Problem SOLVED! Modern American Slavery

A little over a week ago, author John Bowe published his latest book, Nobodies, examining three case studies as evidence of the continuing culture of exploitation in our fine nation.  The three probably-not-isolated cases were the exploitation of recent immigrants in citrus and tomato harvesting in Florida, the abuse of Indian immigrants in a Tulsa, Oklahoma steel-cutting plant and the clothing racket and misuse of an impoverished workforce on the U.S. protectorate island of Saipan.  What all three had in common were a pattern of physical and psychological abuse generally involving threats of deportation and harm, whether physical or fiscal, to the workers' families.  The other small thing they share, of course, is their ability to deliver a product to the American consumer at an ungodly low rate.

Naturally, a bargain-hater like Bowe came to the conclusion that it is ultimately our lust for good shopping values over ethics or any sense of responsibility that drives and implicitly supports such practices.  I can not support such a conclusion, however, as I am not a shill for the steel-cutters union.  I support the people of this fine country, and if the people want t-shirts to cost less than a dollar a piece, the market force is too much for me to hold back even if I wanted to, which I don't.  Additionally, I sleep on a large pile of t-shirts.  It's not by choice, though:  I am too fat for conventional beds.

That little factoid aside, you are probably thinking, "I thought this was an article about solving the problem of modern slavery.  What's all this talk about the joys of piles and piles of cheap clothing?  Doesn't keeping that sort of necessitate keeping slavery?  And if you're keeping slavery, what exactly is getting solved here?"  And to that I would say, "Point taken, hypothetically imagined thought used as a cheap ploy to continue the narrative of the article."

But it's important to note that this was never advertised as a means to eliminate slavery.  Far from it, in fact:  as slavery keeps prices nice and low, it must inherently be a good thing.  But why settle for a good thing when you can have a perfect thing?  It isn't necessary, for instance, to coerce and threaten your workers.  In fact, threatening and coercing your workers is more likely to drive the quality of the product down than dramatically increase productivity.  If there's one thing I can't stand, it's an insanely cheap product that doesn't also sate my need for extremely high quality.  The problem is not with the slavery itself; it's the fact the workforce is motivated externally, by threats, rather than internally, through intense self-discipline.  These workers shouldn't be enslaved.  They should be fucking fired.  The only remaining pertinent question is that which involved where or how to find the proper workforce to enslave, the currently available manpower to drive these industries more or less on their own without chastisement -- just for the Zen of the task, so to speak.

Fortunately for us, this very workforce exists, and currently all they're doing is causing trouble in Myanmar.  I'm talking, of course, about the Buddhist monks of the former Burma currently stirring up trouble over what they claim is an oppressive totalitarian dictatorship.  They're currently protesting over the lack of any notion of democracy in the country -- in particular the government's recent decision to ban public assembly -- but you and I are well aware that, like all protesters, they simply lack anything better to do.  Getting the monks out of Myanmar would only be good for them, too.

Think of the accomplishment they would feel with each bushel of tomatoes loaded on the trunk.  Think of the way their faces would light up when a truck full of cut steel pulled out of their loading dock.  Think of how far away they'd be from the Myanmar government thugs breaking into their temples in the middle of the night, while everyone sleeps, and beating the shit out of them.  Besides, even if you enslave a monk's body, you can never enslave his spirit.  My scenario gift-wraps wins for all involved.  We get cheap, high quality goods, the Myanmar government gets to keep oppressing its people without a united voice of resistance, and the monks finally get something to be proud of:  a job.  This problem is officially solved.