Forcing them into the factory

Back when the Vanderbilt Family was building railroads, they made extensive use of prison convicts, cheaply purchased slaves, and Chinese laborers known as 'Piglets'.

Although the family made a fortune, they were ultimately branded with nasty titles like 'bloody capitalists' and a 'vampire family.' Their reputation in the eyes of the American public was a complete mess; describing them as 'notorious' would be a compliment.

As it turned out, Wang Xiuyuan was now using almost the same method to squeeze those prison convicts. However, after this bit of repackaging and a makeover, the situation was entirely different.

Major media outlets, the government, the prisoners, their families, and the public would actually have to turn around and thank him.

The Vanderbilt Family had been cursed by so many people for decades; what did that count as?

Did it just count as bad luck?

"Hey now! Locke, don't say that. I truly admire your Vanderbilt Family. The times are different, so there's absolutely no comparison here."

Wang Xiuyuan waved his hands repeatedly with a smile. Capitalist? A real capitalist?

If such a title were accidentally leaked, what would those big capitalists think? Not everyone would take it as a joke.

Joking can really get people killed.

Locke Vanderbilt continued to press: "Your packaging method is indeed fine. This way, the resistance from the public, government regulators, and the media will be much smaller.

But how do we get those prisoners to take the initiative to work in the factories?

As you just said, this is a completely free choice; they can choose to go, or choose not to.

The work we provide is essentially exploitative labor. Even if a prisoner is foolish enough to enter the factory for a moment, they will soon discover the fact that they've been cheated.

In the end, won't we still have no prisoners working for us? Are we supposed to secretly threaten them?"

Wang Xiuyuan smiled and did not refute Locke Vanderbilt's words.

"So that is the difficult problem we need to solve next. The only difficulty lies in the action of 'taking the initiative'.

Making these prisoners actively choose to go into the factories to work, and making them choose to stay in the factories long-term to work for us.

At this point, we need to use some legal and compliant rules and methods to force them to work in the factories to earn money.

Coercion and threats, being methods of a compulsory nature, definitely cannot be used. So, we might as well change our way of thinking.

We can establish some rules for managing these prisons that appear very reasonable and legal to outsiders, and then use some reasonable and legal means to create needs for the prisoners.

When this pile of reasonable and legal rules and methods are put together, a wonderful chemical reaction will occur. Then, the prisoners in the jail will have no choice but to actively work for us to earn money."

These words were a bit tongue-twisting, but everyone understood the general meaning. It was nothing more than secretly forcing prisoners to work through some seemingly reasonable and legal ways.

It sounded simple, but in practice, it would be extremely difficult because formulating these rules was the hard part.

"Holy shit, Wang Xiuyuan, stop keeping us in suspense. Hurry up and go on, I'm very interested."

"What reasonable and legal rules, what reasonable and legal means, what chemical reaction? Say it more simply. This sounds a bit complicated; you've almost made my head spin."

Wang Xiuyuan made a downward gesture with both hands to signal everyone to be quiet.

"It's very simple.

Federal Prisons are now basically two-person or four-person cells. For us to save on management overhead by throwing these prisoners into large cells with dozens of people is purely out of necessity.

Don't count on the living environment; the smell of various stinky socks, stinky clothes, and the sweat from the prisoners will drive them crazy.

These prisoners definitely won't be able to stand it.

So, in order to have a better living environment, they'll have to go to a two-person or four-person room. But what used to be free will now be charged; anyone who wants to stay there will have to spend money to buy a bed.

In addition, we need to do something with the food to force those prisoners to spend money to buy it."

At this point, Sanchez Roosevelt raised his hand and interrupted Wang Xiuyuan.

"Sorry Boss, let me interrupt for a second. Letting prisoners eat their fill for three meals a day is the most basic survival guarantee; we can't mess around with this item.

Although in our hearts none of us treat prisoners like normal people, things like making sure they eat their fill still have to be guaranteed. Otherwise, the media and government oversight agencies will blow their tops.

We can spend some money to bribe these people to ignore our prisoner abuse, but once it's exposed, it'll be trouble."

"Hahaha, Sanchez, you're overthinking it." Wang Xiuyuan smiled. "The media, regulatory agencies, and the families who come to visit will definitely know what food the prisoners are eating in jail. It's only a matter of time.

So on this point, we must be beyond reproach.

Have you ever eaten those healthy nutritional weight-loss meals? When the time comes, we'll provide the prisoners with this incredibly healthy stuff, and we even have to find a highly reputable nutritionist to create the diet plan for them."

Livia Mars questioned: "I've eaten nutritional weight-loss meals. That kind of food is very expensive. If we let the prisoners eat nutritional weight-loss meals for every meal every day, our food expenses will skyrocket. How can we still make money?"

Unexpectedly, Wang Xiuyuan directly refuted Mars's guess.

"Mars, the nutritional weight-loss meals you eat and the ones the prisoners eat are two completely different things.

Nutritional weight-loss meals have a few labels that can never be torn off; no matter how you make them, they cannot deviate from the three requirements: low oil, low salt, and low sugar.

Your nutritional weight-loss meals are ordered from high-end restaurants or meticulously prepared for you by a private chef hired for your home. So, even while meeting the low oil, low salt, and low sugar criteria, they can still taste decent.

But what about the prisoners locked in jail?

They'll be eating food mass-produced by cooks whose culinary skills aren't that great to begin with. Without adding enough seasoning for flavor, you can't even talk about whether this food tastes good or not.

It'll be good enough if the prisoners can bear to eat it.

Let me briefly describe the preparation process: just roughly chop the vegetables and meat, then throw them into a pot to boil. Once cooked, scoop them out, sprinkle a tiny bit of oil and salt for seasoning, and then they can be taken to feed the prisoners.

Sometimes, failing to control the time and boiling the vegetables into mush or the meat into shreds is perfectly normal.

Anyway, it's not like those prisoners can't eat it; after all, we can't waste food, right?

One or two meals isn't a problem; they can just endure it.

But for a week? Prisoners with strong willpower might be able to hold out.

But what about for a month? Do you think you can find five prisoners in a single prison who can hold out for a month?

Mars, can you eat those expensive nutritional weight-loss meals for more than two consecutive weeks?"