Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy

Three interrelated factors have helped create the new slavery. The enormous population explosion over the past three decades has flooded the world’s labor markets with millions of impoverished, desperate people. The revolution of economic globalization and modernized agriculture has dispossessed poor farmers, making them and their families ready targets for enslavement. And rapid economic change in developing countries has bred corruption and violence, destroying social rules that might once have protected the most vulnerable individuals.

Bales’s vivid case studies present actual slaves, slaveholders, and public officials in well-drawn historical, geographical, and cultural contexts. He observes the complex economic relationships of modern slavery and is aware that liberation is a bitter victory for a child prostitute or a bondaged miner if the result is starvation.

Bales offers suggestions for combating the new slavery and provides examples of very positive results from organizations such as Anti-Slavery International, the Pastoral Land Commission in Brazil, and the Human Rights Commission in Pakistan. He also calls for researchers to follow the flow of raw materials and products from slave to marketplace in order to effectively target campaigns of “naming and shaming” corporations linked to slavery. Disposable People is the first book to point the way to abolishing slavery in today’s global economy.

All of the author’s royalties from this book go to fund anti-slavery projects around the world.

Customer Reviews 15 of 15 people found the following review helpful excellent, December 5, 1999 By A Customer This review is from: Disposable People (Hardcover) This book is fascinating, well written, and informative. The author never whines when discussing horrible situations around the world; he simply presents what he has learned from his extensive research. Every issue that I would have wanted to ask the author about is addressed in the book. The book is interesting politically, economically and culturally. I highly recommend it.   22 of 24 people found the following review helpful Slavery is back. It probably never left., December 29, 1999 By  A Customer – See all my reviews This is a book that should be required reading in schools all over the world. It tells the truth about slavery in our time. There are young African girls being enslaved in major cities like Paris, half-starved and tortured. There are little children in India and Pakistan working unbearable jobs all day every day for no pay. There are the sex slaves working in Thailand, unable to escape, picked up by the corrupt police when they try, and beaten, raped, and returned to the brothel where they are beaten and raped some more. There are the slaves of Mauritania, Brazil, and on and on, each with their own story. Of course there are topics not covered in this book, like the kidnapping and forced prostitution of French, British and American girls in the Middle East and Japan. But this book will motivate you to join Anti-Slavery International and become a modern day abolitionist.   12 of 12 people found the following review helpful Slavery exists today on all continents., August 30, 1999 By A Customer This book documents slavery in just five countries, but more importantly it gives a face to victims of slavery. Slaves range is age from 3 years to the age of usefulness. Mr. Bales contrasts American slavery to the slavery of today’s global economy. However, horrific and inexcusable American slavery was, in some ways today’s slavery is worse. It is certainly far more prevalent than most of us would like to beleive. Mr. Bales gives fairly easy tips on how average people can help combat slavery. My hope is that so many people will read this book that our combined efforts will have a positive and real effect for millions of adults, children, and children yet unborn.