Slavery has been practiced in many cultures, and nations. The specific forms were quite differed in different systems and in different times. The more-less standard definition of the slavery is “the condition in which one person is owned as property by another”. That is a very vague and misleading definition.
Does slaveowner have to be a “person”? could it be a corporation or a state? What “property” means? It’s almost impossible to find a historical society where it was legal to kill a slave (capital offence). If you kill your “property” you would face death penalty. Many societies did not allow slave trade. There were laws mandating living conditions for slaves. All those “details” make definition of slavery largely misleading.
Today it’s very fashionable to denounced slavery of the past. It’s an interesting phenomenon because that “denouncement” usually directed towards historical slavery system that never existed in that specific form.
Slavery is still a foundation of almost any collectivist, or statist ideology. Entire modern “outrage” about slavery is mostly fake virtue signaling.
Historically vast majority of slaves were prisoners of wars. Domestic criminals were also sometimes turned into slaves. It would be really hard to find a person who became a slave for doing too much charitable work and planting beautiful flowers.
Interestingly that majority of slaves were also used in the military. Romans, Ottomans, Turks, Chinese, etc. Almost every nation in the world was doing it at some point in time. Government is always a major slave owner just because there is always a need for cannon fodder. Wars were not only main source, but also major consumer of slaves.
Well….We still have jails, prisoners of wars, military draft and conscriptions.
13th Amendment of US Constitution explicitly exclude military draft and prisons. That kind of slavery is a “good one”. It’s foundation of “free” and “civilized” world.
How many people call it slavery today? That is literally most common slavery type of the past and present. Before and after all those highly praised “abolitionist” movement.
Suddenly screaming “slavery” outrage is gone. The same people start to defend the opposite and see things are “not so simple” and “not so bad”.
Auschwitz camp is “not that bad”? Soviet Golags had 5x death rate of German concentration camps. Still not bad? What about Japanese Unit 731? Can somebody name a private slaveowner who murdered millions of slaves for his own amusement?
Most horrific atrocities have been committed by governments in “full compliance to the laws”. No private villains come even close.
So…..may be if it’s government we just do not call slavery. well….All European serfs were owned by lords, vassals and fiefs (i.e. government). In Ottoman and late Roman Empires most slaves were owned by state. Russian serfs were property of the Czar who allowed nobles to use them in exchange for services. Arab world has never had a big private sector in any industry. Generally if we exclude government own slaves from definition of slavery – we need to exclude majority of slaves of the past.
Slavery of the past is bad and horrible, modern slavery is good and not slavery at all. Contemporary view is that todays ethical narrative is superior to any previous generation. It seems that many people assume that all our ancestors were deeply unethical and they could not differentiate between good and evil. It’s not really clear why it’s such a strong conviction. What are specific modern ethic discoveries? It’s puzzling that modern liberal “thinkers” have pathological disgust and contempt for their ancestors. Do they feel the same about parents? It could be related to the problems within families.
In most historical societies slaves were allowed to have family and some property. There were even rich and respected slaves. You can find quite a few instances in Ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, Europe, and US.
Ottoman Empire Janissaries were elite military forces. Initially they were formed from devshirme child slaves. They were not at the bottom of the society by any measure. Had many privileges and were highly respected.
Most black slaves in USA had much better standards of living than most freemen in their native country.
At least private or semi-private slave owners have an incentive to keep their slaves in good condition. Which is not the case for pure government entities.
Slavery does not necessarily means poor life quality. Ironically freedom does not include any free goods or services. Slaves, on the other hand, have guaranteed job, free housing, education, healthcare. They don’t need to protect themselves – their master does it for them. All those goodies available only for slaves. Freemen should earn it themselves – nothing is free for freemen.
I would argue that vast majority of the people prefer to be slaves. The only issue is that they just want a charitable master. Forced money redistribution cannot exist without slavery, jails, and massive violent enforcement. Modern anti-slavery rhetoric is a fake. Today’s liberal “thinkers” demand more and more slavery. They are ready to kill anyone and everyone who stand on their way.