@inhuman Your argument has a lot of problems, but the biggest one is that it relies on hypotheticals such "if the owner is a good person" or "can pay your way out," which are no different from being set up for failure.Additionally, claiming that slavery has never been evil or rather, that it has never been evil historically is, at best, a very narrow and regressive way of thinking. History has demonstrated the extent of the harm that slavery has caused. In actuality, what are the benefits of slavery? It is a root of evil that benefits only the owner, which is pure evil.
Comment by Modern on inhuman
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@Modern Well, I think you misread a few of my statements. Most significantly, I didn't say that slavery has never been evil, I said that slavery isn't inherently evil, meaning that slavery by itself is a broad term which encompasses a significant range of circumstances and behaviors. To paint it all as evil is to fundamentally misunderstand the definition of slavery over throughout history.
It like saying that all killing is evil. Killing is also not inherently evil when you kill a murderer and thus prevent innocent life from being killed. Or this is similar to saying that all theft is evil when in fact theft is a legal structure and not everything that someone believes to the theirs under the law is moral (Robin Hood was moral but his actions were illegal).
To answer your question as far as what are some possible benefits of slavery, there are many, including our current societies. Taxation is a way to fund the government, credit allows people to fund their goals up front and then pay the investor back after they are in a more comfortable position, and the military plays an important role in protecting our country along with the prison system. Our current form of slavery, (that is control of someone else's money, property, agency or body) is so beneficial as to make people forget that it is actually a form of benevolent slavery. Of course, we tend to use many different words over the years that we are more comfortable with and are nuanced (employee, debtor, recruit, prisoner, etc...) and thus we seem to forget that these are historical versions of slavery.
It like saying that all killing is evil. Killing is also not inherently evil when you kill a murderer and thus prevent innocent life from being killed. Or this is similar to saying that all theft is evil when in fact theft is a legal structure and not everything that someone believes to the theirs under the law is moral (Robin Hood was moral but his actions were illegal).
To answer your question as far as what are some possible benefits of slavery, there are many, including our current societies. Taxation is a way to fund the government, credit allows people to fund their goals up front and then pay the investor back after they are in a more comfortable position, and the military plays an important role in protecting our country along with the prison system. Our current form of slavery, (that is control of someone else's money, property, agency or body) is so beneficial as to make people forget that it is actually a form of benevolent slavery. Of course, we tend to use many different words over the years that we are more comfortable with and are nuanced (employee, debtor, recruit, prisoner, etc...) and thus we seem to forget that these are historical versions of slavery.