Illegal immigrants in Western countries can easily be led into situations that may be described as "debt bondage" or "wage slavery." They do not have legal recourses, yet are afforded a place as a "hidden" workforce of temps, day laborers, migrant workers, and sweatshop employees, with the threat of deportation used to ensure dependence.
Guest workers also tend to receive discriminatory treatment, even though they have a legal status. The Bracero program in the United States was critiqued along these lines, and the situation today has not improved in a real sense, as illegal immigrants continue to be used in similar ways for similar work.
These situations share a common thread with the original article in that class is created through legal status, and subsequently magnified by abuses. Enslaved workers are blocked from using resources that could get them out of their situation.
Guest workers also tend to receive discriminatory treatment, even though they have a legal status. The Bracero program in the United States was critiqued along these lines, and the situation today has not improved in a real sense, as illegal immigrants continue to be used in similar ways for similar work.
These situations share a common thread with the original article in that class is created through legal status, and subsequently magnified by abuses. Enslaved workers are blocked from using resources that could get them out of their situation.