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NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with
power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams

Friday, December 7, 2012

Slavery returns to Europe





The Road to Serfdom
Belarusian Ruler Introduces Forced Employment
  • Socialist Government bans workers form quiting their jobs at state owned businesses. 
  • "You will be sentenced to compulsory labor and sent back here if you leave."


The Serfs of Europe were first created in 332 AD by the Roman Emperor Constantine.  He issued legislation that greatly restricted the rights of farm workers and tied them to the land.

Serfdom is making a comeback all around the world.

Now in Socialist Belarus workers like Vladimir Dodonov want to flee the nation for neighboring Russia before it becomes illegal to leave his job at a wood-processing plant.

Belarus' authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, has decided to stem an exodus of qualified workers to Russia, starting by banning those who work in wood-processing industries from quitting.

Critics have compared the measure to serfdom and warned that it would only deepen the former Soviet republic's economic troubles and fuel protests against Lukashenko reports the Associated Press.

Dodonov, 37, who earns the equivalent of $140 a month at the Borisovdrev plant, says he could make several times as much in Russia and would have left earlier if he hadn't had to care for his ailing mother. "How can you survive on such a miserable salary?" he said this week. "Naturally, I'm thinking about leaving for Russia before they turn me into a slave."


Europe's Last Dictatorship - Belarus







"You will be sentenced to compulsory labor and sent back here if you leave," Lukashenko warned Friday during a visit to the plant, located in the industrial city of Borisov, about 70 kilometers (some 45 miles) east of the Belarusian capital, Minsk.

The president said his decree would apply to more than 13,000 employees of nine state-run wood-processing plants and 2,000-3,000 construction workers involved in modernizing them. Lukashenko said on a visit to the plant that his decree would become effective on Dec. 1. Even though he hasn't signed it yet, Borisovdrev workers who tried to quit this week were barred from doing so by the administration under various pretexts.
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Lukashenko promised to raise an average worker's salary at the plant from the current $150 a month to $400-$500, roughly what it would be in Russia. He pledged to increase it further to $1,000 by 2015, but some of the workers were skeptical.

"My children want to eat now without waiting for 2015," said Nikolai Khmelevsky, 42, who currently earns about $200 a month at the Borisovdrev plant. "I have been looking for another job, and now they will tie me here."


Managers at the Borisovdrev plant, a set of grim-looking Soviet-era buildings, refused to comment. The plant and other wood-processing plants are part of a concern that is 100 percent owned by the state, as are most Belarusian industries. The wood-processing plants export most of their output to Russia and Europe.

Nikolai Pokhabov, the leader of an independent union in Borisov, warned that Lukashenko's order could spark protests. "The government is trying to solve problems with a stick at the workers' expense," the union leader said. "But it fails to understand that threats and reliance on the stick will only push workers to flee the country or stage protests."

Alexander Klaskovsky, an independent Minsk-based analyst, said that Lukashenko may later try to expand the measure to other sectors of the economy. "Amid a severe economic crisis, Lukashenko is launching a risky experiment that could later be spread to the entire economy," Klaskovsky said. "It amounts to Lukashenko introducing elements of slavery in 21st century Europe."

About one million people in the nation of 10 million are estimated to be working abroad, most of them in neighboring Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania. One of the ironies of the situation is that Russia, which is seen as a prized destination by Belarusian workers, itself prevented its people from working abroad during Soviet times, through tight restrictions on exit visas.


Serfs in Europe
Forced by their Lords and Masters in government to work at the same jobs for generations so the ruling class could live the high life.




A pariah in the West, Lukashenko also often has tense relations with Moscow, which has been angered by his resistance to yielding control over Belarusian industries to Russian business. Lukashenko has kept most of the economy in state hands, but he is dependent on cheap energy and loans provided by Russia.

Last year, Belarus saw a sharp devaluation of its currency and inflation exceeding 100 percent after Lukashenko raised public sector wages in a populist move to ensure his re-election.

Lukashenko has managed to quell the public discontent thanks to new loans from Russia, but analysts warn that the country of 10 million may soon drift into a new crisis as it faces mounting foreign debt payments. Russia may not be eager to provide more aid or make it contingent on Lukashenko surrendering control over more economic assets.

"The Soviet-style economy has exhausted its resources and the Kremlin has become increasingly reluctant to issue loans," said Yaroslav Romanchuk, the head of Mises Research Center in Minsk. "Lukashenko has to invent abnormal motives in the absence of regular economic mechanisms."

(Associated Press - Chem News)


A Serf bows to his Lord.
In the old days Serfs served as tax slaves, working the land and forced to turn over the wealth they produced to their Lords and Masters in Government in return for "protection".  That sounds more and more like our so-called modern society. 

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The Road to Serfdom Series

The world is moving toward a modern form of Neo-Serfdom where everyone works for the all-powerful State or businesses controlled by the State. A world where individual property rights and economic freedom do not exist.



FREEDOM IS VANISHING: What happens when the major employers are owned by government backed investment groups, or your food comes from government owned farms, or your news is delivered by so-called "private" corporations but are in reality connected and interconnected to governments?

George Orwell had a name for it: Big Brother.

Please check out other stories in our Serfdom series.

THE FEDERALIST - "China to buy up the Australian dairy industry."

THE FEDERALIST - "China Buys Up the United States."

THE FEDERALIST - "750,000 Chinese have Colonized Africa"

THE FEDERALIST - "Korea secretly buys Australia."

THE FEDERALIST - "Australia and Africa become Arab Food Colonies."

THE FEDERALIST - "China buys Australia (For Cheap Too)"

THE FEDERALIST - "The Chinese conquest of Africa"

THE FEDERALIST - "China buys New Zealand - The Road to Serfdom, Part XVII"

THE FEDERALIST - "Arab Food Colonies in Black Africa."

THE FEDERALIST - "Chinese colonization of New Zealand blocked."

THE FEDERALIST - "Chinese "Slavery" in Africa - The Road to Serfdom, Part XIV."

THE FEDERALIST - "Argentina fights Saudi Land Grab."

THE FEDERALIST - "LAND GRAB: 160,000 people thrown off their land."

THE FEDERALIST - "China is buying up Argentina."

THE FEDERALIST - "Corporations use Global Warming to steal land."

THE FEDERALIST - "China wants to buy a huge chunk of Iceland"

THE FEDERALIST - "China to buy up Australian farmland"

THE FEDERALIST - "Brazil takes action to protect their farmlands from foreigners"

THE FEDERALIST - "Saudi Arabian "Food Colonies" in Argentina"

THE FEDERALIST - "China buys oil fields in Texas"

THE FEDERALIST - "America is committing suicide - The Road to Serfdom, Part IV"

THE FEDERALIST - "The Road to Serfdom, Part III"

THE FEDERALIST - "Benito Mussolini was right"

THE FEDERALIST - "The Road to Serfdom, Part II"

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