And I think this is worth distinguishing: a slave is always prisoner of their enslaver. The reverse need not be the case, and yet our system turns prisoners into slaves through forced labor. There's no volunteerism involved here. It's about those with power, those without. Slavery can be understood best by how the powerful behave, not the powerless. No one would volunteer for this or prisoners wouldn't have to be forced to do it.
I'm always disappointed that the lessons of slavery still aren't understood in this country. It's painful and shameful.
EDIT: clarity of terms
Since you seem to be very well educated on this topic, can you share your sources? I'm eager to read them.
Recognizing China as a competitor on an unchecked rise, Washington "pivoted" its foreign policy on China towards antagonism at the beginning of the Obama admin. [1]
This resulted in a number of related attempts to internally destabilize China and loosen the dominance of the Communist Party, ideally leading to a Chinese regime that is submissive to Washington's demands (as occurred recently in India, Ukraine, Brazil and many other historical cases). Otherwise, China could very well surpass the USA as the most powerful nation on Earth.
Among those attempts is a fierce propaganda initiative, which takes any controversial issue related to China and warps it beyond recognition, with the goal of demonizing the Communist Party. Xinjiang, Hong Kong, COVID-19, Taiwan are among the extremely propagandized topics in circulation.
It is virtually impossible to get a fact-based perspective on these issues from mainstream Western media, because that is not their goal. If a mainstream Western outlet attempts to portray China in a neutral/positive, fact-based light, then they risk repercussions. For example, the illuminating PBS documentary entitled "China's War on Poverty" was removed from the airwaves in USA [2] citing "funding" concerns. Any attempt to deviate from official media policy on China could be labeled a "national security risk" and compromise major media corporation's access to funding and other opportunities. Simply not worth the risk (see Parenti's or Chomsky's "propaganda model").
Meanwhile, extremely dubious "reporting" that furthers this foreign policy agenda is amplified to incredible extents. This is how virtually all "China bad" stories end up tracing their origins from a relatively tiny inbred clique of Washington D.C.-based ideologues/think tanks/"human rights" groups, ETIM separatists, Falun Gong cultists, and weapons manufacturers who stand to profit enormously from the "China Threat" theory. Everyone else is directly or indirectly shut out.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_foreign_policy_of_t...
[2] - https://current.org/2020/05/after-pbs-drops-film-pbs-socal-r...
"The findings of this research contradict Chinese officials' claims that all 'trainees' from so-called vocational training [centers] had 'graduated' by late 2019," report author Nathan Ruser wrote. "Instead, available evidence suggests that many extrajudicial detainees in Xinjiang's vast 're-education' network are now being formally charged and locked up in higher security facilities, including newly built or expanded prisons, or sent to walled factory compounds for coerced [labor] assignments."
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/24/916665128/report-satellite-im...
Is it really so much to ask for a source that doesn't have an obvious and massive Conflict of Interest in destabilizing China?
If only you would apply what you demand of others to your own brazen statements.
Please stay on topic: where are your primary sources that don't have a massive Conflict of Interest? It's okay to admit you don't have any.
FTFY.
> Many volunteer for these jobs
True, because the alternative is being locked in your cell 23 hours per day.
In any case, using slave labor for profit is morally abhorrent. It creates very negative societal incentives, and it allows keeping the overall labor rate lower. I'd happily fight fires in CA or elsewhere, if the price is right.
Source? A family member was charged with a felony for drugs and went to prison, and he was certainly not locked in his cell 23 hours daily.
The difference is U.S. prisoners are convicted felons. Many volunteer for these jobs, such as the firefighters in California. Others are paid a small wage for their work or get reduced sentences.
In China, it's members of specific minority groups such as Uyghurs who are singled out and put into concentration camps ... not because of what they have done, but because of who they are and what they believe.
Uyghurs and other non-Han minority people in China are subjected to forced labor, forced abortions and idealogical re-education.
Via the AP:
An estimated 1 million people or more — most of them Uyghurs — have been confined in re-education camps in Xinjiang in recent years, according to researchers. Chinese authorities have been accused of imposing forced labor, systematic forced birth control and torture, and separating children from incarcerated parents.
https://apnews.com/article/only-on-ap-middle-east-europe-gov...
The Guardian:
It estimated 570,000 people came through three minority-heavy prefectures alone – Aksu, Hotan, and Kashgar – and that labor programs in other ethnic minority regions as well as prison labor would probably add hundreds of thousands to the figure.
The labour programs are not secret; they are frequently written about in state media as glowing examples of the government assisting millions of poor people into work, but those articles also contain clues to their coercive nature. Transferred workers are often sent far from their home, made to live on site in factories and subjected to ideological training.
Publications on the labour schemes frequently include references to policies discouraging “illegal religious activities” and changing thoughts and behaviour.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/15/xinjiang-china...