Bales, Kevin. Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. University of California Press, USA and UK.

If water is essential to human society and our global economy it seems that a vast labour pool of unprotected and dispensable workers is just as vital. If we think slavery went out a few centuries ago, it is time to think again. Slavery exists today in many forms from child labour in agriculture in much of the world to sex slavery, organized as a global business in Asia, but also the result of wars everywhere to brutal physical labour in resource extraction and manufacturing world wide. This is a depressing overview of humanity’s inhumanity, but we need to know and understand it. The business of slavery in business, Bale writes. We must examine and change our ways of investment and consumption. We have to delegitimize and deconstruct global trade agreements that allow the exploitation of people and we can join and work in anti-slavery, fair trade, pro-democracy and social justice movements locally and internationally. Bales, a British academic and expert on modern slavery, provides the necessary information for informed action.

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