and the new issue babies were fed and raised for years before they could be exploited for capital benefit. Now, since the emancipated adult was paid a "minimum wage", he was the outsourced contractor who was also the venture capitalist rearing his own replacement. The employer was free of responsibility of the family, and in effect, was now leasing instead of owning.

They laughed because the idea had not occured to them in that way before-yet they had described the pain of being owned many times.

To me, it was a parallel to privatizing and outsourcing, where the institution is relieved of accountability for the welfare of its human resources, yet can claim great efficiencies on that same foundation of irresponsibility. We pay the price, but the corporation-the embodiment of diffused responsibility-collects the profit.

The moral is, don't expect the obvious except that the more it changes it gets more of the same.

And it is a mistake to blame slavery on Europe. That has been a long tradition which we look at with the wrong end of a microscope.

There is slavery today, and I hate it, and it is world wide and it is not all a black and white occurance. I hate every instance of it.

But I try to see it as what it is: economic prison and rape of humanity. Capital investment in class warfare, and dehumanizing exploitation by unaccountable accountants.

-30-bobby