Side thought: the US prison system is internal imperialism

[Recursion]

I need to expand this more but I just wanted to get that thought written down somewhere and see if anybody else can run with it.

The US prison system has a lot of the characteristics of Empire. It's a way to make money, a way to racially polarize the society, a way to pay half of the proles to fight the other half, and a place to shove excess productive capacity (ie, people) that we don't know what else to do with.

And, as Themistocles said about Empire, it was wrong to grab but, having done so, it can be dangerous to release. Plenty of non-violent drug users went to jail. Not all of them are still non-violent, because our prison system is so brutal and counter-productive. What do we do with them? (Same problem with Guantanamo: the guy who got sold by his neighbor for reward money probably wasn't violently anti-American in 2003, but he damn sure is now that we've tortured him for 10 years...)

[TreasonousBastard]

1. 'Tis a quandry, but it's also 3AM here and...

I'm fading fast.

[Recursion]

2. Oh, right. Time zones.

Forgot about those. I'm watching the monsoon come in right now. Pretty impressive.

[akbacchus_BC]

3. This is nothing new. The prison system in the

US is a money making venture! Why you think it is new?

[Recursion]

4. It's the specifically imperialist character that I hadn't connected before

It's an internal empire, not just an exploitative government action.

[delrem]

5. You mean a privatized prison system?

In a country where privatizing a prison system is considered "normal"?
A country which has an outstanding rate of incarceration, and is OK with the death penalty and how it has been used.

I have no way to understand such a country.

[Recursion]

6. No

The much more numerous public prisons are a much bigger problem. I don't like privatized prisons but there aren't nearly as many prisoners in private prisons as in public ones.

[delrem]

7. OK, fair enough.

So do you think the problem can be solved through stricter regulation in a for profit prison system?

[Bonobo]

8. Well it's fucked up all right.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023089863

[delrem]

9. Some really strange and messed up comments on that OP.

[HereSince1628]

10. A contemplation...don't all 'chain' enterprise have the seeds for internal imperialism?

Last edited Sat Jun 6, 2015, 09:49 AM - Edit history (1)

By chain I mean enterprises composed of multiple copies/iterations of the same model operation.

All seek greater wealth through expansion of more linkes in the chain, just like imperial powers.

All tend to 'mine' money from local economies and move that money back to corporate HQ.

Some are worse than others...franchised enterprises allow local investors/owners to assume the greatest risks of expansion for a share of the returns, while company owned replicates tend to shunt the flow of money back to 'home base' through shorter links.

Also in the vein of some are worse than others, chain enterprises which provide multiple services and thus tap into multiple revenue sources acquire within local economies the status of 'omnivores' typified by big box retailers

Multi-service outlets concentrate wealth by shunting the flow of cash around other local options. At the same time economic omnivory creates internal diversity in revenue streams that both tends to stabilize the enterprise itself by making it resistant to fluctuations in low flow revenue streams and place it in receipt of -all- revenue flow (monopoly of capital). In this way, a big box store can both crowd out specialty stores and offer services that wouldn't be sustainable in the colonized community. In this way a single WallMart's entry into a small town displaces clothiers, shoe stores, grocers, liquor stores, hardware stores, bankers and pharmacists.

As this happens, the omnivore tends to take on dominance in political power in local economy and by summation across the nation, the national economy.

Of course, the exploitation isn't limited to internal imperialism, but global corporate economic imperialism is a topic for a different thread.

[raouldukelives]

11. Sometimes it seems like a training facility. A boot camp if you will.

You take your average troubled kid, bust em for a baggie of something, lock em up and they come out with a new attitude towards their fellow man and a brand new skill set sure to impress block D.

Like we are creating more punching bags for our steroid pumping correctional officers.

I sometimes we think we create false enemies so we have something to fight, or that is, something for economic concerns to exploit for profit, damn the consequences to lives and lands, shareholders demand satisfaction.
But, that is cloud cuckoo land stuff.