Many balk when I claim that we have refined slavery into antiseptic slavery, a boon for our economic system. 80% of Americans, irrespective of race or ethnicity, are antiseptic slaves. I defined antiseptic slavery on the WAOK Program On Point with Juandolyn Stokes.
Antiseptic Slavery defined
Many refuse to understand that our current economic system is predicated on a form of slavery. And by slavery, I am not talking about what black people have endured during the slave trade and beyond. The best type of slavery is one where the protagonists do not realize that, in fact, they are slaves.
Respectfully, I do not want to minimize the violence, pain, savage slaughter, and dehumanization of people of color, specifically black people, endured. But it is essential to understand that it was the economic systems the “masters” created. Savagery was essential in those times to turn humans into controllable machines and capital.
Many may think that abolishing slavery was a great thing and was the path to better pastures not only for black people but for the morality of the nation. Anyone who understands our economic system knows that nothing occurs unless the few can make a profit from it. It is one of the reasons the COVID pandemic was out of control. We had a government that did not step in appropriately to solve the problem before considering patent protections and profits. Yes, it invested much money in development, but the corporatist did much to hold back worldwide distribution.
During slavery, black people were machines. These were machines that required food, healthcare, clothing, and housing. That proposition was expensive. Every change in economic policy rarely occurs without our profiteers figuring out how to profit further.
And the answer is antiseptic slavery. We get the choice to choose who to work for while the employer colludes with a purchased government to keep wages low. While they use all kinds of techniques to make more — interest rates, inflation, unemployment, etc. They are no longer responsible for clothing you, feeding you, housing you, or providing healthcare. And that means you are expendable. That is what antiseptic slavery looks like for most of us, and few even realize it.
There are answers to this if we vote to elect real Progressives whose policies mitigate all that makes us antiseptic slaves. Healthcare for all paid out of the general fund, our taxes detaches us from no insurance or the extortion of health insurance from corporations. A living wage backstopped with basic income ensures those who work can live with dignity. Family leave ensures that family comes before the corporation without fearing unemployment, the humane thing. Public resources, including our minerals and flora, belong to us all. Those who mine it must share the profits with us all. There are many other equitable changes we must make, but it starts with voting in the right politicians.
Our economic system legalizes economic abuse. About 19% of Americans are kept sufficiently comfortable to be the enforcers. They control our media, religious institutions, and many in government. And 1% progressively accumulates all of the spoils, the expansion of wealth disparity and inequality.
It is time that we fight back. There are more of us than those who take advantage of us all. Let’s do it.
I discuss all these issues on my program Politics Done Right. I discuss these economic issues in two of my books, “As I See It: Class Warfare The Only Resort To Right Wing Doom” and “How to make America Utopia: Take Away The Economy From Those Who Rigged It.”