• CAPITALISM
• DEBT SLAVERY
• TAXATION
• ECONOMIC SLAVERY
• USURERS

This work is devoted to the problem of slavery in the modern world, namely economic. The relevance of the topic under consideration lies in the fact that slavery has not disappeared in the modern world; it still exists, taking different forms. The slave system appeared in the ancient world and took on other forms over time. Economic, social, spiritual and other types of slavery are widespread these days.

• Specifics and author's methodology for assessing the effectiveness of electronic business communications
• Social and philosophical analysis of national identity

It is believed that already in the 19th century, humanity ended slavery. In 1888, Brazil officially abolished slavery. It is believed that this is the last of the civilized countries in which slavery was prohibited.

In this paper we consider the problem of modern slavery based on the book of the scientist, Doctor of Economic Sciences V. Yu. Katasonov “Capitalism”. In his work, he talks about such a phenomenon as slavery in the modern world, about its development from the Ancient world to the present, about capitalist civilization associated with usury and the formation of slavery in the modern world. Features of his work can be considered a detailed study of “monetary civilization” from antiquity to modern times. “Capitalism” by V. Yu. Katasonov is one of the few books in Russia that allows you to get acquainted with financial, economic, religious and philosophical problems.

Due to the fact that slavery still exists in the modern world, this topic is relevant. Today, slavery has completely different characteristics. It went underground, that is, became illegal, or acquired forms that allow it to coexist with modern laws. In addition, legislation can protect some forms of the modern, therefore, the topic of slavery is relevant in our time, because each person has his own ideal of freedom and must understand whether he is really free, what human freedom depends on and whether it is possible to fight the peculiarities that give rise to modern slavery.

Slavery can be considered any exploitation of one person by another, even without the exploiter having the right of ownership of the exploited. Its main feature is the ownership right of the exploiter to the product created by the employee. In addition to direct slavery, i.e. physical, there are also other forms of it, such as: “economic”, “social”, “hired”, “capitalist”, “indirect”, “spiritual”, “debt”, etc. .

In the 19th century, direct slavery was gradually replaced by economic or wage slavery. Currently, direct slavery is prohibited by international and national laws. However, despite this, it continues to exist, moving to an illegal or semi-legal position. Modern slavery is difficult to recognize. It takes forms that are invisible to us and accompanies us throughout our lives.

Force and deceit are the basis for all forms of slavery. With the rise of slavery in the ancient world, it was based on physical force. Despite this, deception is the basic principle of modern slavery. All institutions of modern society contribute to deceiving the people, for example, the media, educational institutions, political parties, etc. Information that is presented in a certain way has an impact on the mind and subconscious of a person. Through the formation of people's worldview, the consciousness and behavior of society or even its individual members are manipulated.

Social slavery “follows” from modern slavery. Many types of slavery, such as spiritual, wage, direct, tax, etc., represent relationships between people that consist in attributing to themselves the labor of others and their product, although outwardly they have a large number of differences.

In this work we will talk about economic slavery. The problem of economic slavery is a person’s dependence on economic factors as forms of a slave system. The reasons for the development of economic slavery are the capitalist system and usury.

Modern capitalism and various forms of slavery represent the expansion of capital and the appropriation of the product that the worker has produced.

“Capital presupposes wage labor, and wage labor presupposes capital. They mutually condition each other; they mutually generate each other.”

Moneylenders as the main slave owners of modern capitalism

Modern economic society presupposes a system for the creation and distribution of a social product. This system includes four levels. “The first level is the creation of a labor product. The second level is the appropriation by employers of the product of labor created by employees. The third level is the appropriation of part of the product of labor remaining from both hired workers and employers (productive capitalists). This is an appropriation in favor of those persons who represent “capital-property.” The fourth level is supranational. At this level there are only a few world moneylenders who concentrate in their hands all the wealth that was created and redistributed at the first three levels.” Therefore, in a capitalist society, moneylenders turn out to be the main labor owners.

Taxation as a tool of economic slavery

Today, the state budget is a tool for redistributing taxes in favor of capitalists. In many Western countries, taxes are the main source of government budgets. Taxes are followed by income from state enterprises, from the sale or rental of state property, payments for services of budgetary organizations and other sources.

In addition to personal taxes, employees pay contributions to social insurance funds by deducting contributions from wages. “Social contributions in some countries of the world today exceed the amount of traditional taxes on individuals (income, property, etc.). According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for 1965 and 2008, one can trace an increase in the share of social insurance contributions by 7%, and the share of budget revenues increased accordingly. Apparently, the share of social contributions may continue to increase due to a change in the ratio of people of retirement age to those working in favor of the former.”

Thus, taxes serve as the basis of the state budget in Western European countries. A smaller portion consists of income from state property and enterprises.

Private business also participates in replenishing the state budget, but according to a study by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the share of citizens (individuals) in total tax receipts in the United States was 5-6 times higher than the share of private business in 2005. Income tax is the main tax a business pays, but it decreases over time.

Other forms of distributing the “budget pie” to big capital can be considered interest payments on the public debt, going into the pockets of usurious banks. Often, especially in cases when a large business is on the verge of collapse, large loans are distributed from the budget, which help save the business and bring it out of the crisis.

“There is such an indicator - “tax recovery”, which shows what part of the taxes paid by this or that social group then receives in the form of budget expenditures. So for capitalists it is much higher than 100%. This figure turns out to be especially high for moneylenders - money capitalists. As for hired workers, their “tax refund” turns out to be much lower than 100%.”

Using this indicator, we can conclude that the missing percentage of the “refundable tax” of employees goes directly into the pockets of moneylenders. Therefore, it is their indicator that exceeds 100%.

Debt slavery

In most cases it is invisible, but at the same time it has various forms and is extremely large-scale. In modern financial capitalism, debt slavery is of great importance and is not inferior to wage slavery. It represents the exploitation by usurers of those who create the product with their labor. Moneylenders appropriate part of this product and thereby carry out exploitation. If we evaluate the activities of moneylenders, then it is aimed at robbing working people through deception without the use of direct methods of physical violence.

Usury robbery has certain forms. In the first case, citizens who use bank loans are charged interest. In the second case, the robbery occurs through indirect payment of loan interest by buyers of goods and services. In the third case, taxpayers pay debts arising from government borrowing from moneylenders. All of the above can be considered usurious robbery carried out on a systematic basis, that is, regularly. From this follows the conclusion about the lifelong debt slavery of modern man.

Conclusion

Slavery is an extremely common phenomenon in the modern world. It develops and takes on new forms. Economic slavery is one of the main types of human dependence in the modern world, because our lives revolve around money, but what is it? “Money is, first of all, a tool of organization and management” and those who want to subjugate and control people strive to have as much money as possible, and, accordingly, power. Economic slavery is hidden in the capitalist system and is aimed at enriching the few at the expense of the people, so it is extremely important to understand the essence of economic slavery, its nature, to fight those manifestations of economic slavery that we can influence, for example: tax and debt slavery.

Bibliography

1. Katasonov V. Yu. Capitalism. Moscow 2013
2. Katasonov V. Yu. Monetary civilization. Moscow 2014

Slave trade is the norm of the modern world

Currently, human trafficking has become global and has become the norm of modern life. In most cases, the victims of slave traders are women. And this problem is very relevant, since it concerns all countries of the world.

The traditional understanding of the word “slavery” differs significantly from what is happening in the modern world. In the case of classic slavery, the slave trader has all the rights to a forced person, he can dispose of him at his own discretion. Then this ensured the high cost of slaves, but did not make it possible to receive large incomes from slave labor. And since the prices for slaves were very high, new supplies were limited in quantity. In addition, since long-term relationships were established between the slave trader and the slave, the owner very often felt responsible for the fate of the slave. Racial and ethnic differences between them were also of great importance.

There are certain criteria by which one can determine whether a person is a slave. Firstly if its activities are controlled using violence, Secondly, a person is held in a certain place against his will, but cannot change the situation at his own discretion. Third, for his work a person receives either too little payment or does not receive it at all.

Almost nothing is known about how many slaves currently exist in the world. Back in 2005, the United Nations announced a figure of 700 thousand people, which Every year fall into slavery, the US State Department in 2006 named approximately the same figure - 600-800 thousand people. But the Center for Human Security, which operates in Vancouver, Canada at Simon Fraser University, says that up to 4 million people are sold into slavery every year.

The UN provided information that the slave trade is quite developed in 127 countries a world where people are either kidnapped or lured through deception, and in 137 countries– use forced labor of foreigners. Besides, 11 countries countries have been distinguished by a high level of kidnapper activity, including Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. More 10 countries The most common places for transporting slaves were identified as the United States of America, Turkey, Israel, Italy, Germany, Japan and Greece.

The International Organization for Migration also provided information that children are often victims of slave labor ( more than 5.5 million children became victims of debt slavery), and more than 1 million more children suffered from human traffickers. Annually about 1 million girls forced into prostitution (as a rule, they are sold as sex slaves and are very often used for filming in pornographic films). Moreover, children are often used as organ and tissue donors in criminal operations, as well as as soldiers in regional conflicts.

The United Nations provides data according to which, every year, human traffickers, which include modern slave traders and smugglers who facilitate the illegal resettlement of emigrants, receive up to $7 billion in revenue, and this amount only includes income from human trafficking. The slave trade, according to representatives of the US State Department, is the third most profitable illegal business, second only to the drug trade and arms trade.

Recently, the US State Department released data from its annual report on the slave trade in the world. According to these estimates, at this time There are about 27 million people in slavery in 186 countries of the world, and in 17 countries the government does not take any action to change the situation.

Russia found itself in the intermediate category, that is, the situation in the state does not fully meet international requirements, but the authorities are not taking all the necessary measures to provide assistance to all victims of slave traders.

The report was presented directly to Hillary Clinton. According to the information provided in the report, all 186 countries were divided into 3 categories. The first includes countries that fully comply with the provisions of the Slave Trade Victims Protection Act, which was adopted back in 2000 by the American Congress. The third group included states (17) where the authorities do not pay due attention to crimes related to the slave trade - sexual slavery, forced participation of adolescents in military conflicts, forced labor. Cuba, Algeria, Iran, Kuwait, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Syria fall into this category.

For several years in a row, Russia has fallen into the intermediate category, among the states that need monitoring. The State Department is confident that the measures taken by the Russian government are not effective enough, which is why the number of slaves is constantly increasing. Thus, in Russia, about 1 million people are engaged in slave labor: their work is poorly paid, they live in terrible conditions, and they are deprived of documents. Slave labor is most widespread in such areas as agriculture, construction and the consumer services market.

Slave labor, the report notes, is used in logging in the Far East, on agricultural sites, and in the construction of sports facilities in Sochi in preparation for the Olympics, and during the construction of infrastructure in Vladivostok in preparation for the APEC summit. One of the reasons that the authors of the document concluded that slave labor was used on these construction sites was that they are both closed, and it is impossible to access them.

In addition, sexual exploitation is widespread in Russia. Russian women continue to become victims of human trafficking in Europe, the Middle East, and Central and Northeast Asia. At the same time, there is information that women from these regions were forced into prostitution in Russia.

Despite all this, the Russian government and law enforcement agencies are not making great efforts to eliminate the slave trade. In 2011, the Ministry of Internal Affairs in its annual report reported only 46 criminal cases that were initiated on charges of forced prostitution, and only 17 of them went to trial. 32 people were convicted of human trafficking and only 11 were punished for using forced labor. And even despite the fact that in 2010 a program to combat the slave trade was adopted in Russia, the country does not have enough funds and support from relevant organizations for its implementation. As a result, practically nothing has been done in this direction.

Hillary Clinton, presenting her report, very transparently hinted that those states that do not take proper measures to combat the slave trade may be deprived of financial support from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Recent studies have shown that around the world more than 45 million people, including children, are used as slaves. This was reported by the Walk Free Foundation. /website/

The Walk Free Foundation conducted a study based on the results of which it compiled a ranking of countries with the largest number of slaves. It turned out that the number of slaves in the modern world can be compared with the population of a large country such as Spain or Argentina. The analysis showed that data from previous studies were significantly underestimated.

The study found that 58% of all slaves originated from India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan. Countries with the largest number of slaves include North Korea, Uzbekistan, Cambodia, India and Qatar.

As the international organization notes, there is evidence of the use of slave labor through a system of forced labor camps. This kind of slave labor network is widespread in China. In Uzbekistan, residents are forced to pick cotton.

According to human rights organizations, the underground slave trade is the third most profitable criminal business in the world after the arms and drug trade. “It’s entirely possible that slave labor was used to make your shoes or the sugar you put in your coffee. “Slaves laid the bricks that make up the wall of the factory that made your television,” writes sociologist Kevin Bales, author of The New Slavery in the Global Economy.

How do you get into slavery?

Most often, those who fall into slavery are those who were kidnapped or migrated illegally. According to the UN, 11 countries have “very high” levels of kidnapping activity. More than 50 thousand people are kidnapped there every year. These countries include Zimbabwe, Congo, New Guinea, Sudan, China, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

Some are lured into slavery by deception. Usually the scheme is always the same: first, the employee is promised a high salary in another city or country, after arrival, his documents are taken away and he is forced to work. Girls are often promised a career in the modeling business, but in fact are forced into prostitution or, at best, work in underground garment factories.

Men are most often forced to do hard physical labor. The most famous example is the Brazilian charcoal burners. They are recruited from local beggars, promising well-paid jobs. Then their passport and work book are taken away from them and they are taken to the deep forests of the Amazon, from where there is nowhere to escape. There, workers are forced to burn huge eucalyptus trees without rest to produce coal.

The number of charcoal burners is more than 10 thousand. Human rights organizations have not yet been able to cope with this problem. This is largely due to the interest of local authorities in shadow business, which brings huge profits.

The situation with slavery in Russia

According to the Walk Free Foundation rating, 1 million 48 thousand 500 people live in slavery in Russia today. Thus, Russia ranks 16th in the world in terms of the ratio of free citizens to slaves. In terms of the total number of slaves, our country ranks seventh in the world.

According to estimates from the State Department report, in Moscow and the Moscow region alone, at least 130 thousand people work for free. They are undocumented and live in terrible conditions. Many are forced into begging.

Begging in Moscow is a common occurrence. Photo: MAXIM MARMUR/AFP/Getty Images

In Russia there is a public organization “Alternative”, which helps people who find themselves in similar situations. Over the four years of its existence, activists have freed more than 300 people from different regions of Russia. According to the organization's employees, about 5 thousand people fall into labor slavery in Russia every year. There are about 100 thousand forced laborers in the country.

Activists of the organization note that mostly victims of slave traders are people from the provinces who want to improve their living conditions and do not understand labor relations. Recruiters are already waiting for such people at Moscow train stations. They offer visitors good jobs in the south. After this, they take the victim to a station cafe, where agreements are made with the waiters. There they add sleeping pills to their tea, after which they are taken in the right direction.

Most often, workers are taken to the Teply Stan metro station, and from there by bus to Dagestan. In Dagestan, illegal workers work in brick and other factories. When there are major checks in the region, the slaves are simply thrown over the fence. “Alternative” volunteers note that slave owners do not have a serious “protection”; everything happens at the level of local police officers and junior officers. Therefore, plant owners often do not interfere with the release of people.

At the same time, the Dagestan prosecutor’s office did not establish any facts of forced labor of workers at brick production enterprises. “The prosecutor’s investigation did not establish any facts of forced labor in any form,” the department reports.

A member of the “Alternative” movement, Oleg Melnikov, noted that the government of our country simply does not recognize slavery. “It seems to me that we in Russia simply do not have the political will to admit that slavery exists in our country. And some investigators directly told me that they would never initiate cases under the article “slavery.” And investigators ask to use the wording when initiating criminal cases “illegal detention of two or more persons,” and not “slavery,” the human rights activist noted.

Slave trade in the modern world.

When it comes to the slave trade, most people probably remember the dark-skinned slaves who were exported from Africa. But in fact, human trafficking appeared much earlier in history, and many shocking facts are associated with it.

1. Mesopotamian Code of Hammurabi


The first mention of the slave trade is found in the Mesopotamian Code of Hammurabi.

One of the first mentions of slavery was found in the Mesopotamian Code of Hammurabi (circa 1860 BC). It is worth noting that slavery was not previously very popular among hunter-gatherers who did not have a written language, since it requires social stratification.

2. Pyramids of Egypt


Slavery and the construction of the Egyptian pyramids.

Since the beginning of civilization (after hunter-gatherers), slavery has played a huge role in society: from the building of the pyramids in Egypt to slavery in England. In fact, at the turn of the 19th century, according to modern estimates, 3/4 of the world was trapped in slavery against their will (we are talking about various forms of slavery or serfdom).

3. Arabian Peninsula


Slave trade on the Arabian Peninsula.

The first large-scale slave trade arose among the Arabs. In the 7th century, the export of slaves from West Africa to the Arabian Peninsula began. Some historians believe that the Arab slave trade was a possible source of prejudice against dark-skinned sub-Saharan Africans that continues to this day.

4. Portugal


Slave trade in Portugal.

The Portuguese were the first to transport slaves across the Atlantic in the 16th century. Over the next 4 centuries, they were the main “suppliers” of slaves. In fact, by the time slavery was abolished in the 19th century, nearly half of all slaves transported across the Atlantic had been sent to Portuguese colonies such as Brazil.

5. West Africa


Slave trade in the USA.

Although most people think that the largest number of slaves were taken on British ships from West Africa to the United States, it actually accounted for only a little over 6% of all slaves.

The vast majority of slaves (approximately 60%) were sent to the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in South America. Most of the remaining slaves (about 30%) were brought to the Caribbean by the British, French and Dutch empires.

6. "Trade triangle"


Trade Triangle: New England, Caribbean, West Africa.

Interestingly, the so-called “Trade Triangle” was created on the basis of the slave trade. As the name suggests, this involves trade between three separate regions.

Initially, slaves were taken from West Africa and traded for commodities in the Caribbean. These raw materials and precious items were then traded for manufactured goods in New England, and then the manufactured goods were traded again for slaves in West Africa.

7. 12 million slaves


Between the 16th and 19th centuries, 12 million slaves were transported across the Atlantic.

Historians estimate that about 12 million African slaves were transported across the Atlantic between the 16th and 19th centuries. About 1.5 million people died on the ships during transport, and 10.5 million were sold into slavery, mostly in the Caribbean. In addition, 6 million were sold to Asian slave traders, and another 8 million were intended for slave traders in Africa itself.

8. Coast only


The slave trade was carried out only on the coast.

About 4 million other slaves died as they were forced from the African interior to the coast. Since Europeans, as a rule, were afraid to go too far into the continent (due to disease), slaves were taken to the coast, where they were sold to slave traders.

9. "Factory"


20 million people passed through the trading posts.

Once on the coast, slaves were kept in large forts called "factories." Historians estimate that of the 20 million slaves who passed through the trading posts, about 4% (820,000 people) died in them.

10. Slave ships


Slave traders' ships could accommodate between 350 and 600 people.

Slaver ship captains loaded between 350 and 600 people onto their ships. As a result, the slaves were transported in such cramped conditions that they could barely move after a 2-month voyage across the Atlantic. Many died from disease because they slept in their own urine and feces.

Others committed suicide by escaping from the hold and jumping overboard. Even the sailors did not like working on the slave ships, as many died from disease. This was beneficial from a profit standpoint because the ship's captain had to pay fewer people.

11. Sugar plantations of Brazil


Sugar plantations are the main cause of the slave trade.

Sugar plantations were the reason why about 84% of slaves were brought to the New World. The vast majority of them ended up in Brazil.

12. African slaves


African slaves are victims of progress in shipbuilding.

So why did Europeans buy African slaves? To put it in a nutshell, the reason was technology. Although it would have been cheaper to enslave other Europeans, advances in shipbuilding technology made it possible to begin enslaving people on another continent.

13. American South


The average plantation in the American South employed fewer than 100 slaves on average.

Plantations in the American South (usually employing fewer than 100 slaves) were much smaller in size compared to plantations in the Caribbean and South America (usually employing more than 100 slaves each). This has led to high incidence rates in large plantations in South America.

Death rates in the Caribbean and Brazil were so high and birth rates so low that the number of slaves could not be maintained without a constant influx of new people from Africa. In the US, the birth rate for slaves was almost 80% higher.

14. Birth rate


The birth rate among slaves in the United States was 80% higher.

By 1825, the high birth rate among slaves in the United States meant that nearly a quarter of all black people in the New World lived in the United States.

15. Slavery today


There are 50 million slaves on the planet today.

Every nation on Earth has "officially" banned slavery, but it is still a huge problem. There are indeed more slaves in the world today than at any time in history. According to some estimates, up to 50 million people live in modern bondage.

Most of these slaves are in southern Asia (over 20 million), but all other countries in Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East also have high rates of slavery.

August 23 is the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. In our article, we have collected scary facts about human trafficking in the modern world in order to remind you that the slave trade is a real problem of our time.

1. Despite the fact that the slave trade was banned throughout the world many years ago, it is thriving and even taking on new forms. As crazy as it may sound, traditional sexual slavery, exploitation of slave labor (including child slave labor), exploitation of the body (use of human organs) bring criminals annually at least about 10 billion US dollars. It is also scary that every year approximately four million people cross the borders by smuggling, who may later become slaves. According to impartial UN estimates, there are about 30 million people in slavery today. According to other sources, the number of slaves reaches 200 million. At the moment there are many more slaves than there have been in the entire history of mankind.

2. The victims of the slave trade most often are women and children. Women, at best, become maids and nannies, children and teenagers become factory workers (they are forced to work 14 hours a day in ruthless conditions for a small portion of food). In the worst cases, healthy people have their organs taken away against their will or forced into prostitution.

3. The largest number of people are exported from Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe, including from Russia. It is the Russian Federation that is one of the largest suppliers of “living goods” for Western Europe. The reason for this is banal poverty, which pushes people in search of a better life, which turns into a real tragedy. Almost everywhere you can find advertisements in which women are offered work abroad, promised high salaries and great prospects. Most often this is a scam.

4. People do not always fall into slavery by deception. The same poverty often forces people to take desperate steps, otherwise they simply face starvation. In Africa, it is not uncommon for families to voluntarily sell their children for a few hundred dollars, which is equal to their annual income. Currently, more than 300,000 children are trafficked into combat all over the globe. In Japan, there have been cases where mothers sold their daughters to geisha houses for a lot of money. Afghan women are sold by their own parents into prostitution in Pakistan for approximately 600 rupees per pound of their weight. In Nigeria, young girls themselves are sold into slavery in Europe because the terrible poverty and discrimination in their families is simply unbearable. Thousands of women from the former USSR voluntarily became prostitutes in Israel. This was done in exchange for documents for residence in this country.

5. Not only does the slave trade flourish in poor countries, but also the population of developed countries is exposed to considerable danger. Gullible women fall into slavery because they accepted offers to work as a model, act in films, become a dancer or the wife of a rich foreigner. Unfortunately, most often smugglers simply play on people's ambitions.

6. The vast majority of people who are enslaved need help. However, they are afraid to file a complaint against their pimps because they do not believe in the effectiveness of law enforcement agencies and fear retribution from the exploiters. But even if they come forward, victims most often remain defenseless before the law, remaining just illegal immigrants who have nowhere to turn for help. Always be vigilant and careful so that you avoid a terrible fate.