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[Vic Van Meter]

Piggybacking on what Veik said, we don't necessarily consider most countries today to be slave states, but slavery is very heavily dependent on definition.  There are a lot of gold and diamond miners risking their lives in Africa under paramilitary rule just to make enough money to feed their families, which isn't necessarily slavery because they are getting paid.  The example of Chinese industrial workers is another good example; they're being compensated but how much choice they have in where they go and what they do is debatable.  You could almost wonder whether capitalistic societies really are that different from slavery, since I know a lot of my European friends are appalled at the scant benefits we get in America.  I just have to tell them that it's how it is, nobody really goes above and beyond on benefits to keep costs down, so you can't really change jobs for benefits easily.  Some of them call that slavery.

It's just one of those things that pops up when you say that a society doesn't practice slavery.  There's an AWFUL lot of grey area, especially with disenfranchised people.  Does it count as slavery if they're dissociated?  Is it not slavery, but there's no minimum wage and thus you can exploit them without calling a spade a spade?  Do they even have a choice, considering they need to probably take the most dangerous and terrible work possible if they don't want to go into illegal activities?

I mean, even at 10% of the population, we'd be talking about, over the entirety of Caldari space, an absolutely VAST source of cheap labor that has nowhere to turn to and, from what I've heard, no real human rights.  That was why, in response to Kunarian's point, I said they were like illegal immigrants more than regular disenfranchised people.  If you're disenfranchise, the government still wants to know where you go if you're disappeared into a swamp.  But if you're off the register, you're a deniable asset.  You could vanish and, considering your illegal status, you might simply never be heard from again.

Maybe they're just a bit more like the SINless.

In any case, transportation probably isn't too much of an issue.  In Houston, there were little back-lot pockets where laborers would gather.  People would drive up, pick them up for a day's work, then drop them back off again.  I always thought that was strange, but in a lot of developing countries that's just how work usually gets picked up.  You're a contractor at the mercy of fate.

Not sure if that's what the Disassociated are, I'm just providing some examples.  I think it's worth noting that nothing in EVE is born out of a vacuum, since there aren't many particularly alien concepts floating around.  Nothing may match up 100%, but it's not like EVE has a government run entirely by lottery.

Although come to think of it, there was a civilization that tried that, too.

[V. Gesakaarin]

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.

I would agree, but even something like 10% of the Caldari State which might have a few hundred billion or even trillions of people living there that translates to tens of billions of disassociated people not part of the corporations. The thing is, if these people don't appear on the records or a census then not even the Megas can really know what the actual numbers are can they? You know they exist, you know they're there, but you have no idea how many of them are there. If they become this nebulous and transient population that, "Aren't like a proper and upstanding Caldari citizen," then it's no surprise to me if they'd face prejudice, vilification or even outright persecution by corporate authorities who might see them as an internal threat to the proper order of things.

Then there's questions like, where do the Gurista get all their recruits from? If you're a well-provided for corporate citizen with a job for life and the Caldari version of a nuclear family with white picket fences why would you run off to lead a life of crime? If you're a disassociated non-citizen with no job, no opportunity, and facing social stigma and corporate persecution then getting on board with a criminal cartel seems like a ticket out especially if you're young and don't find the prospect of having to do all the menial dead-end jobs for a Mega in order to work your way back into society all that appealing.

It also makes sense to me as to just why the CEP gave so much power and authority to Tibus Heth if one considers that the Disassociated as a source of irrational fear for the Executives and management of the Megacorporations. The fear of this internal and transient population that you have no idea how many there actually are rising up against you and overthrowing you. If you don't know how widescale a problem really is, then it's easy to give into the worst case scenario thinking because fears aren't rational, and the State was also suffering from an economic recession and the Brothers of Freedom riots just prior to Heth's stunt at Piak.

Now as for the issue of the Disassociated being slaves or an unpaid labour force -- I think that's just people running with one scenario of the corporations, if they wanted to, being able to use them as prison labour. Which seems plausible to me, because these people don't have legal rights, or protections as non-citizens, and the PR spin can just tell people they're, "Working off their debts to society." That doesn't mean it's the sole and only means the corporations have to exploit non-citizens if they wish to, because the relationship the Disassociated have with the Megacorps, the State and other Caldari is a complex one to me and it's why I opened this discussion to see what other people think about them.

[Katrina Oniseki]

If the Disassociated are compensated for their work in some form be it pay or promise, and it's not a widespread or large scale abusive thing, I think it's entirely plausible.

It sounded at first like you were suggesting there may be these Mega-approved and habitual massive 'misery projects' being run that use hundreds of thousands of unpaid forced Disassociated labour under the whips of Caldari Commissars. But maybe that's just a learned response to your viewpoints on my part. I've grown a kneejerk reaction, so my apologies.

Is there a shade of grey where the Disassociated are exploited or abused? Almost certainly. Is it on a scale beyond the occasional small time company forging illegal work visas for DA workers to build a new office building? Probably not. I would think that if there are examples of the Burma Railway or Soviet Work Camps in the Caldari State, we would have heard about it by now at least from TonyG. The worst case scenario he came up with was just some poorly paid and abused employees, and even there most people seem to strongly disagree with that portrayal.

[Vic Van Meter]

If the Disassociated are compensated for their work in some form be it pay or promise, and it's not a widespread or large scale abusive thing, I think it's entirely plausible.

It sounded at first like you were suggesting there may be these Mega-approved and habitual massive 'misery projects' being run that use hundreds of thousands of unpaid forced Disassociated labour under the whips of Caldari Commissars. But maybe that's just a learned response to your viewpoints on my part. I've grown a kneejerk reaction, so my apologies.

Is there a shade of grey where the Disassociated are exploited or abused? Almost certainly. Is it on a scale beyond the occasional small time company forging illegal work visas for DA workers to build a new office building? Probably not. I would think that if there are examples of the Burma Railway or Soviet Work Camps in the Caldari State, we would have heard about it by now at least from TonyG. The worst case scenario he came up with was just some poorly paid and abused employees, and even there most people seem to strongly disagree with that portrayal.

To be fair, unfettered capitalism was the order of the day in the prewar period, and with people who made nothing and had nowhere to go essentially living in company housing, shopping at the company shop, and even being paid in company credit, that's what my first impression of the Caldari was when someone described them as "unbridled capitalism."

Since then, I guess I don't worry so much about the labor situation since all we ever see are capsuleers, but I've mostly started just toning it down and not measuring the Caldari as an authoritarian capitalist society per se.  Otherwise, I'd imagine the corporations exploiting whoever they could if it drove down operational costs.

[V. Gesakaarin]

If the Disassociated are compensated for their work in some form be it pay or promise, and it's not a widespread or large scale abusive thing, I think it's entirely plausible.

It sounded at first like you were suggesting there may be these Mega-approved and habitual massive 'misery projects' being run that use hundreds of thousands of unpaid forced Disassociated labour under the whips of Caldari Commissars. But maybe that's just a learned response to your viewpoints on my part. I've grown a kneejerk reaction, so my apologies.

Is there a shade of grey where the Disassociated are exploited or abused? Almost certainly. Is it on a scale beyond the occasional small time company forging illegal work visas for DA workers to build a new office building? Probably not. I would think that if there are examples of the Burma Railway or Soviet Work Camps in the Caldari State, we would have heard about it by now at least from TonyG. The worst case scenario he came up with was just some poorly paid and abused employees, and even there most people seem to strongly disagree with that portrayal.

Well the point I was driving at was that the disassociated, if they are not part of a Megacorporation, what legal rights do they have if it's only a Megacorporation that can write the laws and dispense justice for its own employee-citizens? The hypothetical scenario was that if a Megacorp subsidiary decided it was in their interest to go into a disassociated community, round some of them up, rubber stamp them all as criminals and send them off to a penal colony to do some hard labour for the "Greater Good" then what's to stop them?

Public disapproval? Sure, up to point, but if the disassociated potentially face social stigma and prejudice due to their situation how far would that go if they are already thought of as criminals and getting what they deserve? It might be an extreme example, but one that seems plausible in a State where there aren't things like worker's unions, independent tribunals, constitutional human rights, or strong Industrial Relations laws.

I think the Megacorporations exert massive control over the lives of both their own workers and that of the disassociated -- the difference being that the disassociated appear to be far more vulnerable to being exploited. Sure, they can be tolerated or even re-integrated back into a corporation but they can also just as easily be oppressed, marginalized and then swept under the rug because at the end of the day they're people that don't exist on the corporate records.

That aside, the disassociated do exist in the State, and the real questions for me are as to how and why they do.

I mean technically, every Caldari capsuleer could be considered as being disassociated in the sense that they're not actually fully a part of the State corporate system -- they operate under CONCORD and the Megas have no real authority over them anymore.

So there's probably flavour and variety to being a disassociated Caldari.

[Katrina Oniseki]

I think you may get better traction on this point if you clarify which disassociated you mean. As you already alluded to, there are many flavors, some more prone to exploitation than others.

Known types of Disassociated:

Independent Capsuleers - Us.
Guristas - Members of the Guristas crime syndicate.
Criminals/Gangs - Other miscellaneous organized and disorganized criminals.
Indigenous Populations - Native or non-aligned populations.
Refugees: Immigrants - Unrecognized or illegal immigration into the State for whatever reason.
Refugees: Displaced - Those whose lives were destroyed by natural disaster, war, or other no-fault situations.
Unemployed: Dishonored/Ex-Convicts - Those whose lives were destroyed by their own choices, including released criminals.
Unemployed: Laid Off - Victims of corporate juggling and economic hardship, lost their job through no fault of their own and simply can't find new ones.
Sickly or Disabled - Victims of debilitating disease or injury.

Some would be more ripe for the picking and exploitation. Others would be watched closely, and collusion with them would be considered treason. Others would be strictly hands off... there's little reason to do business with lepers.

[V. Gesakaarin]

I'd say in a general sense so far it's those open for exploitation as any persons living within the borders of the Caldari State that exist in a low socioeconomic background and lacking in legal rights extended from a corporate institution.

A broad definition, but I think the ranks of the disassociated are a broad group.

You could probably put members of criminal political groups on the list too such as the Templis Dragonaurs, Brothers of Freedom, and Provists. Maybe even some forms of unions or political party/organizations would be considered dissident/criminal and liable to cause their members to fall into disassociated status.

[Makoto Priano]

So. A couple of thoughts.

The first is that classic line describing the Caldari as part Finnish machinist,  part Zaibatsu. As the SINless Shadowrun reference indicates, I'm sure the majority of citizens are relatively content wage-earners going about usual business, with no risk of trumped-up charges to strip them of their citizenship and send them off to a gulag. Classically, company men could work uninspired but dedicated lives serving the company, and expect reasonable pay and plenty of security. Surely, Japan (hell, the entire world) is seeing that notion of a one-company career disappear, but the original idea stands. Indeed, TonyG was probably thinking of that when he had the Caldari economy flagging, and workers increasingly disappointed with the loss of the social contract. Still, considering this, and considering that communal-mindedness is a huge Caldari thing...

Abuses and mistreatment are probably more prevelant the further you go out from the economic centers. Managers and security may start thinking that the State is lightyears away, and that their duty to the Corporation on some forsaken backwater in Black Rise requires that they turn the screws on the troublesome citizen-in-name-only punks to get a few extra percent out of the colony for the sake of the boss back in Jita.

Again, this probably depends on corp culture, economic environment, and how everyone's handling Heth's rise and fall.

While I've no doubt abuses occur, whether they're at all common or even systematic is another question.

[V. Gesakaarin]

The beauty about it to me is that for the characters we play it really doesn't matter if the abuses happen or not because if you support the system you'd say the same thing along the lines of, "Why of course not citizen, there exists no such thing as the exploitation of the disassociated here in the State. Everything is just fine and dandy!"

As to whether they'd actually believe what they're saying is probably another thing altogether.

Edit: By that I mean denying that there is a problem or just outright ignoring that there's poor people on the fringe of society is exactly how you'd think the non-citizen would be treated.

[Repentence Tyrathlion]

So. A couple of thoughts.

The first is that classic line describing the Caldari as part Finnish machinist,  part Zaibatsu. As the SINless Shadowrun reference indicates, I'm sure the majority of citizens are relatively content wage-earners going about usual business, with no risk of trumped-up charges to strip them of their citizenship and send them off to a gulag. Classically, company men could work uninspired but dedicated lives serving the company, and expect reasonable pay and plenty of security. Surely, Japan (hell, the entire world) is seeing that notion of a one-company career disappear, but the original idea stands. Indeed, TonyG was probably thinking of that when he had the Caldari economy flagging, and workers increasingly disappointed with the loss of the social contract. Still, considering this, and considering that communal-mindedness is a huge Caldari thing...

Abuses and mistreatment are probably more prevelant the further you go out from the economic centers. Managers and security may start thinking that the State is lightyears away, and that their duty to the Corporation on some forsaken backwater in Black Rise requires that they turn the screws on the troublesome citizen-in-name-only punks to get a few extra percent out of the colony for the sake of the boss back in Jita.

Again, this probably depends on corp culture, economic environment, and how everyone's handling Heth's rise and fall.

While I've no doubt abuses occur, whether they're at all common or even systematic is another question.

My first novel was set in a society not unlike the State, just gone seriously bad.  Anyone not contributing to society was essentially erased from the system and taken in for genetic experiments, or had to flee into exile.

The mindset at work was essentially 'Your mere existence is a drain on resources'.  The people in charge very proudly declared that they had no unemployment, and thus their entire society was productive and useful.  Of course, they did this by taking the 'disassociated' and treating them as subhuman slave labour for all the dirty work that a real human shouldn't have to do.

That's the extreme version, but I see the State as having a similar mindset.  If you're not part of the system, you're a resource drain - and thus you owe us, and don't get to complain about anything we do to you.

[V. Gesakaarin]

You know, when the Caldari appear to practice social exclusion and ostracizing to varying degrees I still fail to see what would really prevent systematic abuse or exploitation of what could be said to be the most socially excluded and ostracized social group in the State -- if you become disassociated due to being a former convict, dissident etc., why would fellow Caldari even care about what happens to you anymore? 

Altruism solely for the sake of altruism doesn't appear to be a Caldari cultural value.

[Lyn Farel]

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.

Sounds to me like the crux of the difference of mindset between practicals and liberals.

Also, it's not really slavery. You could talk to a Caldari about those and calling it slavery, they will stare at you and tell you it's not. I would expect them to pay a misery to say that "they are paid, they are not slaves, they have a contract", even if the contract is a simple threat of being exposed to justice or whatever coercion is used. The coercion could also be more honourable, like "You are nothing, a disassociated. You do that job for us for x years and you will be granted a SuVee citizenship".

Also yes it may very well depend on the type of disassociated, though I do believe that as long as a group of people are not recognized or bound by any laws, they usually end up used and abused in many ways. It has always been like that through History, and call me a misanthrope but I believe that most societies would try to exploit and abuse anyone that is not protected by laws. If there is no law, there is nothing to be violated.

I would expect any kind of similar abuses in most factions upon groups with lesser rights, or non existant rights or laws to protect them. Why the exiled in Vo'Shun are not abused, or barely ? Because of Kadrea's Law. Without this one, you can bet their lives would be even more a misery of abuse. I would expect the same with slaves in the Empire, get lucky with a good Holder and you are fine. Get a bad one though.... Live in a gallente slum (an omega city for example) or in a poor district in the Republic, where law enforcement is null, and you might well live in hell and get exploited. Massive abuse ? Depends of the context. When it becomes too visible, it might actually turn counter productive. We can imagine a lot of various scenarii, from the mass exploitation of some fringe people here, and a really merciful fringe milieu there... All depending on the local and glocal context.

[Makoto Priano]

I worry that we're thinking about this in too binary a way. The issue is that Caldari communalism exists in contradiction to and in contention with capitalist competitiveness, but it exists-- so there will naturally be a spectrum along which this slides. For instance, I'm sure that Wiyrkomi, with its noted conservatism, has strongly communal leanings-- by which I don't necessarily mean paint it all red, but rather paint it all Confucian. Filial piety in its strongest reading states that a son should be absolutely loyal and obedient to his father-- but implies that a father is failing at his duty if he abuses this loyalty and does not educate and prepare his son to take the father's mantle. Remember that a manager's actions are surely being watched by both his competitors and his superiors; while an employee jumping a rung to make a complaint would be unlikely and perhaps even counterproductive, it may be that the intense pressure on Caldari to conform and to meet ideals exists not just on workers.

To a degree, I see the competitiveness of the lower classes of Caldari society being essentially a proving-of-worthiness to the father, given that they are surely expected to accept lower wages for work than their counterparts in the Federation or Republic, and in theory the best of them are being groomed for the next step.

Of course, all this pressure to meet expectations likely results in people -wanting- to drop out, adding a new class of disassociated: those who refuse, whether by suicide, criminal activity, or simply slipping out of the system to Brown Sector.

Also, this doesn't touch on the Finnish machinist-- but I see that coming in more with Caldari militarism, which doesn't seem expansionist so much as, "Invade us, and you will gain only enough land to bury your dead."

[Makoto Priano]

(also: "Disassociated workforce? No, of course not. But we do have independent contractors in our dormitories, with strict expectations for behavior lined out in their contracts.")

[Katrina Oniseki]

Clarifying again. I don't think anybody cares about the Disassociated from the Caldari standpoint. I think they care that their jobs are being given to Disassociated. It would be like "them immigrants takin our jobs", except it would be "them disassociated takin our jobs". You listed some hard or low-class work, like railroad building, cleaning, and factory jobs - but any society has droves of 'legit' people eager and willing to take jobs like that. I know I'd jump on the opportunity for a factory job, myself.