In his blog post today , Steve Pavlina mentions that he is looking for staff to help with his business.

However,   he doesn’t want to hire ‘employees’. Rather he is looking for ‘slaves’ to work for him in exchange for a place to stay, food to eat, ‘learning from him’, etc. And then he goes into his usual ‘having a sexy secretary as slave, having sex with his slave, being called a master’, etc rhetoric.

Here are some other important points about how this arrangement would work out:

1. No Employee Protection Government Regulations

Steve mentions that he doesn’t want to deal with all the bureaucracy and red tape involved with hiring employees. Translation: He doesn’t want to pay any taxes that would arise from owning X number of employees, OR, he doesn’t want to deal with the goverment laws that are put in place for the protection of employees.

Here are some of the things that the law provides protection against, but which anyone working as a slave for Steve would be unprotected from:

  • Wrongful job termination.  (You can be fired at any time for any reason by Steve).
  • Unsafe work environment / work conditions.
  • Not being given proper health insurance/benefits.
  • Sexual harassment.
  • Racial discrimination.
  • Emotional Distress.

It also means that, given the kind of unquestioning obedience he is looking from his ‘slaves’, if one of them was to get raped or harassed by Steve,  she would likely have no willing witnesses to what happened.

Of course, other things like emotional distress or bullying at work would also go unpunished without the protection laws that Steve brushes aside as ‘red tape’.

2. No Personal Development for Steve Pavlina’s Slaves

Though Steve talks all the time about personal development, instilling confidence in people, not following orders like a zombie, breaking free of cultural programming, etc, its amusing to see that he is actually looking for brainless zombies to work as his slaves, who would unquestioningly obey everything he says, and have everything from their food to their clothing picked out by him.

For example, on his forums, this is what someone asked him:

“What if they don’t like the food? Or each other?”

And this is what he replied:

“Submissive and obedient slaves don’t cause problems anyway. Only an uppity slave would do that sort of thing.”

Think about it. What kind of person would willingly enter a situation where:

  • They don’t get paid for their work.
  • They have to call a self important git like Steve Pavlina ‘master’.
  • They don’t have any protection against discrimination, sexual harrassment, medical insurance, etc.
  • They have to obey everything unquestioningly, and if they don’t, they are ‘uppity’.

My guess is, only someone who has hit rock bottom in his/her life. Definitely not someone who is employed in a job. And quite possibly someone who is extremely naive, such as a 18-21 year old, and/or someone with serious self image/self esteem issues.

Rather than give these people the confidence that they need, which would be ‘personal development’, Steve wants them to be even less independent, and even more submissive,  two traits which are not healthy for any adult human being.

Its also ironic that if you read his article,  10 reasons why you shouldn’t get a job, and apply each of his reasons to the working conditions of his slaves, you see that his slaves would be getting far, far worse conditions than those he mentions as reasons for not to get a traditional employment based job.

3. All signs of the beginning of a cult.

For a long time, nearly since he started his forums, Steve Pavlina and many members of his audience have been showing all signs of being part of a cult. No criticism of Steve Pavlina is allowed, and no matter what he says or does, they agree with him, and if anyone doesn’t, he/she is chastised by others.

So far, that’s been restricted to the internet. However with this arrangement, where Steve will be living with these people, they would be calling him ‘Master’, and there would be sex involved, its starting to look a lot more like a cult.  Here’s what a member of his forums said:

“It does have all the hallmarks of being like a cult religion type set-up right down to the suggestion of sex as an enticement.”

Here are some other characteristics of cults apply to this arrangement, taken from this page:

  1. Absolute loyalty.
  2. Isolation from outside
  3. Lack of privacy
  4. Financial investment
  5. Assigned relationships
  6. Behavior Modification
  7. Peer pressure
  8. Conformity
  9. Blind acceptance
  10. Altered diet

What if this was a joke / April’s Fools?

This isn’t. The tone of the article is way too serious, and he has everything planned out way too seriously for it to be a joke. It was published on April’s Fools only as a backup strategy for Steve, i.e, if there are no applicants for this, or if there’s too much backlash, he can simply claim that it was all a big joke, ha ha, and the members of his online cult remain indoctrinated.

However, if he does go through with this, then everyone who objects to slavery, and/or exploiting the naivety of a socially unstable person, should boycott any of the new products Steve Pavlina releases, in whose production/sales slavery is playing any part. Moreover, if you are in the U.S or Las Vegas area, the proper authorities should be alerted if he went through with his plan.

If you are yourself considering becoming Steve Pavlina’s  ’slave’, please have enough self respect to not fall for this. Not only would you be doing yourself harm by calling a man like him ‘master’, being entirely dependent on him for everything, thus losing your freedom, you would also be in a dangerous situation, especially if you are a woman.