Quote Originally Posted by d0zer View Post
Well first of all, I've never been talking about coercion of the poor in the sense that they choose to sell their kidney to pay for their kid's education or something like that, so let's drop that strawman. I've always been talking about modern day slavery in the form of debt bondage.
Debt bondage exists mainly (perhaps entirely) through government endorsement. Everything from historical American plantation slavery to current Saudi Arabian debt slavery are dependent on protections of the slave owners by their governments. Without the backing of government legal institutions and security forces, owners of debt bondage do not have the capital to enforce cooperation. Consider the Saudi example, where Bangladeshi laborers are engulfed in perpetual debt and have their passports confiscated. At first glance it may seem like their controllers are the private owners of the debt, but it is only through the government stopping the Bangladeshis' potential resolutions that the system persists. For example, fleeing is possible. They can pretty much all flee from the physical location of bondage and from the clutches of their masters. Except for one caveat: the government stops them from getting far through various "security" measures. So then fleeing isn't possible, and it's the government that has created perpetual debt bondage. The private interests on the matter are cunts, but again, if the government offers a $100 to anybody who punches somebody for wearing blue, the industry will be created. That scenario sounds ridiculous to us, but it's not, because we have ample examples of equally ridiculous things like imprisoning people for smoking a joint