If your business model is built on virtual slave labor - your biz deserves to fail

[zipplewrath]

24. Oh I recognized it

I've just never thought that history supported Marx's characterization. The people weren't forced into factories. They flocked to them. Life on the farm was hard, and failures were very common. Factory life was seen by people on farms to be a "good deal". That doesn't really compare to slavery at all.

Now, once a person realizes how much the factory is making off of their labor, it doesn't seem like such a good deal anymore. But it still is an improvement over the subsistence farm (and to a great degree over the commercial farm as well).

Truth is, the factory is a communal structure, even a cooperative in many ways. (And by factory I really mean and commercial structure of multiple disciplines). The problem that Marx is describing as "slavery" is merely that the profits of the cooperative are not equitably distributed. Unions can help with that. Changing our corporate governance laws could too. Most of us aren't cut out to "control the means of production" nor be "subsitence capitalists". Most of us will thrive in the cooperative model. (Subsistence farmers tended to be VERY cooperative on many issues, including water and grazing lands).