- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Human Beings as Commodities: Capitalism's Logical End

I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was this bad. According to an op-ed in today's "New York Times" by the e-journal Tom Paine.common sense, and citing Justice Policy Institute Research, the prison population in the United States hit two million this week, which is a 42 percent increase since 1990, meaning that although the United States has only five percent of the world's population, it has twenty-five percent of the world's prisoners! This is an estimated $41 billion market for private prisons.

Bear in mind that two-thirds of all prisoners are incarcerated for nonviolent offenses, and that companies such as AT&T, Toys-R-Us, Microsoft, and TWA have used contract inmate labor, and that there's an effort in Congress, being led by the Republican dweeb, Representative Bill McCollum of Florida, to make it easier for private prison labor contractors to compete against companies paying union wages and benefits, and you can begin to appreciate just how evil our system has become.

And the United States dares criticize China over its prison labor. The whole thing makes me sick.

Follow Ups:

• Time to pay the piper. Frenchy February 18 19100 (4)
  • You mean, time to examine the 'War on Drugs.' MDG February 19 19100 (3)
    • Personal responsibility David USA February 19 19100 (2)
      • The question is what are those limits, who sets them and to what ends? Sloopy February 20 19100 (1)
        • Choice David USA February 21 19100 (0)
• that is an ethical conservative prison-industrial complex. Lark February 17 19100 (0)
• So what else is new? Samuel Day Fassbinder Citizens for Mustard Greens USA February 17 19100 (1)
  • My underwear, for starters. MDG February 18 19100 (0)