Note 870 — Chapter XIII · THE FORM-WORLD OF ECONOMIC LIFE (A) MONEY
Charles Francis Atkinson translation
That is, up to the limit of servage and slavery, although very often—as in the present-day East and as in Rome in the case of “vernæ”—slavery itself may be nothing but a form of compulsory-labour contract and, apart from that, hardly sensible. The free employee often lives in far stricter subjection and enjoys far less respect, and his formal right to “give notice” is in many cases practically valueless to him.
[British readers will recall in this connexion the “Chinese slavery” controversy in South Africa in 1904, and the questions of indentured labour that come to the surface not infrequently in Australian politics. And in an older generation defenders of slavery as practised in the sugar islands of the West Indies are still to be found—not to mention the survivors and tradition-bearers of the “Old South” in the United States.—Tr.]