# What slavery is

Slavery is when someone has [power](power.md) over someone against their [will](purpose.md). A slave's master will be able to control what someone [says or does](results.md), and a slave is unable to make free [decisions](mind-decisions.md) at the scope of [their natural rights](people-boundaries-why.md).

Categorically, there are two ways that people can own other people:

- Chattel slavery, which is a [contractual](people-contracts.md) ownership approved by [a government](people-rules.md)
- De facto slavery, which is a contractual implied ownership without a government involved.

While chattel slavery is relatively rare in the West right now, de facto slavery is still commonplace:

- Workers forced into extremely lopsided agreements with mandatory performance clauses
- Celebrities with controlling managers
- [Cult members](people-culture-cults.md)
- Sex slaves, such as trafficked children
- [Debt](money-2_debt.md) holders when their loans have a high interest or arbitrary terms
- [Incarcerated individuals](hardship-incarceration.md)

APPLICATION: The only outward difference between massive debt and slavery is [math](math.md) and the [stories](stories-why.md) people interpret about it.

Most references have historically come through a few avenues:

- Domination via [war](people-conflicts-war-why.md), with the loser becoming the property of the winner.
- That person was born into an owned family.

A slave is a tradable commodity. From debt to children, the elements of a slave can be bought and sold. This certainly violates [human rights](people-boundaries-why.md), but doesn't change the [power](power.md) it gives the owners, and therefore is still [culturally](people-culture.md) acceptable.

APPLICATION: The current [fashions](people-trends.md) of modern society treat slavery discussions as [taboo](morality-taboo.md), but the concept is farther-reaching than most people realize.

Slavery is defined by the inability to [make decisions](mind-decisions.md), so some things are *not* entirely slavery:

- Living in a [ghetto](people-classes.md) when one is capable of leaving it (e.g., self-[education](education.md) toward a [better career](jobs-1_why.md))
- Working a job with [opportunities](power.md) to change one's situation or leave the job
- Having [debt](money-2_debt.md) that can be repaid relatively quickly

Further, even when a society gives people the freedom to escape slavery, they can also permit individuals to make foolish decisions that *bring* them into slavery as well. In other words, as long as slavery exists in some form, it'll be a revolving door.

## Servant vs. slave

When someone selects slavery willingly, rather than being forced into it, that person is a servant, which has an *entirely* different framing.

Servants are bound by either an [agreement](people-contracts.md) or a [purpose](purpose.md). But, they can often choose a different arrangement later on.

Servants, unlike slaves, can both say and enforce [their right](people-boundaries-why.md) to say "no" to something. This [possibility](mind-imagination.md) of choice distinguishes them because the servant has (or had) dictated who they're serving, while the slave is forced without negotiation to serve whether they desire to or not.

Servants, therefore, are "voluntary" slaves, and society interprets them as "free" even when they're bound by an [agreement](people-contracts.md) because they made a [choice](mind-decisions.md). On the other hand, slaves' [decisions](mind-decisions.md) are fully constrained by the [power](power-types.md) of a stronger authority.

APPLICATION: The line between slave and servant is murky. People sometimes consent to a slavery arrangement (e.g., foreigners who don't understand the [language](language.md) of a [contract](people-contracts.md)). They often may not care because it was *better* than their [culture](people-culture.md) of origin (e.g., indentured servants crossing the Atlantic to enter the New World).

## Power

A slave has little to no [legitimate power](power.md). They may have some types of power (such as [understanding](understanding.md)), but never the [means](purpose.md) to become free or interact equally among society.

This situation means the slave has two methods available to change their situation:

1. [Become aware](mind-awareness.md) of otherwise unseen [power](power.md).
2. Focus their [willpower](purpose.md) into successful, [creative](mind-creativity.md) solutions to gain their freedom. This may include geographically relocating to somewhere else that doesn't recognize their status as a second-tier citizen, or politically working with other slaves to entirely overthrow the establishment.

We can also make [decisions](mind-decisions.md) to *increase* our enslaved status:

- The only difference between a wealthy free person and a poor slave is a few foolish decisions that involve breaking the wrong [rules](people-rules.md) and [dishonoring cultural norms](morality-taboo.md) with the wrong people.
- We can lose so much [power](power.md) relative to others that we become enslaved.
- Whenever we have options, but our environment gives us no choice, our lack of any sufficient decision is a type of enslavement to our consequences.

## Labels

Often, the word "slave" has implications of forced labor, separating [families](people-family.md), and [destroying lives for entertainment](morality-evil.md). The practice is [*far* from abolished](http://www.endslaverynow.org), and likely never will be.

The institution of slavery in practice, however, is merely an unfeeling structure that cuts off opportunities purely because of a social status. The only people worth declaring [evil](morality-evil.md) are the direct slaveholders and that [society's](people-culture.md) acceptance of the practice. However, depending on the culture and [economic necessity](money-economics.md), [good people](morality.md) may still own slaves.

Generally, the actual value people treat their enslaved subjects is contingent on [economics](money-economics.md). Historically, slaves who had highly valuable [specializations](jobs-specialization.md) were assigned to the household and treated as if they were [family members](people-family.md), and nearly every single slave-holding society has given some sort of avenue for at least some of the slave class to earn their freedom.

Hypothetically, if everyone were enslaved to a perfectly [good](morality.md) and [loving](people-love.md) master, the arrangement would be mutually beneficial and wouldn't feel like slavery. That master would take care of every need, and the slaves would be [satisfied](mind-feelings-happiness.md) and [live well](success-1_why.md).

APPLICATION: Slavery is [wrong](morality.md) because of the [morality](morality.md) of the slave-holders, and not necessarily from the [power](power.md) discrepancy. This is why we have no problem with guardianship of children, the [extremely elderly](maturity.md), and mentally challenged people.

For several reasons, humans will always exert some level of evil when they enslave others:

1. When a social system permits it, the master have nobody to oppose their [abuse](hardship-abuse.md) and will do what they feel like.
2. The institution itself will dehumanize people from their [actual human worth](humanity.md), and permit the [economic benefit](money-economics.md) to prevail in [decision-making](mind-decisions.md).

APPLICATION: Submitting to slavery through [fear](mind-feelings-fear.md) of a very [evil](morality-evil.md) master may be worse than dying, and many people have had to [calculate carefully](mind-decisions.md) regarding that context.

Because slavery is the act of forcing power over another, it's difficult in free societies to discern who owns who, or when:

1. The boss owns the employee during their hours worked.
2. The corporate board owns the boss and gives incentives for it.
3. The shareholders own the corporate board's fiduciary decisions.
4. Many shareholders are employees.

Whenever there *isn't* a circular type of ownership, there is a high likelihood the [group](groups-large.md) is a [cult](people-culture-cults.md).

APPLICATION: In free societies, slavery typically comes from [perspective](people-image-why.md) more than any [scientifically](science.md) provable [reality](reality.md). If everyone were to change their attitude to [self-ownership](success-1_why.md), millions of slaves would be "freed" overnight.

Most people, barring [Christians](https://theologos.site/devotion-chaos/) and [leftists](politics-leftism.md), are uncomfortable with [self-identifying](people-identity.md) as slaves. Most people find that form of powerlessness [humiliating](mind-feelings-shame.md), and we can only accept it if there's some way to fix it (Christianity) or someone to blame (leftism).

Slave-owners also don't like to consider their activities as slavery. Far too often, the word [debt](money-2_debt.md) or [coercion](power.md) is a more [fashionable](people-trends.md) term to enslave people, [groups](groups-small.md), and [entire countries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti).

Further, this desire to manage [power](power.md) is so profound that the concept of equity ownership (i.e., owning an [imaginary person](people-image-modern.md) defined as a "corporation") is effectively slavery without an actual slave.

APPLICATION: Slavery is ubiquitous among [human nature](humanity.md), even if we don't use that specific word, so it will never fully go away as long as human nature stays the way it has been.

## Slavery to values

Often, our [decisions](mind-decisions.md) or [identity](people-identity.md) with a role can mean we become enslaved directly by [values](values.md) or [power](power.md):

- Our [habits](habits.md) create constraints over what we are familiar with doing, and it binds us into patterns that may make changing against them later completely impossible.
- [Addictions](addiction.md) will enslave anyone willing to devote their life to that substance.
- Living by principle means we become bound by [rules](people-rules.md), which can often make us violate what we [intuitively](mind-feelings.md) would otherwise believe to be the right thing.
- A lifestyle filled with too much responsibility (e.g., [running a large organization](groups-large.md)) requires someone to *never* be free to live [the good life](people-goodlife.md).
- Even a monastic lifestyle of abdicating all our material possessions can *still* run us into the continued risk of being enslaved to our [ideals](values.md).

In one way or another, we are always [at risk](safety.md) of something or someone enslaving us. It is impossible to be completely free of slavery in any form because we'd have to avoid adopting any [value](values.md) and avoid ever managing our [power](power.md).

APPLICATION: We can never really be "free" of slavery, and must instead choose who we serve.