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Prison Labor is 21st Century Slavery:

Communism Will End Exploitation and Prisons

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Work Shall Set You Free” read the sign at the entrance of many Nazi concentration labor camps. “El Hongo,” in Mexico, does not have such a sign. It is not a concentration camp. According to the Mexican government, it is not even a prison but a “center of social rehabilitation.”
In “El Hongo” there is a maquila (a garment sweat shop) where five international corporations and their Mexican capitalist partners give some 300 inmates the “opportunity” to rehabilitate themselves through work.
They work 40 hours a week producing garments for Disneyland, Forever 21, Aerospatiale, Volcom and the US Army. At 72 US cents an hour, their monthly pay is $110, or $5.50 a day.  After deducting 30 percent for the inmates’ prison costs, they are left with $3.85 a day, of which 30 percent goes to their families, and 30 percent to their saving account. Their spending money is only 55 cents a day.
An inmate produces on the average 250 garments a day or about one garment every two minutes. Thus, he receives 17 cents for producing garments which are sold for $30, $40 or more each.
This slave labor is the inevitable result of the capitalists’ need to maximize their profits. Since only the worker’s labor power produces profits, maximum profits demand that the capitalists buy it at the lowest price possible or not pay for it at all like in the Nazi labor camps.

Prisons are profitable for the capitalists. Communism will eliminate prisons.
Eliminating production for profits and the market will eliminate the material basis for “crime.” With nothing being sold or bought, much of the “petty crime” that the capitalists use to imprison workers will disappear.
The working class in neighborhoods, cities, and worldwide, if necessary, will mobilize to deal with any and all anti-social behavior. There won’t be any courts, judges, lawyers or police.
We won’t have prisons. Bars dehumanize both the prisoner and the guard. We will struggle with those that participate in anti-social actions to change their behavior. Those that can’t or refuse to change after committing more serious deeds like sabotage, murder or rape will be banned from society.
They will be sent to isolated places, and given all the necessary tools for producing their basic needs. If they leave there to continue being a threat to society we might have to deal with them more severely.

Prison labor is the slave labor of the 21st century
The 21st century is witnessing one of the fiercest, if not the fiercest ever, capitalist-imperialist rivalry for market share: who produces the cheapest controls the market. That is why all major imperialist powers, and rising regional powers like Mexico, started using prison labor in the first decade of this millennium. The US dramatically increased its use since the 1990’s.
Chinese bosses, on the other hand, claim to have abolished their labor camps last year, releasing tens of thousands of prisoners. For now, “low paid Chinese manpower” is good enough for them. Their plan is to use this labor to produce and export more sophisticated products, and export their labor-intensive industries, like garment, to countries like Myanmar and Bangladesh. There the minimum wage is respectively $2.50 and $3.30 a day.
At these wages, capitalism is making it starkly clear that there is little difference between its wage slaves in prison and its wage slaves “free to commute from their dwellings to the plantation” as one MTA driver once said. The chain might be a little longer; giving the impression of “freedom,” but the prison outside is one of crushing poverty with all its accompanying evils. Only communism can put an end to this.
Crime in capitalist society mirrors that of the biggest criminals in history, the capitalists-imperialists. To rid the working class of its corrupting effects we must destroy them along with their wage slavery based on racism, sexism and borders.
Communism will mean a healthy, fulfilling life for masses of workers worldwide. We won’t have shackles on our bodies or minds. With protracted and sharp struggle, when necessary, we will eventually sweep away the remnants of capitalist ideology in ourselves and the whole working class.
Join our Party and help built it internationally, distributing Red Flags to your coworkers, family, and friends in schools, industries and the military.

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