Servitude in the 21st Century

By: Beatrice E. Rangel - 22/07/2025

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In the Middle Ages, the majority of the population was bound to a kind of undeclared slavery thanks to the protection of knowledge and the monopoly of land among the elites. Thus, most people were bound to a life of poverty from which escape was only achieved by accumulating money for performing special tasks, distinguishing oneself on the battlefield, or becoming an exceptional theologian.

A large segment of the poor was made up of the destitute. This social group was composed of peasants and serfs who had lost their livelihoods thanks to the technological change that had significantly increased productivity per cultivated hectare in the High Middle Ages. These were the people who initiated the shantytowns around the major cities, which several centuries later were filled with the unemployed created by the Industrial Revolution.

We are witnessing something similar today, as the technological revolution that began in the late 20th century has created a new global servitude. This servitude is composed of those who lack connectivity, digital skills, and equipment to connect to the internet. It is estimated that this new servitude encompasses 2.6 billion people worldwide, or 32% of the total global population. The majority of this group not only lacks connectivity and computing equipment, but also lacks the digital skills to participate in the service economy, the fastest-growing and best-paying sector. They are thus trapped in the informal economy, which not only generates low incomes but also condemns them to never develop the skills that would allow them to access richer strata of the labor market.

In Latin America, the rate of lack of connectivity ranges between 26% and 30% of the total population, representing between 280 and 285 million people. In addition, 7% of the population lives in areas with zero coverage, and 28% of the population with coverage lacks internet access. When we analyze the digital skills variable, we find that in Latin America, only 30% of the population has basic skills for using and exploiting internet sources of knowledge. In Europe, 80% of the population has these skills, and the 20% who lack them are represented by the older age group.

This situation condemns a huge segment of the Latin American population to remain in economic marginality or informality. This means that between 120 and 150 million people are modern-day deer. Assuming that both the public and private sectors—whose practices are closely linked to the creation of marginalization—were to agree on a plan for the digital inclusion of these individuals, regional GDP would grow between 2% and 4%. These figures are equal to or greater than the current regional growth rate of 2%. And the region's productivity would increase between 25% and 40%. Something that hasn't happened in 500 years.

Closing the digital divide requires eliminating monopolies in each nation's domestic market, as Javier Milei is doing in Argentina by deregulating the economy and challenging the power of unions and professional associations. Chilean state policies to guarantee connectivity and equipment in schools are also working. And of course, the telecommunications market should be opened to quality global players because they are the ones who guarantee lower prices and greater coverage. The privatization of commercial services and the imposition of competition rules among companies that provide these services is essential for innovations that open the market to lower-income sectors. In the region, the privatization of telecommunications has not helped develop connectivity because the two companies that for more than three decades ended up occupying the space left by public telcos quickly managed to create oligopolies in which the profit margin has been derived from serving the elites. Consequently, they have not incurred significant innovations to include the informal sector in the market. Not to mention that they have competed or innovated. But it seems that with the withdrawal of one of them from the region, the process of change has begun. And that process of change looks promising because it would not only initiate the modernization of Latin American economies but also the liberation of 120-150 million people from poverty.

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