Note: This is an opinion piece. Do your own research, use your own brain, form your own opinions.
While freedom and liberty is an idea has been pronounced and embraced by many societies for a number of centuries we are all subjected to various limitations. They are limitations of our intelligence, physical abilities, perception, weaknesses. Strive as we might to overcome them - and we should strive to push the limits, at least sometimes - we can never fully overcome those limitations. We have needs that we end up serving no matter what. So does that mean none of us is free? Perhaps. But what makes a slave then? Would that be someone who is shackled and forced to do hard labor under a watchful eye of a guard, threatening to enact violent, or even lethal, retribution at the first sign of dissent?
It would be fair to consider a person in that predicament a slave. But one does not have to be in a situation that dire to be one. Some one who is deprived of free will and control of self and of one's property is also enslaved, to some degree or other.
The Meriam-Webster dictionary defines a slave thusly:
slave
- : a person held in forced servitude
This definition is accurate but perhaps not all-encompassing. Or, rather, it is important to delve into what is servitude and when, and how, one may be forced into servitude. This may be more nuanced than you may think.
Indeed, what is it? Is that any sort of tightly regimented service? So is a soldier volunteering to serve in the army to defend his country a slave? I would argue not, because strict regimentation is part of what that soldier has volunteered for. Than of course the line is thin - once the country misuses this soldier's commitment he becomes a sort of involuntary servant. But, provided the country upholds its end of the deal, this is service, not servitude.
Now let us consider the case of an American medical doctor who is well paid but knows that, even if that person hates their job but knows hey have no good options open to them as quitting their job would not make the 200,000 USD student debt hanging over them (which, by the way, can not be discharged even through bankruptcy) go away. That doctor may only be carrying on feeling that no other alternative is open to them. Of course, there is no overseer with a whip forcing them to go to work every day doing something they may despise - but is that situation somewhat akin to servitude? Strangely, it may be. While the doctor may be comfortable at the moment they know that a different kind of employment would likely mean a pay cut that would bring with it outright poverty caused by the exorbitant debt obligations - and hence their perception of their station in life may be no different from that of a formal slave who also feels like they have no viable option other than to stay where they are, as much as they may have their life situation.
So to a large degree slavery may be a function of perception. It is only in part conditions imposed on one by others - the rest of it is one's perception for of one's place in life.
In a word - none. Not in terms of perception. A slave holder may hold uncountable wealth and power, a slave may have nothing but a set of ragged clothes and a cot to sleep on, but mentally both accept slavery as a normal condition of life. And in fact the two can change their stations in life easier than you may think.
A truly free person will neither keep anyone in bondage, nor accept slavery as a viable option in life. That person may submit to overwhelming force but will likely turn o resistance at the first opportunity.
You can do that by force. But that is expensive - in terms of effort, or financially if you pay others to work as enforcers, hence mental enslavement is more efficient and effective. This is how it is done now, mostly - though psychological control was always there. And even the slavers of the Barbary slave trade, in addition to using overwhelming violence, made sure to select slaves who were sufficiently subservient - while, for the most part, killing any one of heir captives who showed any kind of dissent.
In the modern Western society, various cults ranging from religious cults to that of "wokism" use manipulation, deception and shaming to conduct their psychological enslavement. It is, surprisingly, far more efficient than outright violence.
That is a hard one. I guess there is no "one size fits all" recommendation. But, for one thing, whenever you feel like you have no options - check to see if you may have been enslaved and assert your autonomy and freedom. It may be worth it, in more ways than you may realize.
slave (Meriam-Wbster definition)
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