"Several freed disabled slaves told the AP they will return because they think that even the salt farms are better than life on the streets or in crowded shelters. In some cases, relatives refused to take back the disabled or sent salt farmers letters confirming that they didn't need to pay the workers."
If you ever need an example that there is no "government" there is only "us" you can use that one. These are horrific circumstances for the people involved. The solution is for the people in this community to take ownership of the horror and to commit to eradicating it. That means that each of them will either pay with some of their earned income or with their time, and they will take care of these disabled people and feed them and house them. Individually it will be a small sacrifice, but collectively it will give the disabled a way to live outside of slavery.
Except they don't.
In a democracy, it is run at the whim of the people. When it becomes too corrupt or veers too far from the will of the people who are governed, it is the people who must change it. Sometimes that can be done with voting, sometimes it takes protest, sometimes it requires one give up their own lives.
The choice to eject the current government is also a commitment that people share.
Except, it was a police officer that saved this and other slaves. The problem here is exactly the "us" in those islands, that self organized to flaunt Korea's laws.
> She brought the letter to Seo Je-gong, a police captain for the Seoul Guro district. "A vanished person had suddenly reappeared," Seo, now retired, told AP.
...
> Because Kim's letter noted collaboration between local police and salt farm owners, Seo and another Seoul officer ran a clandestine operation without telling local officials.
From your very own quotation, the people are explicitly condoning this. The government is doing a pretty good job of reflecting the will (or lack thereof) of the people.
Do you remember in the 70s and 80s that there was a raft of adoptions of Korean orphans in the US and elsewhere? That's because S Korea was still economically depressed and adoption was culturally frowned upon. Kids were abandoned left and right. It was the government that actually took initiative to push public opinion in favor of domestic adoption and it worked.
In this case, though, isn't it precisely the "will of the majority" that this continue? If any other minority were being oppressed, they might revolt, and thus create an economic incentive for the majority to take their needs under consideration—but since this minority is specifically "disabled people", they can't really do much, so the game-theoretic driver of "possible revolt" isn't there.
> since this minority is specifically "disabled people", they can't really do much, so the game-theoretic driver of "possible revolt" isn't there
In The Better Angels of Our Nature [1] Steven Pinker describes the process by which, in the past, humanity has expanded its "circle of empathy". Children, animals and countless other voiceless minorities have gained rights through this process.
One specific process he identified for expanding our collective circles of empathy is the expansion of literacy. "Reading is a technology for perspective-taking. When someone else's thoughts are in your head, you are observing the world from that person's vantage point" [2].
"Several freed disabled slaves told the AP they will return because they think that even the salt farms are better than life on the streets or in crowded shelters. In some cases, relatives refused to take back the disabled or sent salt farmers letters confirming that they didn't need to pay the workers."
If you ever need an example that there is no "government" there is only "us" you can use that one. These are horrific circumstances for the people involved. The solution is for the people in this community to take ownership of the horror and to commit to eradicating it. That means that each of them will either pay with some of their earned income or with their time, and they will take care of these disabled people and feed them and house them. Individually it will be a small sacrifice, but collectively it will give the disabled a way to live outside of slavery.
Except they don't.
In a democracy, it is run at the whim of the people. When it becomes too corrupt or veers too far from the will of the people who are governed, it is the people who must change it. Sometimes that can be done with voting, sometimes it takes protest, sometimes it requires one give up their own lives.
The choice to eject the current government is also a commitment that people share.