
The perpetuation of bonded labor in Pakistan - DanBC
https://www.dw.com/en/life-of-slavery-the-perpetuation-of-bonded-labor-in-pakistan/a-51792298
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baybal2
Pakistan is the closest thing today to a medieval feudal society. Near no
industry, and the upper class is mostly represented by landlords.

Bonded kiln labourers are one thing, but there are also a lot of bonded land
labourers.

Were there any opportunity to make money with labour, things would've changed.
See, now if those people were to run away, even then they would have little
opportunities to make money elsewhere.

Country is knee deep in trade and financial sanctions around the world thanks
to India (try sending a wire there from a Western nation, and you will be up
for an amazing adventure.) That's not the only impediment to doing exports.

You have to add to this that the elites there a very conscious that if the
industrialisation will "hit the fan" it will hit the fan on them. Some are
working quite actively to lobby against industrialisation, and trying to
sabotage it with passive-aggressive style resistance.

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vermontdevil
And they have nuclear bombs

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selimthegrim
That’s a little overblown- they’re kept disassembled and have PALs that the
Americans know the code to

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briandon
Wikipedia, which of course is not infallible, says that Pakistan rejected US
offers to share PAL technology but is believed to have developed their own
equivalent.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_weapons_of_mass_d...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#US_security_assistance)

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BrandoElFollito
This is a painful read, from the comfort of an armchair. The worst is that I
even have no idea how an individual can help in such situations.

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andrewwharton
I just realised we just spent more on 5 days for a holiday rental over
Christmas than this family received for selling 2 kidneys to try and escape
their debt. It’s crushing to read stories like these. Surely there must be
some sort of structural reform possible to “the way the world works” to
prevent this absurd imbalance.

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lotsofpulp
>Surely there must be some sort of structural reform possible to “the way the
world works” to prevent this absurd imbalance.

Yes, it's called redistributing wealth from those that have it, to those that
don't. That means people that have large homes, yards, SUVs, vacations
requiring flights, give them up, and pour their resources into lifting up
those that don't have it. And not just money, but time and effort to educate
the uneducated and impoverished, and blood to fight the oppressors.

It's not a realistic goal, hence it's "the way the world works". It does help
one appreciate how lucky one is to be born in the right place at the right
time.

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fennecfoxen
The primary problem with this suggestion is that it ignores the actual
problem. The barriers to the common man's prosperity in Pakistan are erected
by the political elites in Pakistan. A world where you can meaningfully talk
about employing redistribution is a world where you have already removed those
elites and empowered the population against them: a world in which we're
having a rather different argument.

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lotsofpulp
Removing those elites is what I meant when I wrote "blood to fight the
oppressors", aka war.

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fennecfoxen
If we are advocating revolution, the next thing is for Pakistan to actually
meaningfully industrialize, and gain sufficient wealth — redistributing what
already exists only goes a short way. In the ideal case this involves the
world economy, and probably looks like outside investment building factories,
and the factories paying Pakistani people mediocre money while the new
government builds institutions suitable for a modern economy — courts that
respect the rule of law, laws that provide a balance between the needs of
capital suppliers and labor, laws that promote meaningful competition instead
of entrenching well-connected political elites, and a modern education system.

The likelier alternative is they eschew participation in the world economy,
building things from scratch themselves, doing it badly, without a rule of
law, with a bad education system, with heavy state involvement that provides
power to well-connected political elites, and a populist attitude which
ignores the needs of capital, promoting empty slogans about economic justice
instead of committing to the hard work and sacrifice associated with actually
achieving it. The net result will be depressed capital formation, with an
economy tilted towards state-run sectors and large companies which are
friendly with the new regime. Since capital is important for productivity, the
economy will continue to stagnate, though presumably it will see some
improvement (it'd be hard not to at this point).

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toohotatopic
Does this have a racial background like the lower castes in India?

As far as I am informed, Islam not only spread by sword in India but also
because it overcame the caste system. I don't understand how people united in
their rejection of castes are willing to maintain slavery.

Could it be that Pakistan has many former lower castes members and even after
centuries of leaving the caste system behind them, they are unable to overcome
their victimhood?

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adictator
That is not correct. Caste system never existed in India, at least not in the
same or anti-humane form as in Islam - like Sunni, Shia, Ahmediyas etc. Caste
system was an invention of the British & magnified to exponential proportions.

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selimthegrim
Shia and Ahmadiyya are treated badly, but they are not castes (not yet
anyway). All British did was freeze what they saw in place.

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adictator
The British thought that India suffered from the same casteism as Christianity
(& Abrahamic religions) in other places, so they tried their best to retrofit
Indian society into that model. But they could find no evidence of casteism,
so they were forced to artificially make up many "castes" & grouped people
based on occupation etc. The people who could not be fitted into any castes
were called a tribes, which are now known as scheduled tribes & castes.
Otherwise there should have been just 4 castes according to every tenet of
Hinduism. Unfortunately, Indians & the GOI have formalized that artificiality
& that is the genesis of the caste system. Caste system is nothing but an
invention of the British. Caste itself is a Portuguese word, nothing that
correlates to Indian / Hinduism.

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selimthegrim
Pray tell, what casteism does Abrahamic religions suffer from? Sectarianism?

