Reply to comments on human trafficking post

There have been several comments to the two pieces I posted on this space in the past week or so. I will attempt to address only two in this submission. Let me start by providing some information on our investigation into human trafficking, or a slave trade between South Africa and Mozambique in the late 1980s. Afterwards I will lay out some ideas, only, about the issue of cheap labour vis a vis slave labour – and I will try not to be too didactic….

Our findings on the slave trade were published in the Weekly Mail and Sowetan on Friday 16 November 1990. See the picture below, which is a scanned section of the story that was published in Sowetan.

Somewhat related to story was the following comment: “Have to agree with Lyndall, those were serious allegations that you made on white South Africans — prove them or apologise… Why pick on white farmers when all farmers try to use the cheapest available labour.” I will address two things.

First, the methodology we applied in our investigations at the time included, actually “buying” young people from handlers, interviewing young people on the farms, interviewing case workers from a local non-governmental organisations, police in the region — who confirmed that they were called upon, by farmers, to deport the workers. From this process we established the key facts of our investigations. Just incidentally I, personally (against the confidential advice of my colleague Phil Molefe from the Weekly Mail), asked handlers/brokers to show me their “highways” and the ways in which they trafficked people through the electrified border fence. I never wrote about it because of a terrifying incident involving two human skeletons (on the Mozambican side), a minefield and the South African Defence Force, on the other side. Phil Molefe may confirm that he asked me not to go, but that I went anyway. Anyway, having established the above facts, and others involving personal purchases of AK47 rifles, we wrote and published our stories.

Human trafficking: Enslavement is not cheap labour.

The second point is this; there is a significant economic, ethical, historical and practical difference between virtual or actual enslavement for labour, and employing cheap labour. These should be very clear. The second comment on my post (by “Owen”) drew on economics rationalism; the commentator said that “all farmers try to use the cheapest available labour”. He is, of course correct, in terms of rigid economist logic.

Some economists in the mainstream tend to make the argument that slavery was of benefit to consumers and producers, which suggests that it may have been a good thing. If or when some of us disagree, they usually argue that economics theory would (ultimately) convince all social scientists of the “wonders” rational economic thought — that which I would describe as Solipsist Economics, for they consider theirs as the only reality. (Follow this link for what I consider a particularly apposite example of such reasoning) Economists generally believe, in this context, that all analyses –- historical, legal, social etc — would benefit significantly from Economics; we call this the “imperialism of Economics”. (For an argument about the “benefits” of economics imperialism in Law, follow this link)

I sense a digression coming :-). The “ethics” of slavery ought to be clear to everyone; most of us tend to think that it is a bad thing — I am leaving room for error, here. There is no general agreement, however, on cheap labour. For instance the much celebrated status quo economist, Paul Krugman, has publicly praised cheap labour and spoken positively, even, of child labour, with nary a word of protest from liberals in the United States. The irony is that Krugman used the old Verwoerdian policy decision to educate “coloured people” in South Africa as hewers of wood and carriers of water for that is what their destiny would be. In his rationalisation, Krugman argued that being a hewer of wood and drawer of water was better than not having a job. This, ironically, discredits the economics rationalist postulate that “the market” is the ultimate arbiter in human endeavour, especially when it is patently clear that direct and purposeful human intervention (like apartheid, pogroms, genocide, racism, slavery etc) and social relations, in general, can play a definitive role in the lives of people. Anyway, let’s try to look at some issues related to the comment by “Owen”…. Since we live in a capitalist world a capitalist explanation is in order.

Capitalists love cheap labour; It’s true…

A Ladybird™ version of the relationship between capitalism and labour would go something like this: In capitalist society the mainstream ethics of labour are shaped by economic rationalist thought. In the simplest of terms, human endeavour can become commodified as input, and the cheaper inputs are the better. It seems simple. There is a problem, though, one that not everyone may agree on, it has to do with the Kantian maxim about whether humans can, or should be treated always as ends, or also as means…

If you’re a capitalist, you may consider people as means to an end, most of the time. So, I agree with “Owen” that farmers (in capitalist societies) will seek and use the cheapest forms of labour. Here is the question: Does that include using labour which is the cheapest of all — free? I disagree with the implication that because a black person underpays her/his staff, or buys slaves that makes it more acceptable. That reference is asinine. We should not be naïve. Human trafficking is not the exclusive practice of white people. In fact, the “handlers” or “brokers” in the Mozambique case, were not white and those in the US-Mexico case were Mexican. In his haste to respond, “Owen” may have overlooked those details.

In fact, while slavery was formally abolished in many countries around the world, there is an argument to be made that new forms of enslavement have emerged. For instance, it was discovered, sometime during the late 1999s and early 2000s, that children were sold into slavery in West African countries like Benin and Togo. At the time a UNICEF official explained that: “People come and offer the families money and say that their children will work on plantations and send money home. They give the family a little money, from $15 to $30 — and then they never see their children again.”

Let us go back to what I think is the main issue. Because this “labour” is “bought” cheaply does that make it acceptable? Krugman gave us the mainstream economics answer: “You may say that the wretched of the earth should not be forced to serve as hewers of wood, drawers of water, and sewers of sneakers for the affluent. But what is the alternative?” Surely there are other ways of looking at it — even if Krugman suggests that if we disagree with his view we have not done enough thinking, or Brad DeLong, his contemporary (also from the US; see link above), thinks that if only we thought like economists we would all see the point.

So, having provided the information about when our investigation into the slave trade between Mozambique and South Africa was published, and having presented some issues around the question of slave-labour, cheap-labour (and child labour), the commentators to my post have some ideas and things to think about. I have not tried to build an argument against them, and not even formally against what they said — especially not in terms of the latter issue, of cheap/slave labour. I did dismiss the reference to black capitalist underpaying their staff as asinine. I do wonder, though, why “Owen” rushed to invoke the example of a black person…. Nonetheless, I have not tried too hard to change the minds of commentators.

What I will repeat, though, is that if you’re a capitalist you may agree with the simple maxim that it is important to lower the cost and increase the profit. The cheapest form of labour for profit is enslavement.