Modern American Slavery

Slavery did not end with the Emancipation Proclamation, the historically forgotten event that Juneteenth commemorates, or with Maj. Gen. Benjamin Franklin Butler's acceptance of Southern runaways as war contraband into Fort Monroe in Virginia . The history books, written by the winners of the winners and for the winners, are all misleading. Sure, slavery as an institution that trafficked humans as commodities to be bought and sold has constitutionally been abolished with the 13th amendment. Despite this, slavery in America today is more rampant than ever. As a friend of mine recently griped, "a country built on slavery cannot exist without it." Just because it's not obvious to most people doesn't mean it isn't there. After all, as the saying goes, isn't the greatest trick the devil pulled convincing the world that he doesn't exist?

The past institution of slavery was embedded in a greater system known as free market capitalism which, today, is booming. We are slaves to that system. We are born into it, unable to opt out. We are naturalized into a culture of materialism and consumption, expectation and normativity, mortgage and debt. By the time most of us graduate college, we have accrued much debt. By the time we have finished graduate or professional school, we enter contractual de facto indentured servitude. We had no idea. Of course, we knew the loans we took out would eventually have to be paid back, but we had no idea how much they would be and how long they will take to pay off. We get a job and begin saving. We meet someone and decide to get married. Then we have kids. By the time it looks like the loans will be paid off in a matter of time, we realize suddenly that we need to begin saving money that our kids can go to college. With inflation, a recession and rising tuition costs across the board, this spurs an existential moment. Colloquially, it's known as a midlife crisis. At this point, we realize, in full self-pity, that we never had a chance.

We are victims of what Marx called false consciousness, a phrase indicating that the material and institutional processes by which a capitalist society is run misleads and alienates its members. This is to say that we go about our lives more or less unaware of how we relate to society at large and other members in it, which when realized, shatters the shallow, smug security we felt thinking we were in control – the captain of our ship. As Marx elsewhere observes, "they do not know it, but they are doing it." We dreamed and bought into the lies of the American Dream, of self-actualization, of being all we could be. We bought into them and set to work, but we were too late, for we were deceived by what Zizek calls our ideological fantasy. This is to say that our social reality is an illusion guided by an illusion. In other words, we acknowledge the system in place, yet still refuse to really reconcile with its implications, so instead we simply accept the illusion that it offers under the compelling facade of an American life.

Thus convincing the disempowered of our empowerment, the insecure of our security, the hopeless of our hope, the human psyche, so fragile and desperate for refuge, embraces the lies. It's easier and everyone else seems to be doing it, so by way of collective effervescence we all conform to the perceived norm. The problem arises, as I mentioned before, when the midlife crisis strikes and the illusion is laid bare. As Zizek contextualizes, "...they know that their idea of Freedom is masking a particular form of exploitation, but they still continue to follow this idea of Freedom." We have the freedom to purchase with the money we've saved up, and so the crisis is temporarily abated as we wallow in our great achievement of acquisition... until the repressed reality behind the illusion creeps to the surface once again. Alienation at its finest.