Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy [Paperback]

Kevin Bales (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520224639 | ISBN-13: 978-0520224636 | Publication Date: September 28, 1999 | Edition: original

Slavery is illegal throughout the world, yet more than twenty-seven million people are still trapped in one of history's oldest social institutions. Kevin Bales's disturbing story of slavery today reaches from brick kilns in Pakistan and brothels in Thailand to the offices of multinational corporations. His investigation of conditions in Mauritania, Brazil, Thailand, Pakistan, and India reveals the tragic emergence of a "new slavery," one intricately linked to the global economy. The new slaves are not a long-term investment as was true with older forms of slavery, explains Bales. Instead, they are cheap, require little care, and are disposable.
Three interrelated factors have helped create the new slavery. The enormous population explosion over the past three decades has flooded the world's labor markets with millions of impoverished, desperate people. The revolution of economic globalization and modernized agriculture has dispossessed poor farmers, making them and their families ready targets for enslavement. And rapid economic change in developing countries has bred corruption and violence, destroying social rules that might once have protected the most vulnerable individuals.
Bales's vivid case studies present actual slaves, slaveholders, and public officials in well-drawn historical, geographical, and cultural contexts. He observes the complex economic relationships of modern slavery and is aware that liberation is a bitter victory for a child prostitute or a bondaged miner if the result is starvation.
Bales offers suggestions for combating the new slavery and provides examples of very positive results from organizations such as Anti-Slavery International, the Pastoral Land Commission in Brazil, and the Human Rights Commission in Pakistan. He also calls for researchers to follow the flow of raw materials and products from slave to marketplace in order to effectively target campaigns of "naming and shaming" corporations linked to slavery. Disposable People is the first book to point the way to abolishing slavery in today's global economy.
All of the author's royalties from this book go to fund anti-slavery projects around the world.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A well-researched, scholarly and deeply disturbing expos of modern-day slavery with well-thought-out strategies for what to do to combat this scourge. None of us is allowed the luxury of imagined impotence. We can do something about it." -- Desmond Tutu

"An insightful overview [and] a powerful expos of human tragedy." -- Dallas Morning News

"As fine and accessible a work of investigative reporting as any of the best that have appeared over the last decade. Serious, impassioned, and unflinching, he has told a story that is too often ignored, and that, as he points out, shames us all." -- The National Post (Canada)

"If you read no other book this year, read this one." -- The Santa Rosa Press Democrat

"Kevin Bales knows pretty much all there is to know about slavery in the contemporary world. In Disposable People he parlays a combination of fact and indignation into a compelling indictment of an aspect of globalism most of us prefer not to think about. This is a timely and important expose. Bales has cast a little light into a very dark place. " -- The Globe & Mail

From the Inside Flap

"Convincing, emotionally wrenching, and freighted with appropriate moral indignation, Kevin Bales's startling presentation shows us that while the general public is convinced slavery is a historical phenomenon of the ancient past . . . it is in actuality a widespread tragedy found worldwide and on a large scale. This book innovatively and usefully describes the permutations of an ancient tradition as it exists in this modern day and age."--Richard Pierre Claude, editor of Human Rights Quarterly

"A timely and fascinating book . . . of crucial importance. Few people realize that the increasing globalization of the economy has led to the use of coerced labor in many parts of the globe. . . . Bales has traveled widely and has gathered a great amount of shocking and disturbing information."--David Brion Davis, Director, Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery and Abolition, Yale University

"A well-researched, scholarly and deeply disturbing exposé of modern-day slavery with well-thought-out strategies for what to do to combat this scourge. None of us is allowed the luxury of imagined impotence. We can do something about it."--Desmond Tutu

"Ending Slavery takes the critical next step of providing a practical road-map for ending one of the worst human rights abuses of the modern era. Using a common sense approach, Bales offers a clear, economic rationale for why slavery is not as profitable or sustainable as fair labor practices. In addition, this book shows that the solutions for such severe suffering are not simply the purview of the social sector but are opportunities for transformation among policy makers and business people around the world. Bales shows how we can all play a role, and he inspires each of us to take action."--Pam Omidyar, Founder, Humanity United, Co-founder, Omidyar Network

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 298 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; original edition (September 28, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520224639
• ISBN-13: 978-0520224636
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #379,326 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > History > Africa > Mauritania
  • #27 in Books > History > Asia > Thailand
  • #65 in Books > History > Asia > Pakistan

More About the Author

Going undercover to meet slaves and slaveholders, Kevin Bales exposed how modern slavery penetrates the global economy and flows into the things we buy. Named by Utne Reader as a "visionary who is changing your world;" and the originator of one of "100 World-Changing Discoveries" by the Association of British Universities, he is a leading abolitionist in the last great anti-slavery movement. In 2001 he co-founded Free the Slaves, the American sister-organization of the UK's Anti-Slavery International, the world's oldest human rights group. In eight years it has helped to liberate thousands of slaves in India, Nepal, Haiti, Ghana, Brazil, Ivory Coast, and Bangladesh, and work with them to build new lives of dignity. After reading Bales' book Ending Slavery, President Clinton told the plenary of the Clinton Global Initiative: "It tells you that it is a problem we can solve and here's how to do it." This year, with Ron Soodalter, he published The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today, an expose and plan to make America slave-free for the first time in its history.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read It., July 17, 2002

By 

Jedidiah Palosaari "Not My Real Name" (Fes, Morocco) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy (Paperback)

Wow. This *is* a book everyone should read. I'd heard about bits of slavery here and there in modern times. After I heard Bales on NPR and read about his work in Scientific American and the Sun, I was eager to get ahold of this book. But I had no idea that the horror was so widespread.

Bales writes with clearness and imagination, yet is thoroughly scientific and researched. He followed sociological procedures and didn't merely report on other's ideas, but did primary research himself with a set variable questionnaire. All of this work makes his arguments irrefutable.

Disposable People traces the three main types of slavery- old fashioned chattel slavery, debt slavery (the largest) and contract slavery (the fastest growing), in five different empirical countries. The first case of contract slavery in Thailand I found the most horrendous- families selling their daughters into slave-prostitution and death by AIDS, for the price of a colour TV. The case of chattel slavery in Mauritania was the most interesting- Arab Muslims speaking of their black slaves as their children, who need to be guided by a firm hand, but are inferior; who are fed the bare minimum to work and live, and not allowed to go to school. A place where the children of a female slave become the property of the slave owner, whether or not he is the father, and women can be kept as slaves by the claim that they are actually the wife of the slave owner, who has on his side the Qur'an's stipulation that one may have sex with one's female slaves. It was all too reminiscent of the antebellum period. Bales' weakest arguments were in regards to the form of slavery in India. While there is certainly slavery there, and it appears to be the oldest continual slavery in the world, the farming he described seemed to be more sharecropping than slavery- there was little reference to the violence that forced people to remain with their land lord/slave holder.

This book needs to be read because we need to stop this. Twenty-seven million people in the world are in slavery, and many of the products we rely on and use every day are made by them. This should not be. It can not be.

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The race to the very bottom, March 13, 2004

By 

Malvin (Frederick, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy (Paperback)

"Disposable People" by Kevin Bales is an important book on the topic of slavery in our time. The author intelligently combines original cases studies and third-party research with a solid understanding of global economics. The result is a startling but convincing expose that should be read by everyone.

Mr. Bales describes the major factors driving slavery today. First, the post-WW II population explosion has created a huge and desperate reserve army of the unemployed. Second, the process of proletarianization continues in many so-called "developing" nations as millions of peasant farmers are displaced by mechanization. Third, economic globalization serves to break down the social fabric as materialism and greed substitutes for the communal values that prevail in peasant societies.

Mr. Bales is careful to contrast the "New Slavery" of today with the "Old Slavery" of the past. The New Slavery is clearly embedded within the logic of post-industrial production, where capital avoids its social and environmental responsibilities and ruthlessly exploits human and natural resources for maximum profit. In this light, the New Slavery represents the race to the very bottom of a brutal system that is controlled by speculative investors and is accountable to no one.

Case studies examining prostitution in Thailand and coal production in the Brazilian rainforest help us further understand the dynamics of the New Slavery. Subcontractors do the dirty work of luring and keeping laborers in servitude while shielding owners from justice. Mr. Bales tells us that in the case of Brazil, the landowners who blithely ignore such practices include some of the largest corporations in the world.

The Old Slavery defined by the traditional master/slave relationship has survived into the present as well. Mr. Bales courageously traveled to the police state of Mauritania to gather evidence of slavery at great risk to himself and the locals who assisted him. The author devotes chapters to Old Slavery practices in India and Pakistan, where repressive sexist, class, and religious beliefs enforce an essentially Feudal social order. However, Mr. Bales makes clear that the economic forces unleashed by globalization are effectively breathing new life into these ancient practices. For example, upper caste slave owners in India are heavily dependent on slave labor to support both their privileged social positions and their increasingly Western-style consumerist lifestyle.

As many in the U.S. theorize and debate from their easy chairs about the reasons why industrial jobs may be rotating to low-wage countries, Mr. Bales' book effectively shocks us from our complacency. As amply demonstrated in this book, slavery is an expression of the infinite demands of capital taken to its logical conclusion. Clearly, eradicating slavery is essential to reclaiming our humanity. To that end, Mr. Bales makes a number of policy recommendations and provides resources at the end of the book to help readers get involved in the anti-slavery struggle.

I give this sensitive, perceptive and important book the highest recommendation possible.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent, December 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Disposable People (Hardcover)

This book is fascinating, well written, and informative. The author never whines when discussing horrible situations around the world; he simply presents what he has learned from his extensive research. Every issue that I would have wanted to ask the author about is addressed in the book. The book is interesting politically, economically and culturally. I highly recommend it.