The Surplus Population in the United States

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In the united states, more than half are carrying some kind of disqualifying arrest or conviction record. Many people righteously believe that somehow continuation of unfreedom must mean a continuation of labor exploitation? It's different. There is exploitation, it's not labor. What turns into money that circulates as wages and interest and rent and utility bills and so forth, is time. The people who are locked up are deprived of time; they never get it back.

What role does mass incarceration play in American political economy? What does that reveal about what sort of politics are required to overcome it? Ruth Wilson Gilmore with Alberto Toscano and Brenna Bhandar, who edited the new collection Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy Assata Taught Me: State Violence, Racial Capitalism, and the Movement for Black Lives by Donna Murch haymarketbooks.org/books/1650-assata-taught-me