Kevin Bales > Quotes

“Slavery is not a horror safely confined to the past; it continues to exist throughout the world, even in developed countries like France and the United States. Across the world slaves work and sweat and build and suffer. Slaves in Pakistan may have made the shoes you are wearing and the carpet you stand on. Slaves in the Caribbean may have put sugar in your kitchen and toys in the hands of your children. In India they may have sewn the shirt on your back and polished the ring on your finger. They are paid nothing.

Slaves touch your life indirectly as well. They made the bricks for the factory that made the TV you watch. In Brazil slaves made the charcoal that tempered the steel that made the springs in your car and the blade on your lawnmower. Slaves grew the rice that fed the woman that wove the lovely cloth you've put up as curtains. Your investment portfolio and your mutual fund pension own stock in companies using slave labor in the developing world. Slaves keep your costs low and returns on your investments high.”
― Kevin Bales

“When the police become criminals, slavery can take root.”
― Kevin Bales

“…consumers do look for bargains, and they don’t usually stop to ask why a product is so cheap. We have to face facts: by always looking for the best deal, we may be choosing slave-made goods without knowing what we are buying.”
― Kevin Bales, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy

“The frictionless genius of our creative class, which we see every day in our lives and in advertising, leads us to support environmental destruction and human enslavement that we never see.”
― Kevin Bales, Blood and Earth: Modern Slavery, Ecocide, and the Secret to Saving the World

“Legal remedies that enforce prohibitions against ownership are ineffective, since enslavement and control are achieved without ownership. When ownership is not required for slavery, it can be concealed or legitimated within normal labor contracts. For laws against slavery to work, there must be clear violations that can be prosecuted. To be sure, other laws make it a violation to take away basic human rights, to restrict movement, to take labor without pay, or to force people to work in dangerous conditions. Slavery is unquestionably the ultimate human rights violation short of murder, but to uncover such violations requires two things: political will and an ability to protect the victim.”
― Kevin Bales, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy

“If a government has no motivation to guarantee human rights within its borders, those rights can disappear. If those whose rights are violated cannot find protection, they are unlikely to accuse and fight those with guns and power.”
― Kevin Bales, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy

“Looking at the nature of new slavery we see obvious themes: slaves are cheap and disposable; control continues without legal ownership; slavery is hidden behind contracts; and slavery flourishes in communities under stress. Those social conditions have to exist side by side with an economy that fosters slavery.”
― Kevin Bales, New Slavery: A Reference Handbook

“In most Western countries the extreme differential in power needed to enslave doesn't exist, and the idea of slavery is abhorrent. When most of the population has a reasonable standard of living and some financial security (whether their own or assured by government safety nets), slavery can't thrive.”
― Kevin Bales, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy