Slavery

Slavery is a condition of control over a person, known as a slave, that can be enforced by violence or other forms of coercion against his or her will. Slavery almost always occurs for the purpose of securing the labor of the slave. A specific form, known as chattel slavery, is defined by the absolute legal ownership of a person or persons, including the legal right to buy and sell them.

Potential for total abolition

Those 2.7 million people produce a gross economic product of US $1.4 billion. This is also a smaller percentage of the world economy than slavery has produced at any prior point in human history. That, plus the universal criminal status of slavery, the lack of moral arguments for it in modern discourse, and the many conventions and agreements to abolish it worldwide, make it likely that it can be eliminated in this generation, according to Free The Slaves. There are no nations whose economies would be substantially affected by the true abolition of slavery.

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A first step towards this objective is the Cocoa Protocol, by which the entire cocoa industry worldwide has accepted full moral and legal responsibility for the entire comprehensive outcome of their production processes. Negotiations for this protocol were initiated for cotton, sugar and other commodity items in the 19th century—taking about 140 years to complete. Thus it seems that this is also a turning point in history, where all commodity markets can slowly lever licensing and other requirements to ensure that slavery is eliminated from production, one industry at a time, as a sectoral simultaneous policy that does not cause disadvantages for any one market player.

Related Topics:
Cocoa Protocol - Cocoa - Moral and legal responsibility - Comprehensive outcome - Production - Cotton - Sugar - Commodity - 19th century - Commodity markets - Simultaneous policy

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Generally, consumer moral purchasing efforts are ineffective against slavery since slave labor to get the charcoal to produce rolled steel in Brazil, or on coffee or sugar plantations, is so far down the production chain that the final producers of such products do not know about everything involved.

Related Topics:
Consumer - Moral purchasing - Brazil - Coffee - Sugar

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