r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/AnonymousTimewaster • 8d ago

Video Coal mining

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45.3k Upvotes

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4.1k

u/Citharichthys 8d ago

You load 16 tons what do you get?

432

u/SomeFunnyGuy 8d ago

Scrip. You get scrip. In coal mining towns, instead of receiving payment in standard currency, miners often received company scrip, which was a form of token money redeemable only at the company store, essentially creating a closed economic system controlled by the mine owner. Yeah.. it's pretty messed up.

271

u/AiDigitalPlayland 8d ago

Sounds like slavery with extra steps

162

u/Farfignugen42 8d ago

Not that many extra steps, really. Once you are in, the easiest wat to leave is in a coffin.

40

u/Sunny-Day-Swimmer 8d ago

That makes it sound easy, when the reality is wasting away hacking and struggling for breath for literal years of agony

3

u/booi 8d ago

How many scrip is a coffin?

5

u/Farfignugen42 8d ago

However much you have left

2

u/wrt-wtf- 8d ago

Yep, the advantage of scrip is that it’s useless to the outside world. It provides a mirage of freedom while building a town of slaves. Much like Silicon Valley had done by locking peoples packages into minimal wage topped by share options. Little to nothing in terms of liquidity for the average punter.

1

u/Rogne98 5d ago

With the exception of funerals, everywhere is easiest to leave in a coffin

42

u/Western-Customer-536 8d ago

Why do you think they call it “wage slavery”?

29

u/Sandriell 8d ago

It was, which is why it is illegal (in the US at least) now.

43

u/Decloudo 8d ago

For now.

Btw:

Prison labor is legal under the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. Prison labor in the U.S. generates significant economic output.

13

u/No-Syllabub4449 8d ago

This is pretty messed up. The goal should be rehabilitation. If anything, prisoners should be encouraged to have some form of employment that will make them less likely to continue a life of crime when their sentence is through.

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u/bg_bobi 8d ago

What if they are on their life sentence?

5

u/No-Syllabub4449 8d ago

Are you asking if they should be allowed employment or whether it’s okay to use them as slave labor?

0

u/bg_bobi 8d ago

The latter. Since their crime is already henious enough... why not? [Except when a person gets framed but thats just an exception] /s

0

u/No-Syllabub4449 7d ago

I’d say no for a few reasons. For one, it perverts the incentives of the justice system, which as much as we like to think is this sacred constitutional system, is run by flawed humans. For example, there have been cases of private prisons giving judges bribes to increase the number of people they sentence to prison.

Additionally, what happens when someone is exonerated after 20 to 30 years in prison and they just spent that entire time as a slave? It would be better if those cases were of people who at least spent some of that time employed.

If the goal is to punish people and make them suffer so as to make people think twice about breaking the law, I’m not sure how to think about that. There may be some truth to that being effective, but I personally think crime has more to do with economic duress individually and communally. If you made a plot of zip code wealth and crime rates, it would probably fit a straight line pretty closely.

0

u/Western-Customer-536 8d ago

The US is one of like 10 countries that even has the ability to impose a sentence of 25 or more years. The USSR’s prison system stopped at 15.

We have actual slaves picking cotton in the Louisiana sun today. There is even a house/field slave dynamic today because there are some slaves so work outside of State Government buildings and ones who work indoors. Hillary Clinton talks about them working in the Arkansas governors mansion in one of the 6 books she wrote about herself.

We have more prisoners both per capita and by population than any other country in recorded history. The “land of the free” is the world’s largest penal colony.

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u/WestEstablishment642 8d ago

"Made in USA" means made in prison unless it's verifiably and explicitly stated that it isn't.

1

u/EnvironmentalGift257 8d ago

Prison labor everywhere generates significant economic output. It’s not just the US.

1

u/bennyyyboyyyyyyyy 8d ago

They were talking about the company store model being illegal. There was literal battles fought in KY over this. How is prison labor relevant?

3

u/HowAManAimS 8d ago

Disney wants to bring them back. So does Elon Musk.

0

u/Fluffy_Art_1015 8d ago

They’re trying to make company towns a thing again so they can “scientific advancement not be slowed down by beurocratic bloat” aka no oversight human trials. Exactly what the nazis did in prison camps. Vivisections on people including children. Experimenting on how quickly poisons or biologicals killed people

1

u/Western-Customer-536 8d ago

They already have the concentration camps, they already are full of children, they already are known for sterilizing racial minorities, and this was all already on the front page of The New York Times. Years ago.

Notice how nothing happened.

2

u/AltruisticAnteater72 8d ago

"wait! My universe a miniverse!?!"

2

u/Gazrpazrp 8d ago

Ooh la la, someone's going to get laid in college.

1

u/Remarkable-View-1472 7d ago

No no they get families and buy stuff from each other

1

u/International-Mud449 7d ago

Some ones gonna get laid in college

0

u/CrossP 8d ago

It is. It's also why American corporations prefer our health insurance only be available through our jobs. Obama and Biden tried to fix that for us, but they only got halfway.

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u/Calm-Technology7351 8d ago

It essentially was especially considering the company owned everything you paid your money to including your living situation and means of getting food. This was outlawed around 1910 by teddy roosevelt iirc. One of many worker first policies he implemented to protect against corporations abusing workers including children

FDR did some work in favor of workers rights as well but since his presidency works right movements have largely been outpaced by corporate rights resulting in the current economic issues including the massive wealth inequality

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u/AiDigitalPlayland 7d ago

I’m quoting a cartoon that makes dick and fart jokes.

1

u/Calm-Technology7351 7d ago

I’ve seen Rick and Morty