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[V. Gesakaarin]

Just a few drunken thoughts about the disassociated of the Caldari State:

- They are the "unemployed" of the Caldari State and do not work directly for a corporation. Live in what be described as poverty due to the State not providing a social welfare system.

- Exist mostly in communities similar to modern favelas/slums/shanty-towns/segregated districts outside corporate enclaves and urban centres.

- Are a source for cheap and "off-the-books" labour for the Megacorporations. Do all the bottom of the ladder jobs corporate citizens do not do -- cleaning, manual labour, and the like -- and are provided essentially a substinence wage for it.

- Disassociated communities can be a haven for criminal enterprises: narco-trafficking, prostitution, gambling, etc., that can be profitable enough for criminal cartels such as the Gurista, Angels and Serpentis to have a presence in the State and the poverty of the inhabitants provide many willing recruits.

- The criminal black/grey markets of the disassociated ghettos might also be utilized by the Megacorporations themselves off-record, and the "services" of providing illicit narcotics, prostitution and gambling may have a blind eye turned towards it.

- Corporate militaries may conduct particularly harsh and punitive actions in disassociated communities. This is primarily due to a real or imagined fear of open revolt against the corporate order by the disassociated. These fears might explain the particularly draconian measures against the Brothers of Freedom labour riots, and the Home Guard deployment against Tibus Heth at Piak. Public compliance by the CEP member Megacorporations with the CPD and the elevation of Heth to the office of Executor was due to fears he would raise the disassociated to open revolt against them.

- Being a member of the disassociated often brings strong social rejection as they are thought of by Caldari corporate citizens as either criminals, dissidents, a burden upon society, non-contributors, thieves, untrustworthy and unreliable. This might be exacerbated by corporate media propaganda that builds upon and creates these prejudices in order to justify their "pacifications" of disassociated communities.

[Vic Van Meter]

Except for the fact that they actually live in the same place they came from, it almost sounds like the way illegal immigrants are portrayed in the U.S. and U.K.

[Arista Shahni]

I'd use the term "minorities".  Then start singing Cartman's version of "In the ghetoooo!"

[Kunarian]

Except for the fact that they actually live in the same place they came from, it almost sounds like the way illegal immigrants are portrayed in the U.S. and U.K.

How can they?

In the world of the Caldari State you have everything provided for you with your employment. Your home would almost certainly be included. Especially with the modulated way Caldari live.

And in reference to your off handed comment on immigrants, don't take out of game issues into game, they'll cloud your vision. And don't start an argument here, you'll just pointlessly derail the topic.

As I imagine, considering the heavily urbanised way of Caldari living, as soon as you fall between the cracks you're a homeless person rough sleeping in the super city you used to work in, if you're lucky you'll find a way to rent accommodation from someone.

On shanty towns, the Caldari authorities wouldn't allow shanty towns to develop on the edge of their good employees living areas so I seriously doubt they'd form. Actual settlements of disassociated would be in the rural areas of the Caldari state and would simply have developed from a lack of sight from the megacorps and would not be things that would develop from poor unemployed people but rather settlements that have been around for at least a century.

Like in real life the disassociated would gather together in the lesser patrolled areas of the super cities. They'd do the dirty work you describe and such.

I think I agree with most of the rest of what you say but I'm commenting on the fly so if I've missed anything I'll pick it up later.

[V. Gesakaarin]

Well the Caldari State is a deeply capitalist society, and if there are winners there are also going to be the losers such as the disassociated who live on the fringe in poverty, right? The Caldari mindset also seems to approve of such a situations because those who fall into unemployment might be seen as weak or a burden to society because they failed to survive the test of social darwinism. That, and while they might face persecution and prejudice the Megacorporations might actually need the disassociated -- why make massive investments and outlay in an automated factory when you can exploit the poor to work in a sweatshop for next to nothing?

It's just like today, a corporation could spend the billions for a high-tech production plant in a developed economy or they could outsource the labour to a third-world sweatshop where they don't have to worry about things like minimum wage, safety regulations or high initial investments.

[V. Gesakaarin]

Actually, now that I think about it the more effective method would be not to pay the disassociated a wage at all. Just send in your corporate military into a disassociated community, blackbag as many people as you want or need, prosecute them all with crimes in a corporate court (made easier and more efficient with pre-signed confessions) then sentence them all to hard labour in your sweatshops.

[Vikarion]

Actually, now that I think about it the more effective method would be not to pay the disassociated a wage at all. Just send in your corporate military into a disassociated community, blackbag as many people as you want or need, prosecute them all with crimes in a corporate court (made easier and more efficient with pre-signed confessions) then sentence them all to hard labour in your sweatshops.

Yeeeaaaahh...as it turns out, that's only good if you don't really care about the quality of what is turned out. If people don't have an incentive to do something, they turn out shit. Hell, it's hard enough getting them to care when you are paying them an hourly wage well above the minimum.

[V. Gesakaarin]

Actually, now that I think about it the more effective method would be not to pay the disassociated a wage at all. Just send in your corporate military into a disassociated community, blackbag as many people as you want or need, prosecute them all with crimes in a corporate court (made easier and more efficient with pre-signed confessions) then sentence them all to hard labour in your sweatshops.

Yeeeaaaahh...as it turns out, that's only good if you don't really care about the quality of what is turned out. If people don't have an incentive to do something, they turn out shit. Hell, it's hard enough getting them to care when you are paying them an hourly wage well above the minimum.

I didn't say they were going to build volkswagens or personal electronics, there's always sectors of the economy where you don't need quality, just output. Does it matter how many criminal disassociated die to build the metaphorical trans-siberian railway so long as it's built?

[Katrina Oniseki]

Actually, now that I think about it the more effective method would be not to pay the disassociated a wage at all. Just send in your corporate military into a disassociated community, blackbag as many people as you want or need, prosecute them all with crimes in a corporate court (made easier and more efficient with pre-signed confessions) then sentence them all to hard labour in your sweatshops.

Yeeeaaaahh...as it turns out, that's only good if you don't really care about the quality of what is turned out. If people don't have an incentive to do something, they turn out shit. Hell, it's hard enough getting them to care when you are paying them an hourly wage well above the minimum.

I didn't say they were going to build volkswagens or personal electronics, there's always sectors of the economy where you don't need quality, just output. Does it matter how many criminal disassociated die to build the metaphorical trans-siberian railway so long as it's built?

It has nothing to do with worker deaths. It has to do with how much they pay attention to and care about the quality of the finished product. Even roads and railways require quality control, otherwise you end up with ones that don't last 10 years under any reasonable use.

[V. Gesakaarin]

Actually, now that I think about it the more effective method would be not to pay the disassociated a wage at all. Just send in your corporate military into a disassociated community, blackbag as many people as you want or need, prosecute them all with crimes in a corporate court (made easier and more efficient with pre-signed confessions) then sentence them all to hard labour in your sweatshops.

Yeeeaaaahh...as it turns out, that's only good if you don't really care about the quality of what is turned out. If people don't have an incentive to do something, they turn out shit. Hell, it's hard enough getting them to care when you are paying them an hourly wage well above the minimum.

I didn't say they were going to build volkswagens or personal electronics, there's always sectors of the economy where you don't need quality, just output. Does it matter how many criminal disassociated die to build the metaphorical trans-siberian railway so long as it's built?

It has nothing to do with worker deaths. It has to do with how much they pay attention to and care about the quality of the finished product. Even roads and railways require quality control, otherwise you end up with ones that don't last 10 years under any reasonable use.

Some of those old concrete forts on the Normandy coast have stood the test of time rather well considering the people that had to build them.

Edit: My smartphone also still works rather as expected (probably until the warranty runs out) even though I know they were assembled in some Chinese or Korean sweatshop somewhere.

[Katrina Oniseki]

Actually, now that I think about it the more effective method would be not to pay the disassociated a wage at all. Just send in your corporate military into a disassociated community, blackbag as many people as you want or need, prosecute them all with crimes in a corporate court (made easier and more efficient with pre-signed confessions) then sentence them all to hard labour in your sweatshops.

Yeeeaaaahh...as it turns out, that's only good if you don't really care about the quality of what is turned out. If people don't have an incentive to do something, they turn out shit. Hell, it's hard enough getting them to care when you are paying them an hourly wage well above the minimum.

I didn't say they were going to build volkswagens or personal electronics, there's always sectors of the economy where you don't need quality, just output. Does it matter how many criminal disassociated die to build the metaphorical trans-siberian railway so long as it's built?

It has nothing to do with worker deaths. It has to do with how much they pay attention to and care about the quality of the finished product. Even roads and railways require quality control, otherwise you end up with ones that don't last 10 years under any reasonable use.

Some of those old concrete forts on the Normandy coast have stood the test of time rather well considering the people that had to build them.

Edit: My smartphone also still works rather as expected (probably until the warranty runs out) even though I know they were assembled in some Chinese or Korean sweatshop somewhere.

The more work like that Disassociated do, the less work there is for employees. I can see them being used as in your examples from time to time, but not over the long term. It is tantamount to slavery, which is something the Caldari have never practiced according to PF. By almost any definition, it is slavery.

They may not get paid standard benefits according to Caldari law, but they must be given something significant as compensation to make the work voluntary instead of forced labor.

[V. Gesakaarin]

Actually, now that I think about it the more effective method would be not to pay the disassociated a wage at all. Just send in your corporate military into a disassociated community, blackbag as many people as you want or need, prosecute them all with crimes in a corporate court (made easier and more efficient with pre-signed confessions) then sentence them all to hard labour in your sweatshops.

Yeeeaaaahh...as it turns out, that's only good if you don't really care about the quality of what is turned out. If people don't have an incentive to do something, they turn out shit. Hell, it's hard enough getting them to care when you are paying them an hourly wage well above the minimum.

I didn't say they were going to build volkswagens or personal electronics, there's always sectors of the economy where you don't need quality, just output. Does it matter how many criminal disassociated die to build the metaphorical trans-siberian railway so long as it's built?

It has nothing to do with worker deaths. It has to do with how much they pay attention to and care about the quality of the finished product. Even roads and railways require quality control, otherwise you end up with ones that don't last 10 years under any reasonable use.

Some of those old concrete forts on the Normandy coast have stood the test of time rather well considering the people that had to build them.

Edit: My smartphone also still works rather as expected (probably until the warranty runs out) even though I know they were assembled in some Chinese or Korean sweatshop somewhere.

The more work like that Disassociated do, the less work there is for employees. I can see them being used as in your examples from time to time, but not over the long term. It is tantamount to slavery, which is something the Caldari have never practiced according to PF. By almost any definition, it is slavery.

They may not get paid standard benefits according to Caldari law, but they must be given something significant as compensation to make the work voluntary instead of forced labor.

Do you pay much mind that the rare earth metals used in the components for the electronic device you wrote that post with was probably mined out of the ground by some illiterate peasant in northern China who is probably going to die in his thirties or forties due to cancer or heavy metal poisoning? How about your clothes, do you try to ensure that they weren't made in slum sweatshop by some child working twelve to fourteen hours in Cambodia, or Vietnam or India?

The same goes for the disassociated, because not only do they suffer from the vagaries of poverty and unemployment they potentially face the prejudice and persecution from Caldari corporate citizens: they're criminals, dissidents, trouble-makers, lack honour, live without shame, worthless dogs, burdens on proper society, weak, couldn't make it, talentless, without ability, without merit, thieves, untrustworthy... list can really go on. Of course, if you live as a disassociated, a non-citizen, a non-entity, then what legal protections do you really have from the corporations that control everything? What care does a corporate citizen, comfortable in their own lives have for a non-person?

[Katrina Oniseki]

To help clarify what I mean; I'm sure unscrupulous management have occasionally opted to make use of cheap Disassociated labour from time to time. Perhaps the real workers went on strike, so the management threatened to bring in the Disassociated to run the factory (a clever threat to make the strikers Disassociated, and the Disassociated citizens again), or needed some extra hands on the railroad job.

But do I see a systemic habit of using forced unpaid labor of disassociated? No. In many cases, a job is seen as a citizen's ticket to a decent life. Without the job and work to go with it, a citizen is not worth the cost - and is indeed only a step away from not being one at all. For every job given to Disassociated labor, someone else is out of work and becomes a burden on society. This is an important concept in my view, because it means that slave labor is creating MORE disassociated and weakening society as a whole. Unpaid workers can't contribute back into the economy.

I'm not going to bother waving PF in your face and screaming about how it says no slaves, or anything, because I just don't think it makes sense for the Caldari to be using Disassociated on a large scale in the first place.

It makes a flavorful grimdark addition to say that the Caldari use misery factories filled with unpaid Disassociated, and build their space Burma Railway the same way - but it sounds like TonyG style evil Caldari for the sake of being edgy, like so many other tropes being thrown about these days.

[V. Gesakaarin]

To help clarify what I mean; I'm sure unscrupulous management have occasionally opted to make use of cheap Disassociated labour from time to time. Perhaps the real workers went on strike, so the management threatened to bring in the Disassociated to run the factory (a clever threat to make the strikers Disassociated, and the Disassociated citizens again), or needed some extra hands on the railroad job.

But do I see a systemic habit of using forced unpaid labor of disassociated? No. In many cases, a job is seen as a citizen's ticket to a decent life. Without the job and work to go with it, a citizen is not worth the cost - and is indeed only a step away from not being one at all. For every job given to Disassociated labor, someone else is out of work and becomes a burden on society. This is an important concept in my view, because it means that slave labor is creating MORE disassociated and weakening society as a whole. Unpaid workers can't contribute back into the economy.

I'm not going to bother waving PF in your face and screaming about how it says no slaves, or anything, because I just don't think it makes sense for the Caldari to be using Disassociated on a large scale in the first place.

It makes a flavorful grimdark addition to say that the Caldari use misery factories filled with unpaid Disassociated, and build their space Burma Railway the same way - but it sounds like TonyG style evil Caldari for the sake of being edgy, like so many other tropes being thrown about these days.

If the law only applies to citizens, then sure you can't impress a corporate citizen into slave labour. We're not talking about corporate citizens, we're talking about the disassociated who are non-citizens by definition. If you want to discuss PF, sure, point me to where the Caldari State has universal human rights, or a constitution with a bill of rights because from what I see all rights extend directly from a corporate institution towards its employees and workers.

If you think this is about being grimdark and edgy, it really isn't, because to me it's just a natural part of the State system: if you fall off the corporate ladder then you are really screwed. The Disassociated aren't slaves, they just fulfill a source of cheap and expendable labour that aren't on the books and no one really cares about so life can go on for the average corporate citizen.

You're the one talking about tropes and grimdark when I'm trying to promote a discussion about what appears to be the underclass of the Caldari State. Unless you're saying it's impossible for a hyper-capitalist society to have the poor and those that live in poverty because of it?

[Silver Night]

I think the problem would more likely be that there aren't enough disassociated. Not that it doesn't happen to them as you describe, but that it isn't that widespread because there are only so many available. We aren't talking about a situation where you have 50% of the population being used for cheap labor, we are talking single digit percents, maybe low teens tops - at least that's what I took away last time I read it. I think it is probably also more widespread in certain corporations than other (not because some corporations are more 'moral', but because some corporations are probably more image/propaganda conscious), and similar things go on in other places (the Republic - though less black bagging and more third world sweatshop - and contract deals with people who *are* allowed to own slaves in the Empire spring to mind).

On top of availability, there is convenience. If you have to travel very far for your unpaid labor, it starts to make less and less sense. I've no doubt that if SuVee starts up a mining program and there happens to be a world within a couple AU with a disassociated community they might 'recruit' there, but much farther than that and it seems like a lot of resources to expend.

Also (and this might be something that some corporations do, or even parts of corporations do one way, and parts other ways), with minimal effort, they might not need to use *forced* labor. Disassociated (some or most of them) probably want desperately 'back in'. All you have to do is promise them that if they are willing the submit to backbreaking labor for a few years, they might get a shot at starting back on the bottom rung as a real employee again.