The Global Politics of Slavery

Many people think that the end of the American Civil War was effectively the end of slavery. Many people, unfortunately, are wrong. Slavery continues to be a significant problem in world politics today.

Slavery today can be seen in the practice of human trafficking.

Human trafficking is the illegal trade in human beings for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation or forced labor: a modern-day form of slavery. It is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world, and tied with the illegal arms industry as the second largest, after the drug-trade.

The trafficking of humans usually falls into one of multiple categories:

Bonded labor, or debt bondage, is probably the least known form of labor trafficking today, and yet it is the most widely used method of enslaving people. Victims become bonded laborers when their labor is demanded as a means of repayment for a loan or service in which its terms and conditions have not been defined or in which the value of the victims’ services as reasonably assessed is not applied toward the liquidation of the debt. The value of their work is greater than the original sum of money "borrowed."[13]

Forced labor is a situation in which victims are forced to work against their own will, under the threat of violence or some other form of punishment, their freedom is restricted and a degree of ownership is exerted. Men are at risk of being trafficked for unskilled work, which globally generates $31bn according to the International Labor Organization.[14] Forms of forced labor can include domestic servitude; agricultural labor; sweatshop factory labor; janitorial, food service and other service industry labor; and begging.[13]

Sex trafficking victims are generally found in dire circumstances and easily targeted by traffickers. Individuals, circumstances, and situations vulnerable to traffickers include homeless individuals, runaway teens, displaced homemakers, refugees, and drug addicts. While it may seem like trafficked people are the most vulnerable and powerless minorities in a region, victims are consistently exploited from any ethnic and social background.

Child labor is a form of work that is likely to be hazardous to the health and/or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development of children and can interfere with their education. The International Labor Organization estimates worldwide that there are 246 million exploited children aged between 5 and 17 involved in debt bondage, forced recruitment for armed conflict, prostitution, pornography, the illegal drug trade, the illegal arms trade and other illicit activities around the world.

Trafficking of children is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of children for the purpose of exploitation.

Trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of children can take many forms and include forcing a child into prostitution[17][18] or other forms of sexual activity or child pornography. Child exploitation can also include forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude, the removal of organs, illicit international adoption, trafficking for early marriage, recruitment as child soldiers, for use in begging or as athletes (such as child camel jockeys or football players), or for recruitment for cults.[19]

Thailand and Brazil are considered to have the worst child sex trafficking records.[20]

Trafficking in children often involves exploitation of the parents' extreme poverty. Parents may sell children to traffickers in order to pay off debts or gain income, or they may be deceived concerning the prospects of training and a better life for their children. They may sell their children for labor, sex trafficking, or illegal adoptions.

The adoption process, legal and illegal, when abused can sometimes result in cases of trafficking of babies and pregnant women between the West and the developing world.[21] In David M. Smolin’s papers on child trafficking and adoption scandals between India and the United States,[22][23] he presents the systemic vulnerabilities in the inter-country adoption system that makes adoption scandals predictable.

Thousands of children from Asia, Africa, and South America are sold into the global sex trade every year. Often they are kidnapped or orphaned, and sometimes they are actually sold by their own families.[24] In the U.S. Department of Justice 07-08 study, more than 30 percent of the total number of trafficking cases for that year were children coerced into the sex industry.[16]

To be clear, the enslavement of humans is not just happening in places like Brazil and Vietnam, there are numerous stories of human trafficking in America. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, there were 1,229 human trafficking incidents in the United States from January 2007- September 2008. Of these, 83 percent were sex trafficking cases.

Berkeley, California: Last January, the city's wealthiest landlord was arrested and charged with buying two teenage girls in India and bringing them to the United States for forced labor.

Anchorage, Alaska: Immigration authorities are currently investigating claims by Russian dancers that they were tricked into coming to the U.S. And forced to perform in a local strip club.

Las Vegas, Nevada: In September, authorities arrested the alleged leaders of an Asian organized crime ring, charging them with bringing Chinese women to work in brothels from New York to Los Angeles.

To federal law enforcement officials and human rights activists, these incidents prove that slavery is once again alive and thriving in America. Michael Gennaco heads the civil rights section of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles.

Human trafficking is a global problem--even in America.

What should be done with a problem such as human trafficking? Should anything be done at all? Can the US solve this problem alone--should the US focus on domestic policies against human trafficking? Or does the US need strong alliances with other countries to solve a problem like human trafficking? Does the US need to develop strong foreign policies against human trafficking? Does the US need to take the international lead on an issue like human trafficking? Or can the US let other countries take the lead?

Take a minute and answer a few of the questions.

The Limits of Neoconservative US Foreign Policy Commitments

Last blog post, we talked about neoconservative foreign policy commitments.

To help you recall, here are the five neoconservative commitments associated with US foreign policy that I mentioned in the last blogg:

1. Internationalism: The US should play an active role in world politics today by maintaining and extending the current global order that is in line with our national interests.

2. Primacy: American dominance in world politics is a stroke of good fortune for the world and for the US. US global dominance should therefore be maintained and no other power should be able to militarily and economically rival the US.

3. Unilateralism: American power is the source of global stability, not the UN Security Council, so US foreign policy should not be restrained to act unilaterally to maintain US national security interests and global stability.

4. Militarism: To unilaterally maintain US national security and democracy, global stability, and to extend democracy abroad, a strong US military is needed.

5. Democracy: Since US national identity, interest, and security are associated with democracy, and because the lack of democracy abroad is seen as a source of instability, democracy and the extension of democracy abroad is very important. Democracy at home and abroad is seen as in US interests.

In this blog, I want to talk about two possible problems: 1) the potential for excess in applying neoconservative foreign policies and 2) the potential reaction to neoconservative US foreign policies.

It seems to me that while neoconservative foreign policy commitments may have value, there is the possibility of excess. What do I mean by excess? Excessive application of neoconservative foreign policy commitments could lead to imbalances in other important policy arenas.

One example hinted at by several commenters on the last blog surround the balance between domestic and foreign problems. With such a focus on internationalism, what important domestic political issues might we overlook? Can you identify any? What are the limits of internationalism? When should domestic problems trump international problems?

Another example of excessive application centers on militerism. Currently, the US government spends over $1.03 trillion dollars on defense per year, which is used to maintain US military bases, personnel, and weapons systems in over 100 countries around the world, bases across the territorial US, and to fund wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is there a limit to defense spending? Should there be a limit to defense spending? In the Probability Broach, Ms. Kropotkin says that military spending takes away from important issues like education. Instead of a trillion dollars in defense, should we be spending a trillion dollars in education or healthcare or domestic infrastructure (e.g. bridges, roads, train lines, communications, border defense, etc) or some other area of national interest?

Neoconservatives see nondemocracies as a source of national insecurity. In terms of the possible reactions of other countries to US foreign policies, the US effort to spread democracy abroad may cause bigger problems for the US. For instance, among Palestinians, Hamas defeated the PLO party and won a decisive majority of seats in the Palestinian Parliament. Hamas has been on the US list of terrorist organizations. Democracy, in other words, does not always go in the US's favor. Could the US's effort to spread democracy abroad backfire? Should the US focus more on establishing solid alliances with other countries (regardless of what type of government those countries have) and focus less on spreading democracy abroad?

Unilateralism is seen as a benefit to US neoconservative foreign policymakers. But US unilateral interventions sometimes hurt US national intersts. For instance, few countries signed onto the US invasion of Iraq after 11 September because it was a unilateral foreign policy decision. The US did not get the approval of the United Nations and so the US's invasion of Iraq was widely seen as an illegitimate use of force. The most recent war in Iraq contrasts with the first war in Iraq in the early 1990s, when the US had UN support and a broad coalition of countries routed the Iraqi military in around 90 days of declared combat. Should the US seek to build strong alliances to help with fighting the war and supplying the money and resources before the US intervenes in countries? Is the cost of US unilateralism too much? Are there limits to US unilateralism?

There are surely other problems that I have not noted above. Are there other problems that you can identify with neoconservative foreign policy commitments?

Take some time, think about, and answer some of the questions that I've posed above.

Neoconservative US Foreign Policy and You

This week we are shifting gears. So far this semester, we have talked about anarchy, which is the condition out of which governmental order and political struggle emerges. With the emergence of government, we have talked about four different kinds of government that have historically taken shape and could possibly take shape in the future:

1. Governments organized around class struggle between socialists and capitalist oligarchs.

2. Totalitarian regimes controlled by one central Party that works to organize, unify, and more stringently control the population through symbols of national identity, the heroicization of a leader, surveillance, and violence. The individual is enveloped into the collective and finds value primarily through the Party.

3. Libertarian governments that recognize the inherent moral right of the individual to own and control their body and property and so these governments cannot legally infringe on those control rights.

4. Contemporary democratic governments are organized around two or more political parties. Eligible members of the population are allowed to more or less participate in the processes of government and more or less hold elected leaders accountable.

In the coming weeks, our gears will shift to important arenas of political struggle, like: foreign policy and war, immigration, colonialism, and global political economy.

This week's blog post focuses on foreign policy.

In public discussions of foreign policy, the word "neoconservative" is often used. While having older roots, this word and way of organizing foreign policy became very popular during the George W. Bush administration--and is associated with the launching of the US 'war on terror' and the subsequent invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Not as significant in the Obama administration, neoconservatism arguably continues to be a significant foreign policy philosophy today.

Here are five neoconservative commitments associated with US foreign policy:

1. Internationalism: The US should play an active role in world politics today by maintaining and extending the current global order that is in line with our national interests.

2. Primacy: American dominance in world politics is a stroke of good fortune for the world and for the US. US global dominance should therefore be maintained and no other power should be able to militarily and economically rival the US.

3. Unilateralism: American power is the source of global stability, not the UN Security Council, so US foreign policy should not be restrained to act unilaterally to maintain US national security interests and global stability.

4. Militarism: To unilaterally maintain US national security and democracy, global stability, and to extend democracy abroad, a strong US military is needed.

5. Democracy: Since US national identity, interest, and security are associated with democracy, and because the lack of democracy abroad is seen as a source of instability, democracy and the extension of democracy abroad is very important. Democracy at home and abroad is seen as in US interests.

Do you agree with all five of these neoconservative foreign policy commitments? Do you only agree with some of them? Which commitment do you feel is the most important? Why is this the most important commitment? Which commitment is the least important? Why is it the least important?

Do you disagree with any of the five neoconservative commitments to US foreign policy? Why do you disagree? What are some of the problems you can imagine might arise with the neoconservative commitments?

Democratic Politics in America

On the last blog, most commentators suggested that a few people ruled the American population. A few commentators suggested that the American population is governed by the many. That the majority of commentators see the US government as ruled by the few and not the many: Is that a problem for democratic politics in America? Why or why not is it a problem?

Also, in class last week, we talked about some of the features associated with democratic politics. One important feature was accountability: the rulers had to be accountable to the ruled. Most members of the class, as far as I could see by asking you all to speak up, felt that American leaders were not accountable to the ruled. Is this a problem for democratic politics in America? Why or why not is it a problem?

If you are commenting on this post and neither of the above issues are seen as a problem for democratic politics in America: Can you identify any problems with democratic politics in America?

The Government of America

It is useful to think about the relationship between the rulers and the ruled along three lines:

1. Rule of the individual -- a king, tyrant, or charismatic individual who commands a political community.

2. Rule of the few -- an oligarchy, or when a comparatively small group of people rule over a larger political community. The Iron Heel offered an example of a capitalistic oligarchy and so did the novel, 1984.

3. Rule of the many or rule of the people -- a democracy, or when a comparatively larger number of people rule over a political community. The Probability Broach presented a radical democratic republic where at least 90% of the representatives had to cast a vote before a policy could be made into law. The government was small and very democratic.

Look over the sets of questions below and spend some time thinking about and answering a few.

What do you think? Is America ruled by the many? Or is America ruled by the few? Should there be more democracy in America (like the government in the the Probability Broach) or less? If you said that there should be more democracy in America, what about in terms of waterboarding and military matters?

Do you participate (or know people who participate) in governing America? How do you/they participate? Do you/they vote? Do you/they participate in town/county/state councils? Do you/they pay attention to local, state, and/or national political debates? Do you/they work for the government? Do you/they have a sense of civic duty? Do you/they believe that Americans should participate in the government and should have a sense of civic duty?

Is the American government too big or too small or is it just about right in size? Would you like to see a government as small as the government in the Probability Broach or is something larger required? What particular aspects of the government (social security, military, welfare, etc) should be larger or smaller? Why should those aspects of government be larger or smaller?

Or maybe we should not be talking about the size of the government. Maybe we should be talking about the effectiveness of the government. Is the US government effective? If so, give me an example of what you think is effective government? Or is the US government ineffective? If so, give me an example of what you think is ineffective government? What could be changed to make some aspect of government more effective?