The horror of slavery, says Kevin Bales, is "not confined to history." It is not only possible that slave labor is responsible for the shoes on your feet or your daily consumption of sugar, he writes, the products of forced labor filter even more quietly into a broad portion of daily Western life. "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 keep your costs low and returns on your investments high."

The exhaustive research in Disposable People shows that at least 27 million people are currently enslaved around the world. Bales, considered the world's leading expert on contemporary slavery, reveals the historical and economic conditions behind this resurgence. From Thailand, Mauritania, Brazil, Pakistan, and India, Bales has gathered stories of people in unthinkable conditions, kept in bondage to support their owners' lives. Bales insists that even a small effort from a large number of people could end slavery, and devotes a large chapter to explaining the practical means by which this might be accomplished. "Are we willing to live in a world with slaves?" he asks. As a sign of his commitment, all his royalties from Disposable People will go toward the fight against slavery. --Maria Dolan


From Booklist
No, University of Surrey lecturer Bales isn't reporting on wage slavery: the stories that slip into the newspaper now and then about workers in sneaker or soccer ball factories in Indonesia or Vietnam earning 20 cents or $1 a week. Bales means 27 million people held in chattel slavery, debt bondage, or contract slavery: "enslaved by violence and held against their wills for purposes of exploitation." Their masters he calls "slaveholders" because they don't claim to own their victims; they control their victims' lives and mobility and gain enormous profits from their labor. Bales investigated five case studies--prostitution in Thailand, water delivery in Mauritania, charcoal making in Brazil, brickmaking in Pakistan, and bonded labor in Indian agriculture--to trace the nature of modern slavery and compare its forms. Three factors explain the new slavery: the population explosion; economic globalization and modernized agriculture; and "the chaos of greed, violence, and corruption created by this economic change in many developing countries." Globalization ties us all to the new slavery, and Bales suggests what the reader can do. Mary Carroll


From Kirkus Reviews
A numbing indictment of our blindness to the new forms of slavery engendered by the global economy. Bales, a leading authority on this subject (Univ. of Surrey, England), defines slavery, quite specifically, as the ``total control of one person by another for the purpose of economic exploitation.'' The control is facilitated by violence and the foreclosure of personal freedom. He estimates, given this definition, that there are approximately 27 million slaves currently held in the world economy. One of the more virulent characteristics of this new slavery is a tendency to view slaves as relatively short-term investmentsreplacement is often cheaper than maintenance, thus the slaveholders will extract as much labor as possible, even if it means their victims will only last for several years of bondage. New slaveholders in the world economy also frequently insulate themselves against prosecution by maintaining fraudulent work contracts. Bales opens his essay with the story of Seba, a woman brought to France from Mali to serve as a house slave, but the book focuses primarily upon slavery in the third world. He describes the plight of child prostitutes in Thailand, slaves born under control of the White Moors in Mauritania, charcoal workers in Brazil, brick kiln operators in Pakistan, bonded farmers in India, and prisoners of war in Burma. He provides both personal accounts from the lives of individual slaves, and an overview of legal, political, and historical factors which influence the particular manifestation of slavery in a given locality. Bales makes a convincing argument that the new forms of slavery are directly related to trends in the global economy, and that opposition to slavery must also take the form of an international, global awareness of the situation. A powerful expos of the dirty little secret of the global village. (12 b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
Praise for the first edition: )

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Kevin Bales's disturbing investigation of conditions in Thailand, Mauritania, Brazil, Pakistan, India, and parts of America and Europe reveals the nature of the new slavery and how it has adapted to the global economy. But one thing remains the same: violence. People are still taken by force and held against their wills through fear. Bales interviews actual slaves, slaveholders, and public officials to reveal the lives of slaves, including enslaved brickmakers in Pakistan, sex slaves in Thailand, and domestic slaves in France. Throughout he uncovers the economic and social forces that sustain slavery, from the corruption of local governments to the complicity of multinational corporations. He pinpoints just who benefits from the incredible profits of the new slavery. And he shows how the lives of these slaves are bound by our own through our purchase of slave-made products or mutual funds that invest in companies using slave labor. In his conclusion, Bales offers suggestions for how individuals and governments can combat slavery and describes successful antislavery actions by international and local organizations.

SYNOPSIS

Slavery is illegal throughout the world, yet more than twenty-seven million people are still trapped in one of history's oldest social institutions. Kevin Bales's disturbing story of slavery today reaches from brick kilns in Pakistan and brothels in Thailand to the offices of multinational corporations. His investigation of conditions in Mauritania, Brazil, Thailand, Pakistan, and India reveals the tragic emergence of a "new slavery," one intricately linked to the global economy. The new slaves are not a long-term investment as was true with older forms of slavery, explains Bales. Instead, they are cheap, require little care, and are disposable.

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 PastoralLand 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.

FROM THE CRITICS

Times Literary Supplement

A book replete with both fascinating reportage and acute analysis.

Times Higher Education Supplement

At its best an empirically informed general discussion of slavery in the modern world economy.

The Sunday Tribune

Because of globalization, Bales argues, every consumer is linked to slavery and the final chapter explains practical ways of helping to bring it to an end. Begin by buying this book-all proceeds go to the international fight against slavery.

Silja Talvi - The Progressive

Bales doesn't hesitate to use Disposable People to make an overt, immediate call for action. "If there is one fundamental violation of our humanity we cannot allow, it is slavery," he concludes. "What good is our economic and political power if we can't use it to free slaves? If we can't choose to stop slavery, how can we say that we are free?"

Christian Science Monitor