"John K. Taber" wrote:
> " ... [U.S.] prisoners today are increasingly a source of cheap labor. A
> number of states permit private companies to use convict labor. For the
> corporations this makes excellent sense: they don’t have to pay their
> prisoner-employees health insurance or unemployment insurance. .
[snip]
> Hmm. Many workers in freedom (to use Solzhenitsyn's expression) don't
> have health or unemployment insurance. What's the difference?
>
> Maybe prisoners have it better in some respects.
One point and one query.
The point: Conditions in U.S. prisons are unbelievably bad. They are so bad that prisons themselvesd can only be regarded as the most serious crime now being committed in the United States. And in addition the "War against Crime" and the "War against Drugs" are among the most potent ideological weapons in disarming the U.S. ruling class. They are so bad that it is very nearly a crime even to speculate that "Maybe prisoners have it better in some respects."
BUT.
The Query: Does the exploitation of prison labor really add up to much? The prison system is so large and so awful that undoubtedly, as with the military budget, someone is making money -- but I am not at all sure any or much of that money comes from the exploitation of prison labor. Does anyone on this list know?
[A speculation. During a period of tight labor such as the present, some employers might rather lose money "hiring" prison labor than lose money by offering higher wages to their regular work force. This would be a use of prison labor to aid in the exploitation of non-prison labor. Pure Speculation.]
Carrol