Bryan Caplan at Econlog has gone after Christopher Columbus for participating in the Transatlantic slave trade. Mr. Caplan has started something here and it should be taken to its logical conclusion. If I remember correctly, Aristotle had a number of slaves that he hired out to the brutality of the silver mines of Lauris. So, we can chuck Western Civ completely. Now to find a culture that did not have slavery at all.
I hope the Professor, if he has infant children at home, will let his wife bathe them as I suspect that she will be wondering where the baby went after the water has been disposed of.
Slavery really started dying as markets and technology advanced. Machinery and labor saving devices are our slaves. It is so universal that even the descendants of slaves own their own slaves in that form. If all machinery disappeared, we'd be eyeing each other thinking very different thought about who would be master and who would serve. I suspect a lot of heavy hitter economists would be writing papers justifying service to be imposed on different classes, other than economists.
Hat tip to Dennis Mangan.
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