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

Kevin Bales (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 16, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0520243846 | ISBN-13: 978-0520243842 | Edition: 2nd

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 contemporary slavery reaches from Pakistan's brick kilns and Thailand's brothels to various multinational corporations. His investigations reveal how the tragic emergence of a "new slavery" is inextricably linked to the global economy. This completely revised edition includes a new preface.
All of the author's royalties from this book go to fund antislavery projects around the world.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The horror of slavery, says Kevin Bales, is "not confined to history." It is not only possible that slave labor is responsible for the shoes on your feet or your daily consumption of sugar, he writes, the products of forced labor filter even more quietly into a broad portion of daily Western life. "They made the bricks for the factory that made the TV you watch. In Brazil slaves made the charcoal that tempered the steel that made the springs in your car and the blade on your lawnmower.... Slaves keep your costs low and returns on your investments high."

The exhaustive research in Disposable People shows that at least 27 million people are currently enslaved around the world. Bales, considered the world's leading expert on contemporary slavery, reveals the historical and economic conditions behind this resurgence. From Thailand, Mauritania, Brazil, Pakistan, and India, Bales has gathered stories of people in unthinkable conditions, kept in bondage to support their owners' lives. Bales insists that even a small effort from a large number of people could end slavery, and devotes a large chapter to explaining the practical means by which this might be accomplished. "Are we willing to live in a world with slaves?" he asks. As a sign of his commitment, all his royalties from Disposable People will go toward the fight against slavery. --Maria Dolan --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

No, University of Surrey lecturer Bales isn't reporting on wage slavery: the stories that slip into the newspaper now and then about workers in sneaker or soccer ball factories in Indonesia or Vietnam earning 20 cents or $1 a week. Bales means 27 million people held in chattel slavery, debt bondage, or contract slavery: "enslaved by violence and held against their wills for purposes of exploitation." Their masters he calls "slaveholders" because they don't claim to own their victims; they control their victims' lives and mobility and gain enormous profits from their labor. Bales investigated five case studies--prostitution in Thailand, water delivery in Mauritania, charcoal making in Brazil, brickmaking in Pakistan, and bonded labor in Indian agriculture--to trace the nature of modern slavery and compare its forms. Three factors explain the new slavery: the population explosion; economic globalization and modernized agriculture; and "the chaos of greed, violence, and corruption created by this economic change in many developing countries." Globalization ties us all to the new slavery, and Bales suggests what the reader can do. Mary Carroll --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 324 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 2nd edition (November 16, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520243846
• ISBN-13: 978-0520243842
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #112,410 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #65 in Books > Business & Investing > Economics > Labor & Industrial Relations
  • #65 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Labor & Industrial Relations

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, he is a leading abolitionist in the last great anti-slavery movement. Bales exposed how modern slavery penetrates the global economy in his Pulitzer-nominated book, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. The film based on this book, Slavery: A Global Investigation (TrueVision), which he co-wrote for HBO and Channel 4, won a Peabody Award and two Emmys. His book also inspired a project undertaken by seven Magnum photographers, which he helped to design and write, entitled Documenting Disposable People: Contemporary Global Slavery, which was mounted as a touring exhibition and published as a book by Hayward. Scientific American published his findings as a 9-page fully illustrated feature story. Bales was named as the originator of one of "100 World-Changing Discoveries" by the Association of British Universities and as a "visionary who is changing your world" by Utne Reader. Disposable People went on to publication in ten other languages and won the Premio Viareggio for the Italian edition.

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 ten 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." Ending Slavery won the 2011 $100,000 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Promoting World Order. In 2008, with Zoe Trodd, he published To Plead Our Own Cause: Personal Stories by Today's Slaves. In 2009, 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. He is currently writing a book on the relationship between slavery and environmental destruction, and with Jody Sarich a book on forced marriage. He gained his Ph.D. at the London School of Economics.

Hi lives in Brighton, England.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 64 people found the following review helpful

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

By Jedidiah Palosaari VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

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.

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful

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

By Malvin VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

"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

Format: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.