ABC NEWS Philosophers suggest slavery as alternative to welfare The World Today - Thursday, July29, 199912:31 COMPERE: With few new ideas from either the Government or the Opposition on actually getting the long term unemployed back into jobs, two South Australian philosophers have come up with an idea which may leave a lot of Australians breathless. Associate Professor Ian Hunt, and Senior Lecturer, Rodney Allen, from the Centre of Applied Philosophy at Flinders University in South Australia, suggest that voluntary slavery would give unemployed people a purpose in life, and save taxpayers money. Peter Jeppesen reports. PETER JEPPESEN: The key difference between the slavery of the plantation owners of the past and the modern slavery of the South Australian philosophers is that modern day slavery would be voluntary. You would agree to become a slave in return for lifelong board and lodgings. Now once you'd made that contract then you would lose your rights to freedom. But according to philosopher Rodney Allen, it might not all be bad. The obvious question though who'd want to give up today's freedoms to become a slave? RODNEY ALLEN: It's been estimated that about 30 per cent of our work force are facing a lifetime of fairly low paid casual work, and they are going to be beset by economic insecurity. Now people who are anxious about insecurity or impoverished may find it to their advantage to contract themselves into life long slavery because they would have the security, the security of being maintained for the rest of their life and they could even be much better off than they would be in an impoverished welfare dependent situation because they could be sharing in the recreations and the lifestyles of their rich and powerful owners. I mean in the past slavery got a very bad press and bad name because it's been associated with the sort of brutal plantation slavery of the Caribbean and of America in the 19th century, but what we're envisaging is not just voluntary slavery, but a situation where the slaves would have rights. They'd have rights to lifelong maintenance, to sustenance, to food, lodging and medical care, and these rights could be guaranteed by a sort of industry regulator. PETER JEPPESEN: Would there be slave trade unions to protect their rights? RODNEY ALLEN: Well no. Slaves would have no right to self-determination once they made the initial contract, but there would be an industry regulator, a government body, a slavery commission, which would oversee the way in which this was done and make sure that the slaves rights - and the slave has obligations - were met, and if that was considered inadequate, I mean, we, the rest of the people in society could set up - well in the same way as we now have a Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and a Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, we could have a royal society for the prevention of cruelty to slaves which would monitor the situation and make sure that slave owners, or prompt the government to make sure that slave owners were meeting their obligations. PETER JEPPESEN: So a modern day slave's life need not necessarily be a life of misery and drudgery? RODNEY ALLEN: No, no. As I say people who are now facing a life of welfare dependency and impoverishment could well be much much better off under this sort of arrangement. PETER JEPPESEN: What would be the value of this though? I mean seriously what would we actually get from it? RODNEY ALLEN: We're facing a sort of three pronged problem. There is first of all long-term unemployment, the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer, and the problems of economic insecurity, the fact that the present policy wants to emphasise the competitive market economy and labour market deregulation, but specially a competitive market economy which will ensure that we for the foreseeable future that our society will, our economy will generate both winners and also long term losers who need to be looked after and at the same time it's part of the present policy to have a low tax regime and to cut back on social welfare. So put all those things together the introduction or the institution of voluntary slavery could cut down the drain on governmental funds and so lead to lower taxes because there wouldn't be such a drain on the welfare system and at the same time the people who are now facing long term unemployment and a life of idleness could get back into useful work. COMPERE: Rodney Allen works for his living as a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Applied Philosophy at Flinders University. Peter Jeppesen reporting for us. ------------------------------------------------------- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/
