How we cite our quotes: The main text of the story is cited (Chapter.Paragraph). The date headers are not counted as paragraphs. The verses in the chapters with a single passage from the narrator's religious texts are cited (Chapter.Verse.Line#). In chapters with multiple passages, the verses are cited (Chapter.Verse#.Line#). The four section pages with the years and passages are cited (Year.Verse).
Quote #1
Anyone KSF hired would have a hard time living on the salary offered. In not very much time, I think the new hires would be in debt to the company. That's an old company-town trick—get people into debt, hang on to them, and work them harder. Debt slavery. That might work in Christopher Donner's America. Labor laws, state and federal, are not what they once were. (11.21)
Hmm, being in debt...that kind of sounds familiar for many of us, right? Like, if you fail to pay back student loans and then fail to appear in court about them, you can be arrested. Is it fair to equate a mountain of debt to slavery? Lauren seems to think so, although she calls it debt slavery and not just regular slavery.
Quote #2
Harry woke up, drank a little water, and listened while Zahra told how Richard Moss had bought her from her homeless mother when she was only fifteen—younger than I had thought—and brought her to live in the first house she had ever known. He gave her enough to eat and didn't beat her, and even when her co-wives were hateful to her, it was a thousand times better than living outside with her mother and starving. Now she was outside again. In six years, she had gone from nothing to nothing. (15.12)
Here's another type of slavery: marriage. Zahra was trapped with Richard Moss, but she viewed that situation as better than her past of living on the streets. It's not until Robledo is destroyed that Zahra has to start anew. So now that Richard Moss is dead, she's free, right? Well, maybe freedom isn't so simple. Zahra doesn't have many possessions or any money, so can she sustain herself? She's on the streets yet again. But this time, she has Lauren and Harry—so perhaps an Earthseed community for societal support will be her means of freedom.
Quote #3
I looked at Harry. "You might be able to get into Olivar if you can walk there from here. The Garfields would take you in."
He thought about that for a while. "I don't want to," he said. "I don't think there's any more future in Olivar than there was in our neighborhood. But at least in our neighborhood, we had the guns." [...]
"[T]hey were our guns, not hired gunmen. No one would turn them against us. In Olivar, from what Joanne said, no one's allowed to have a gun except the security force. And who the hell are they?" (15.14-17)
This dialogue between Harry and Lauren occurs shortly after the destruction of Robledo. Harry's analyzing the downsides of migrating to Olivar and ruling out doing so himself. He doesn't use the word slavery, but that's pretty much how he imagines it would be if he lived in Olivar, since people there can't own guns unless they're part of the company security force.