Paid work, Slavery, Commerce

Oliver Sacks nybooks (paywall) tells how from the late 60s, Lunatic Asylums prevented inmates from doing useful work. Kitchen work, gardens, cleaning, all were regarded as infringing their rights. So they sat (still) all day in front of TV.
Conversely, in recent years, prisoners have been put to work for a pittance. Local plant nursery owners have complained that Rimataka prison is producing seedlings equivalent to 2 or 3 commercial nurseries.

Seems to me that growing organic plants is a fine thing. Sure would hate to see it being done in Private Prisons but.
Not sure how to reconcile with the interests of commercial growers. Guess home grown herbs also conflict, in a commercial world.
Capital has demonstrated that it produces more rice than Maoism. A dynamic thing but. All those family farms churning out grain under threat of loan... the tendency is for them to be bought up and incorporated into mega-farms. ... PRC is threatening/offering to buy farms in NZ... The biggest offer is from a PRC woman who "lost" $20M in an investment "scheme" - guess that means she qualifies as a true capitalist.. PRC wouldnt sell their land, but we might.

Mao took up Urea synthesis after Nixon visited. Mao also took up pig-shit methane generators. Which were mostly trashed under Deng. They're making them anew now. Guess the controls ... heat and such.. are easier now.
160,000 North Indian farmers drank the paraquat which the banks forced them to apply. Vandana Shiva talks of ankles burned by urea in the paddis.
Maybe prisoner's work, or even lunatic's work might be cleaner.

..nine cucumber samples and one bok choy sample contained traces of endosulfan ..highest readings were between 50 and 60 parts per billion..
Ten of 23 samples contained chlorothalonil or thiamethoxam over the allowable limit.
..other crops contained above-limit levels of methamidophos and thiacloprid in locally grown cucumbers, and two samples of imported oranges contained imazalil.
nzherald