Modern Slavery: The Secret World of 27 Million People

• Published in: Labour Vol. 65; no. 65; pp. 251 - 253
• Main Author: Lichtenstein, Alex
• Format: Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Committee on Canadian Labour History and AU Press 01-04-2010; Canadian Committee on Labour History
• Subjects: 19th century; Abolitionists; Bales, Kevin; Consumption; Economic growth; Exploitation; Global economy; Human rights; Labour; Nonfiction; REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS; Slavery; Sociology; Trodd, Zoe; Williamson, Alex Kent
• ISSN: 0700-3862; 1911-4842

For historians of forced labour, Modern Slavery holds interest because of its efforts to measure and evaluate the institution of slavery in the contemporary world against its antecedents, especially the plantation slavery of the eighteenthand nineteenth-century Atlantic world. Bales, [Zoe Trodd], and Williamson - all avid partisans of today's anti-slavery movement - make the case that the institution took on some new characteristics after World War Two. First, using the shocking figure of 27 million, in a deliberate effort to puncture modern complacency about human progress, they argue that there are more slaves in the world today than "at any point in history." (vii) Secondly, as they correctly note, unlike the legal slavery of previous eras, slavery now takes place in the shadows, and its practitioners and beneficiaries (usually) try to keep it hidden from public scrutiny. Moreover, in contrast to the past, modern slavery rests far less heavily on distinctions of race, religion, or ethnicity, preying instead on the economically vulnerable wherever they can be found. Finally, because of massive population growth over the past six decades of human history, slaves, once valuable commodities and investments, have now become so inexpensive as to be practically expendable, "a cheap and disposable input to low-level production." (29) The authors conclude that the "fall in prices of slaves after the [postwar] population explosion set the stage for a great expansion in global slavery." (15) In a series of chapters, the authors then detail the connections between slavery and gender inequality, ethnoracial discrimination, armed conflict, and environmental disaster. While all of these elements can be linked to the presence of modern slavery, the authors suggest vulnerability to enslavement is most closely correlated with poverty, debt, and governmental corruption. Ironically, as they point out, it is modernization and globalization that have often created vast pools of "dislocated and impoverished people" who make up "a bumper crop of potential slaves" in the developing world. (55) In a vicious cycle, widespread slavery further distorts local economies, depressing wages and drying up consumption. "While slaves make a lot of money for slaveholders," the authors observe, "they tend to be a drag on a country's economy." (63) Thus combating slavery and eradicating poverty are part of the same struggle.