If one imagines, for a moment, that the planet has been colonised by alien invaders and that the invaders have enslaved the Earth's population, what (if the colonialists spoke English) would they call their captive workforce? Assuming that the planet bore minerals and other substances which were of interest to the aliens, it would be unsurprising if the slaves were considered with little, if any, greater value than the materials which they needed. So, perhaps they would regard us as mere human resources.
This term has, since I first stopped to think about it several years ago, always made me feel, as a person, of little value; after all, the noun in the term human resources is 'resources', 'human' is just the adjective describing those resources.
Devaluing and degrading the general population is the strategy of all totalitarianism and it is increasingly evident that humans are becoming surplus to requirements to the corporations who actually do regard us as resources. The indicators are subtle but incremental but nonetheless very tangible to those who exist at one extreme of the economy.
The UK national minimum wage which is supposed to ensure reasonable living standards for even the poorest worker is actually causing the lowest standards of living to fall. More and more employers are only paying what they are legally bound to pay (and many are not even meeting the legal minimum) whilst the cost of living soars. The unemployed are expected to look further afield to find work - Job Centre staff have been told that claimants should be prepared to travel 90 minutes to and from work (a total of three hours travelling per day) which, when costs are analysed, is effectively an increased tax on work. The national minimum wage remains static but still considered a fair rate of pay.
Forcing many more wages down to a minimum are a number of factors. One factor is the migration of workers from poorer countries who are willing to work for less money or, as is often the case, live in poor conditions; so whilst a resident worker could not afford to pay their rent if paid the national minimum wage, a migrant worker sharing a caravan with several other people could. Many migrants are employed seasonally which again puts a resident wanting full time work at a disadvantage. I do not bear any malice toward the migrants - their circumstances make their willingness to travel to find work perfectly understandable.
But the net effect is that residents are unable to afford to work and thus claim benefits. I am aware that there are businesses who employ migrants whilst renting housing out to unemployed UK residents claiming housing benefit - the rent they receive trickles through their accounts and pays the wages of people who have come to work from eastern Europe. Much of this capital exits the country either directly back to the worker's family or savings or indirectly via the eastern European aisle in Tesco. Many employers advertise jobs in eastern European languages which discriminates against resident workers and I know from one employee that their employer stated quite openly that they will only employ migrants because they are willing to work for less.
The phenomenon of zero hour contracts is another factor which adversely affects wages - companies are paying the legal minimum hourly rate but not guaranteeing employees that they will even be doing any work but at the same time forbidding them to work for anybody else. The psychological damage of not knowing whether or not one is going to earn enough to live from one week to the next is unimaginable.
Perhaps the ultimate in bonded servitude is the use of prison labour. Prisoners' labour has been exploited throughout history; recent traditions of sewing mail bags have evolved, however, and prison workers now compete in modern service industries like call centres. The main focus of objection has understandably been on prisoners working in the insurance industry and the wisdom of giving convicted criminals access to details of people's property; contents and addresses. Little has been said, however, about the economics of this practise and how companies are paying captives a fraction of what they would be legally obliged to pay a free person. The consequencial affect which locking people up without justifiable cause has on a column in a corporate balance sheet may become a factor which is difficult for an ambitious accountant to ignore.
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