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Consider for instance the re-institution of slavery. Who could have imagined twenty years ago that slavery would return to Europe? Well, slavery has been restored under our noses. The forced-labour camps all over Europe and North Africa where Poles, Russians, Jews and political prisoners of every race toil at road-making or swamp-draining for their bare rations, are simple chattel slavery.

George Orwell#87

OrwellHistoryWorkOppressionRightsSlavery

About this quote

What does it mean?
Modern forced labor camps in Europe are essentially a return to slavery under new names.
In plain terms
Forced labor is just slavery by another name.
What can you take from it?
Recognize modern slavery in plain sight.

Where it applies

  • studying totalitarian regimes
  • human rights advocacy

Putting it to work

  • exposing forced labor
  • supporting human rights

Questions to consider

  • How does slavery hide in modern times?
  • What is the cost of progress?

Another view

Some argue it is economic necessity.

More from George Orwell

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  2. When I think of antiquity, the detail that frightens me is that those hundreds of millions of slaves on whose backs civilization rested generation after genera…

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  3. But is it perhaps childish or morbid to terrify oneself with visions of a totalitarian future? Before writing off the totalitarian world as a nightmare that ca…

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