slavery -vs- "scut work": which is better?

[Deleted]

Then dj is distorting slavery into a utopia that it never was. As a slave you may or may not be fed and housed depending on your master's mood. And most of the time you weren't well fed and housed.

I am not a fan of slave wages. The scut work needs to get done, more so than a lot of jobs that pay much better. I firmly believe that paying so little for that work is exploitation of the worst kind. But no one gets killed if they walk away from the scut work and try to do better for themselves.

[Virgil Showlion]

Thanks for your perspective, beachbum.

Over the years I've read real life stories about slavery spanning the spectrum. Men who were born free and became enslaved, men who were born enslaved (or effectively so) and were granted their freedom, men who were treated horribly, men who were treated well, men who escaped (or were freed) to a harsh existence but treasured it, and men who escaped or were freed to a comfortable existence and yet longed to return.

Much seems to depend on how people measure and value opportunity. My earlier post (and a large part of what I believe DJ was driving at in the OP) pertains to opportunity. The opportunity to switch jobs. The opportunity to move from one city to another. I'll leave it to others to debate how illusory these opportunities may be in the US circa 2013. A more fundamental question is the nature of opportunity itself. How much do we value the perception of opportunity versus the reality of it?

For example, if we take one society where a minority race is forbidden to be educated, and compare it to a society where the same race may be educated but where the costs of education are prohibitively high and practically nobody can benefit from the opportunity, is it really an opportunity? Is the hope and belief that "I can..." in the latter system of any real value? At what point do the odds become so slim that we acknowledge the opportunity doesn't really exist? And if the odds are slim, is it because of something systemic or due to a lack of drive and purpose?

Is a family of poor labourers destined to remain poor because they can't get a leg up in society, or because generation after generation becomes comfortable with the lot of an unskilled labourer and hence the ambition to pursue more glamorous professions never materializes? And perhaps the most fundamental question of all: if generation after generation of labourer is content (or as content as a doctor or lawyer, say) in their life, is lack of ambition necessarily a bad thing? Right now North America is facing a severe shortage of skilled labourers precisely because we've learned to equate happiness with success, and success with ambition. But just like freedom, ambition isn't a rewarding end unto itself. Aspirations have little value unless they actually materialize. And material success has little value unless it brings happiness and fulfillment.

Besides any cruelty that may be perpetrated, slavery is distinguished from freedom by a 'cap' on status and opportunity. It's an opaque ceiling visible to all. For modern-day lowerclassmen, the ceiling is more like a gravity well. Not a hard upper limit but a negative potential that is statistically very hard to overcome. Yet some men will overcome that potential, and some indeed won't even perceive it as long as it isn't a ceiling.

The three fundamental questions as I see them are therefore:

1. What do we use to distinguish between below the ceiling and above it? Standard of living? General levels of happiness and fulfillment? Social status? Philosophical arguments about the inherent equality or inequality of men?
   
   
2. At what point do we acknowledge that a strong negative potential, although unseen, is effectively the same thing as a hard ceiling (i.e. "effective slavery")? Do the causes of the negative potential matter? If much of it is attributable to a lack of ambition, does it still 'count' as a negative potential?
   
   
3. Does the visibility of the ceiling matter? Is a man who knows he's a slave better or worse off than one who's effectively a slave but isn't mindful of the odds stacked against him, who always has the beautiful skies of opportunity above him to look to? Is it proper to always call the former a 'slave' and the latter a 'free man'?

But no one gets killed if they walk away from the scut work and try to do better for themselves.

Sure they do. It just happens in indirect ways.

They may accrue debts, or have to abandon family commitments. There's a great deal of guilt in those things. Some turn to drugs and alcohol. Some commit suicide.

If a venture fails and a man isn't able to reclaim his old employment, he may well end up homeless and on the street. Street life isn't easy. Life expectancy is shortened for many reasons. It also multiplies the odds against him reentering society. Some become criminals. Some become embroiled with loan sharks and other unsavoury characters. Many forsake their health and are beset by debilitating conditions.

In the end, they're just as miserable and just as dead.

Personally I don't see circumstances in the US being so dire that walking away from scut work is anywhere near a death sentence, but that's a far cry from "no one gets killed if they walk away from the scut work". A lot of people do.

[Deleted]

It seems to me that between slavery and drudgery there is only a notional distinction - the subjective experience of the one must be broadly similar to the other.

We are differentiating between wage and chattel slavery. In chattel slavery, the worker is a commodity at market. In wage slavery, the worker is a party to a coercive bargain.

Insofar as a slave market is a free and fair market; in particular, insofar as there exists a mechanism for the slave to buy out his contract through his labor, and become a slaveowner himself (as was demonstrably possible, as a matter of historical record, in the antebellum U.S.); then slavery is, globally, the superior choice - a very Gorean conclusion (by which I don't mean the inventor of the internet would subscribe to it).

The alternative of wage slavery is a necessarily, structurally, universally, exploitative frame, from which the worker can never escape and within which his fair market value can never be established (I say this without being persuaded by either Das Kapital in particular or labor theories of value in general). I suppose one can argue that the diligent wage slave may earn promotion to the privileged ranks of management, but those are not leisured spheres, despite the perspective of toiling underlings. The higher one goes, the more certainly a wage slave one becomes.

The paradigm of slavery, offering the possibility of transcendence, were preferable, without thereby becoming any the less monstrous.

The paradigm of acorporate anarchocapitalism were vastly superior to either, if it isn't unfair to introduce Third Ways.

[Virgil Showlion]

The paradigm of acorporate anarchocapitalism were vastly superior to either, if it isn't unfair to introduce Third Ways.

...or it would be if it didn't self-destruct faster than a blob of antimatter hitting the open atmosphere.

As for the rest of your post, erudite though it may be, may I suggest ducking before the vegetables find you.

[djAdvocate]

Sept 9, 2013 12:20:33 GMT -5 Phoenix84 said:

Interesting question.  One problem inherant to slavery is it limits human potential.  

in what way does scut work enhance human potential?  iow, how is it any different?

[djAdvocate]

Sept 9, 2013 12:03:18 GMT -5 @justaposter said:

dj you are disqualifying all the things that people dislike about slavery to the point that it doesn't qualify as slavery anymore.

no, i am not.  i have conceded that there is intrinsic mobility in scut work (limited, but present) that is not there in slavery.

however, it is not fair to compare slavery which abuses people with work that does NOT.  in other words, what interests me is this question:

"what price, freedom"?

freedom is an abstract concept.  it is worth more to some than others.  how much is it worth to you?

[djAdvocate]

Sept 9, 2013 12:03:18 GMT -5 @justaposter said:

As for your "no abuse" criteria, the fact that the owner has the right to abuse you or sell your relatives is bad enough.

agreed.  and i am asking you to set aside that objection so that you can focus specifically on the issue of freedom.

To be that dependant on the good nature of your master is unacceptable to most people.

most?  yes.  i would say that is probably true.  but i am prepared to make a case that cultural norms have a lot to do with this issue.

The freedom to move from one unpleasant job where you are treated badly to an equally unpleasant job where you are treated better is a significant differance.

assume that there are no other jobs available other than scut work.  what then?

[Deleted]

Every time someone points out a negative of slavery you call it abuse and disqualify it. Slavery is inherently abusive. If you remove the abuse and add some element of choice and protection you have ceased to talk about slavery.

[Deleted]

assume that there are no other jobs available other than scut work. what then?

No, you keep rigging the criteria to get the answer you want.

[djAdvocate]

Sept 9, 2013 12:17:55 GMT -5 Shooby said:

This precisely the question America faces. Do you want freedom which involves risk and lack of security. Or do you want the so called security of being owned by the govt snd being beholden to govt for your daily crumb? If you are free you can create opportunity for yourself. If not you can't. We used to die for freedom. Our soldiers are willing but are we? A people that trades freedom for security will soon have neither.

no.  some of us didn't die for our freedom.  some did not even fight for it.  some of us relied on the largesse of others.  that is still the case.

[djAdvocate]

Sept 9, 2013 14:29:06 GMT -5 @justaposter said:

assume that there are no other jobs available other than scut work. what then?

No, you keep rigging the criteria to get the answer you want.

i think you are projecting.  that is not how i work.  i have already said that all you have to do is say "slavery is worse".

[djAdvocate]

Sept 9, 2013 14:27:49 GMT -5 @justaposter said:

Every time someone points out a negative of slavery you call it abuse and disqualify it.

totally, 100% untrue.  perhaps others will defend me on this, so i don't have to be bothered by your erroneous accusation.

Slavery is inherently abusive.

i disagree, unless you value freedom.  if you don't, i can imagine a master/slave relationship that is utterly non abusive.

If you remove the abuse and add some element of choice and protection you have ceased to talk about slavery.

that was already brought up by someone else, and i agreed with it.

i think you are just in the mood to fight, rather than entertain the argument.

[djAdvocate]

Sept 9, 2013 12:27:51 GMT -5 @justaposter said:

But I do agree, there is a certain simplicity that slavery. It is a relatively "safe" lifestyle. A slave's owners have the responsibility to care for the slaves. And since it's in your economic best interest to keep them healthy, you have to provide for at least basic needs, food and shealter. Furthermore, since a slave owner would rely on the slaves for their livlihood, you wouldn't want to abuse them very much. An injured slave can't work, after all.

None of that is a written in stone fact. It is like saying it is in a company's best interest to treat it's employees well. People say it all the time, ignoring all the evidence that decisions are made based on immediated productivity and profits all the time.

this discussion is not about stone facts.  it is about abstract concepts.  please relax a couple of notches.

[Virgil Showlion]

some of us relied on the largesse of others

"sacrifice", I assume you mean. "Largesse" has the strong connotation of throwing money at people, and an equally strong connotation of frivolity.

[Deleted]

Sept 9, 2013 14:18:26 GMT -5 Virgil Showlion said:

The paradigm of acorporate anarchocapitalism were vastly superior to either, if it isn't unfair to introduce Third Ways.

...or it would be if it didn't self-destruct faster than a blob of antimatter hitting the open atmosphere.

As for the rest of your post, erudite though it may be, may I suggest ducking before the vegetables find you.

It remains so; the challenge becomes understanding what factors accelerate that breakdown, and how they can be counteracted (scale is the principal one).

And if hoi polloi start flinging stuff because they failed to understand that this thread is esentially asking whether it's worse to be raped by a Mexican or a Chinaman, I can't help that...

[djAdvocate]

Sept 9, 2013 12:33:57 GMT -5 @justaposter said:

Then dj is distorting slavery into a utopia that it never was.

bullshit.  i have not defended slavery in any way.  however, since you are clearly not getting it, let me say it now:

slavery is beneath human dignity, a moral outrage, and something that should never, under any circumstances, take place.

clear enough for you?

 As a slave you may or may not be fed and housed depending on your master's mood. And most of the time you weren't well fed and housed.

I am not a fan of slave wages. The scut work needs to get done, more so than a lot of jobs that pay much better. I firmly believe that paying so little for that work is exploitation of the worst kind. But no one gets killed if they walk away from the scut work and try to do better for themselves.

i think scut work should pay more than a lot of other work.  that is a LIBERTARIAN argument, btw.  but i am not going to defend this point, as it is a distraction from the general discussion.

[Deleted]

Sept 9, 2013 14:29:06 GMT -5 @justaposter said:

assume that there are no other jobs available other than scut work. what then?

No, you keep rigging the criteria to get the answer you want.

That sounds very much like Communism

In principle, the notion that there were nothing but scut work is as insane as the fiction that there is nothing but degree-level work.

"always there will be better and worse persons than yourself" ~ Max Ehrmann

Where does indentured servitude fit here?

[djAdvocate]

Sept 9, 2013 13:04:52 GMT -5 Virgil Showlion said:

Thanks for your perspective, beachbum.

Over the years I've read real life stories about slavery spanning the spectrum. Men who were born free and became enslaved, men who were born enslaved (or effectively so) and were granted their freedom, men who were treated horribly, men who were treated well, men who escaped (or were freed) to a harsh existence but treasured it, and men who escaped or were freed to a comfortable existence and yet longed to return.

Much seems to depend on how people measure and value opportunity. My earlier post (and a large part of what I believe DJ was driving at in the OP) pertains to opportunity. The opportunity to switch jobs. The opportunity to move from one city to another. I'll leave it to others to debate how illusory these opportunities may be in the US circa 2013. A more fundamental question is the nature of opportunity itself. How much do we value the perception of opportunity versus the reality of it?

For example, if we take one society where a minority race is forbidden to be educated, and compare it to a society where the same race may be educated but where the costs of education are prohibitively high and practically nobody can benefit from the opportunity, is it really an opportunity? Is the hope and belief that "I can..." in the latter system of any real value? At what point do the odds become so slim that we acknowledge the opportunity doesn't really exist? And if the odds are slim, is it because of something systemic or due to a lack of drive and purpose?

Is a family of poor labourers destined to remain poor because they can't get a leg up in society, or because generation after generation becomes comfortable with the lot of an unskilled labourer and hence the ambition to pursue more glamorous professions never materializes? And perhaps the most fundamental question of all: if generation after generation of labourer is content (or as content as a doctor or lawyer, say) in their life, is lack of ambition necessarily a bad thing? Right now North America is facing a severe shortage of skilled labourers precisely because we've learned to equate happiness with success, and success with ambition. But just like freedom, ambition isn't a rewarding end unto itself. Aspirations have little value unless they actually materialize. And material success has little value unless it brings happiness and fulfillment.

Besides any cruelty that may be perpetrated, slavery is distinguished from freedom by a 'cap' on status and opportunity. It's an opaque ceiling visible to all. For modern-day lowerclassmen, the ceiling is more like a gravity well. Not a hard upper limit but a negative potential that is statistically very hard to overcome. Yet some men will overcome that potential, and some indeed won't even perceive it as long as it isn't a ceiling.

The three fundamental questions as I see them are therefore:

1. What do we use to distinguish between below the ceiling and above it? Standard of living? General levels of happiness and fulfillment? Social status? Philosophical arguments about the inherent equality or inequality of men?
   
   
2. At what point do we acknowledge that a strong negative potential, although unseen, is effectively the same thing as a hard ceiling (i.e. "effective slavery")? Do the causes of the negative potential matter? If much of it is attributable to a lack of ambition, does it still 'count' as a negative potential?
   
   
3. Does the visibility of the ceiling matter? Is a man who knows he's a slave better or worse off than one who's effectively a slave but isn't mindful of the odds stacked against him, who always has the beautiful skies of opportunity above him to look to? Is it proper to always call the former a 'slave' and the latter a 'free man'?

But no one gets killed if they walk away from the scut work and try to do better for themselves.

Sure they do. It just happens in indirect ways.

They may accrue debts, or have to abandon family commitments. There's a great deal of guilt in those things. Some turn to drugs and alcohol. Some commit suicide.

If a venture fails and a man isn't able to reclaim his old employment, he may well end up homeless and on the street. Street life isn't easy. Life expectancy is shortened for many reasons. It also multiplies the odds against him reentering society. Some become criminals. Some become embroiled with loan sharks and other unsavoury characters. Many forsake their health and are beset by debilitating conditions.

In the end, they're just as miserable and just as dead.

Personally I don't see circumstances in the US being so dire that walking away from scut work is anywhere near a death sentence, but that's a far cry from "no one gets killed if they walk away from the scut work". A lot of people do.

Virgil really gets my line of reasoning, here.  i feel really perfunctory commenting after his two posts.

[djAdvocate]

Sept 9, 2013 14:38:43 GMT -5 @thatmojoguy said:

Sept 9, 2013 14:29:06 GMT -5 @justaposter said:

No, you keep rigging the criteria to get the answer you want.

That sounds very much like Communism

what does?  the zero options?  I AGREE 100%.  i think that utopian socialism (wage egalitarianism) has this quality to it.  this topic really is a LOT broader than it seems on the surface.  it is really a critique of egalitarianism as much as it is of scut pay.

In principle, the notion that there were nothing but scut work is as insane as the fiction that there is nothing but degree-level work.

"always there will be better and worse persons than yourself" ~ Max Ehrmann

Where does indentured servitude fit here?

it is, imo, very close to scut work- except it is self inflicted to a greater degree than slavery, and a lesser degree than scut work.

[djAdvocate]

Sept 9, 2013 14:34:15 GMT -5 Virgil Showlion said:

some of us relied on the largesse of others

"sacrifice", I assume you mean. "Largesse" has the strong connotation of throwing money at people, and an equally strong connotation of frivolity.

does it?  maybe i am misusing the word largesse.  i thought largesse meant "graces", or "charity".  no?

[djAdvocate]

Sept 9, 2013 14:11:51 GMT -5 @thatmojoguy said:

It seems to me that between slavery and drudgery there is only a notional distinction - the subjective experience of the one must be broadly similar to the other.

We are differentiating between wage and chattel slavery. In chattel slavery, the worker is a commodity at market. In wage slavery, the worker is a party to a coercive bargain.

Insofar as a slave market is a free and fair market; in particular, insofar as there exists a mechanism for the slave to buy out his contract through his labor, and become a slaveowner himself (as was demonstrably possible, as a matter of historical record, in the antebellum U.S.); then slavery is, globally, the superior choice - a very Gorean conclusion (by which I don't mean the inventor of the internet would subscribe to it).

The alternative of wage slavery is a necessarily, structurally, universally, exploitative frame, from which the worker can never escape and within which his fair market value can never be established (I say this without being persuaded by either Das Kapital in particular or labor theories of value in general). I suppose one can argue that the diligent wage slave may earn promotion to the privileged ranks of management, but those are not leisured spheres, despite the perspective of toiling underlings. The higher one goes, the more certainly a wage slave one becomes.

The paradigm of slavery, offering the possibility of transcendence, were preferable, without thereby becoming any the less monstrous.

The paradigm of acorporate anarchocapitalism were vastly superior to either, if it isn't unfair to introduce Third Ways.

wow.  i am speechless.

what is your background, dude?

[Deleted]

Sept 9, 2013 14:30:33 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

Sept 9, 2013 14:29:06 GMT -5 @justaposter said:

No, you keep rigging the criteria to get the answer you want.

i think you are projecting.  that is not how i work.  i have already said that all you have to do is say "slavery is worse".

Except that, when people do so, you get all Socratic and start challenging the notional bases for the assertion.

Slavery asserts in the abstract that human rights are alienable. It is accordingly abusive in its essence. I'm familiar with paradigms of willing servitude, and I can accept that individuals may either freely enter an unfree condition, or, alternatively, adapt to an unfree condition - we see this with institutionalization and rehabilitation within the prison system, the morality of which were essentially a special case of this argument. But these individuals are accepting the abuse, not negating it.

[djAdvocate]

Sept 9, 2013 14:46:46 GMT -5 @thatmojoguy said:

Sept 9, 2013 14:30:33 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

i think you are projecting.  that is not how i work.  i have already said that all you have to do is say "slavery is worse".

Except that, when people do so, you get all Socratic and start challenging the notional bases for the assertion.

no.  i simply ask WHY?, when i am not clear on that fact.

there is nothing to be gained in anecdotally arguing, Mojo.  it is pointless.  whether you, me or anyone else agrees with the premise is actually irrelevant.  what is more important is the principle at play, and how it is justified.  this is not a survey of opinion.  i would guess that 99% of the people on this board would disagree with the premise.  this is a discussion about principles.

edit: if i seem to be attacking people for their positions, forgive me.  i am just excited by this argument.  it is INTERESTING to me.

[Deleted]

dj -

bearing on this discussion, a few years spent in the formulation and implementation of public policy in the labor market; an educational grounding in psychology augmented by a lay interest in sociological disciplines and economic history; and a decade or so weighing in on debates like this and bothering to read and consider what people were presenting

[djAdvocate]

Sept 9, 2013 14:46:46 GMT -5 @thatmojoguy said:

Sept 9, 2013 14:30:33 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

i think you are projecting.  that is not how i work.  i have already said that all you have to do is say "slavery is worse".

Except that, when people do so, you get all Socratic and start challenging the notional bases for the assertion.

Slavery asserts in the abstract that human rights are alienable. It is accordingly abusive in its essence.

scut capitalism, as it is practiced in some parts of the word, posits that a person is worth less than it takes to feed them.  how does this speak to the rights of that human to life, liberty, and happiness?

I'm familiar with paradigms of willing servitude, and I can accept that individuals may either freely enter an unfree condition, or, alternatively, adapt to an unfree condition - we see this with institutionalization and rehabilitation within the prison system, the morality of which were essentially a special case of this argument. But these individuals are accepting the abuse, not negating it.

your last sentence is contradictory to the second to last.  free associations of individuals are, by the same definition, non-abusive.  so, if one freely enters into a master/slave relationship- if one willingly accepts it- if it is NOT coercive in any way- then it is, by definition, non-abusive.

defining slavery as inherently abusive is a clever "rule change of argument" but really defeats the purpose of discussion, imo.

[djAdvocate]

Sept 9, 2013 14:50:40 GMT -5 @thatmojoguy said:

dj -

bearing on this discussion, a few years spent in the formulation and implementation of public policy in the labor market; an educational grounding in psychology augmented by a lay interest in sociological disciplines and economic history; and a decade or so weighing in on debates like this and bothering to read and consider what people were presenting

that (previous post) was a really succinct and dead-nuts-on reply, Mojo.  i have to hand it to you.  well done.

[Deleted]

Sept 9, 2013 14:50:31 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

Sept 9, 2013 14:46:46 GMT -5 @thatmojoguy said:

Except that, when people do so, you get all Socratic and start challenging the notional bases for the assertion.

no.  i simply ask WHY?, when i am not clear on that fact.

there is nothing to be gained in anecdotally arguing, Mojo.  it is pointless.  whether you, me or anyone else agrees with the premise is actually irrelevant.  what is more important is the principle at play, and how it is justified.  this is not a survey of opinion.  i would guess that 99% of the people on this board would disagree with the premise.  this is a discussion about principles.

edit: if i seem to be attacking people for their positions, forgive me.  i am just excited by this argument.  it is INTERESTING to me.

To rephrase, and indulge my penchant for irrealism by agreeing with your dissent, you are perpetrating an elenchus.

[Deleted]

Sept 9, 2013 14:11:51 GMT -5 @thatmojoguy said:

It seems to me that between slavery and drudgery there is only a notional distinction - the subjective experience of the one must be broadly similar to the other.

We are differentiating between wage and chattel slavery. In chattel slavery, the worker is a commodity at market. In wage slavery, the worker is a party to a coercive bargain.

Insofar as a slave market is a free and fair market; in particular, insofar as there exists a mechanism for the slave to buy out his contract through his labor, and become a slaveowner himself (as was demonstrably possible, as a matter of historical record, in the antebellum U.S.); then slavery is, globally, the superior choice - a very Gorean conclusion (by which I don't mean the inventor of the internet would subscribe to it).

The alternative of wage slavery is a necessarily, structurally, universally, exploitative frame, from which the worker can never escape and within which his fair market value can never be established (I say this without being persuaded by either Das Kapital in particular or labor theories of value in general). I suppose one can argue that the diligent wage slave may earn promotion to the privileged ranks of management, but those are not leisured spheres, despite the perspective of toiling underlings. The higher one goes, the more certainly a wage slave one becomes.

The paradigm of slavery, offering the possibility of transcendence, were preferable, without thereby becoming any the less monstrous.

The paradigm of acorporate anarchocapitalism were vastly superior to either, if it isn't unfair to introduce Third Ways.

i have no idea what the hell you just said

but it reminds me that i havent read this month's readers digest yet

got to get my vocabulary lesson.......

[djAdvocate]

Sept 9, 2013 15:04:00 GMT -5 @thatmojoguy said:

Sept 9, 2013 14:50:31 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

no.  i simply ask WHY?, when i am not clear on that fact.

there is nothing to be gained in anecdotally arguing, Mojo.  it is pointless.  whether you, me or anyone else agrees with the premise is actually irrelevant.  what is more important is the principle at play, and how it is justified.  this is not a survey of opinion.  i would guess that 99% of the people on this board would disagree with the premise.  this is a discussion about principles.

edit: if i seem to be attacking people for their positions, forgive me.  i am just excited by this argument.  it is INTERESTING to me.

To rephrase, and indulge my penchant for irrealism by agreeing with your dissent, you are perpetrating an elenchus.

ok, at a certain point, i like to argue- but was i REALLY that pedantic, there?  i feel hurt, and ashamed. 

[djAdvocate]

Sept 9, 2013 15:04:10 GMT -5 @gdgyva said:

Sept 9, 2013 14:11:51 GMT -5 @thatmojoguy said:

It seems to me that between slavery and drudgery there is only a notional distinction - the subjective experience of the one must be broadly similar to the other.

We are differentiating between wage and chattel slavery. In chattel slavery, the worker is a commodity at market. In wage slavery, the worker is a party to a coercive bargain.

Insofar as a slave market is a free and fair market; in particular, insofar as there exists a mechanism for the slave to buy out his contract through his labor, and become a slaveowner himself (as was demonstrably possible, as a matter of historical record, in the antebellum U.S.); then slavery is, globally, the superior choice - a very Gorean conclusion (by which I don't mean the inventor of the internet would subscribe to it).

The alternative of wage slavery is a necessarily, structurally, universally, exploitative frame, from which the worker can never escape and within which his fair market value can never be established (I say this without being persuaded by either Das Kapital in particular or labor theories of value in general). I suppose one can argue that the diligent wage slave may earn promotion to the privileged ranks of management, but those are not leisured spheres, despite the perspective of toiling underlings. The higher one goes, the more certainly a wage slave one becomes.

The paradigm of slavery, offering the possibility of transcendence, were preferable, without thereby becoming any the less monstrous.

The paradigm of acorporate anarchocapitalism were vastly superior to either, if it isn't unfair to introduce Third Ways.

i have no idea what the hell you just said

but it reminds me that i havent read this month's readers digest yet

got to get my vocabulary lesson.......

gd- you speak from the heart.  i dig that about you.