I realize there have already been replies to this so I'm responding to original post so as not to get into the weeds of replies just yet.
This is a huge topic with many branches, I don't expect to cover all of it right now, but this came up in another thread and I thought we should talk about it further:
First, I agree with Steve97, you should define slavery. For instance, slavery in Old Testament times was different and translations tend to translate servants to slaves. They weren't technically indentured servants in the sense of pre-Colonial and Colonial indentured servitude. So are you talking about chattel slavery where the human is the property of the owner, essentially treated like live stock to an extent? You can't conflate the two terms because chattel slaves almost never had the opportunity to freedom whereas indentured servants knew there was a point where they wouldn't be in servitude anymore. There are nuances here to deal with. I know you say that the topic has many branches but you seem to start off painting with a broad brush here.
Slaves for example got freedom at the expense of plantation owners freedom to have free labor. That freedom was fought for and the majority deemed it necessary to support the freedom of the slave over the corporate slaveship.
Any rights attributed to the slave by the owner does not necessarily make slavery a morally upright practice. It simply means the owner gave the slave rights just like an owner can open a gate and let a dog out to run free for a while until the owner calls the dog home.
Some view minimum wage as slavery.
This is a metaphorical thing when people say this. The feel working, minimum wage, etc. is like being a slave to the system, etc. They are not slaves in the traditional sense of the term.
Slavery for most of history was a moral thing at first anyway. For instance instead of killing someone in war you could make them slaves.
This is true. So how do you feel about societal truths and all that?
In the Bible Israel did this with one of their enemies, but it was disobedience, God wanted them dead not in servitude. They became a stumbling block later to Israel.
This is true.
Some poorer nations you can hire a slave to clean and cook in someones house in exchange for room and board, food, and medical coverage or whatever.
While I know slavery still exists today contrary to popular belief primarily in the West, are you speaking current time here or are you still speaking on ancient cultures?
So slavery is not always bad and many forms of slavery still exist today in most of the world.
It is true that from a perspective of someone weighing out starving, or their daughter or children starving that they would sell themselves into slavery or their family or their children. It is also true in history that many people did this and they did it for financial gain, selling their wife, daughter, themselves, son into slavery because they were poor and couldn't afford to take care of themselves.
This does not necessarily make the practice of slavery a morally upright thing, however.
It was simply the slavery of African americans and the mistreatment of those slaves that give it a bad name.
This is not true. Granted, in the West the African Slave Trade has greater influence in the discussion for a variety of reasons, some being the identity politics of today, but also of yester-year, the reality is that if you study slavery from a historical perspective there are more instances in history where slavery is viewed as bad other than the African Slave Trade. However, unfortunately, due to intellectual dishonesty, in my opinion, over here in the West we don't like to talk about things like White slaves in Africa, White slaves in the Middle East, etc. in history, same race on same race slaver such as Africans enslaving Africans, Middle Easterns enslaving Middle Easterns, Whites enslaving Whites, nor do we do much talking about current slavery now called human trafficking.
I don't think slaves should be property and I don't think they should be sold, or mistreated as in the hebrew slaves of egypt. But again when conquering a country if you ask them....do you want to be killed or do you want to build this pyramid for me free of charge? They will choose of course to build the pyramid.
One country conquering another in war and taking some prisoners as slaves, not all mind you, only some does not necessarily make slavery a morally upright practice. First, these people are taken against their will, it's not likely the victors asked them what they wanted to do in every case, while I'm sure there's some out there since I'm not an database on every event in history, most of the ones that come to mind from my studies don't show this to be the case.
Slavery is bad in the sense of owning someone else, or not allowing them to vote, or not paying them in some form, or in the sense of treating them harshly.
Are you saying slavery is
only bad when it removes someone's free will and individual liberty?
But would be unusual for people not to think they are not a slave in some form or another, being employed is a form of slavery.
You're conflating employment with slavery. Employment is by and large voluntary. You can choose to work or you can choose to not work and suffer the consequences of both choice. While working conditions in certain regions and industries could be compared to the lifestyle of a slave's working conditions, it does not mean an employee is a slave. There are too many differences in individual freedom outside of an employee's work environment that a slave does not have. This is a false equivalence.
Paying taxes is tribute to a government, you are in servitude for the exchange of military protection, police, firefighters, and roads.
This largely depends on the type of government you are talking about. While some governments can be seen as forcing a type of servitude on their citizens, like communist, socialists, some monarchies and empires, others aren't in the same fashion. Again, if you're painting with a broad brush then you're going to see false equivalences where the differences matter most. In a society in which the free rights of the individual are supposed to be a core pillar of said society in which the citizens' voice about things such as taxes and how much are represented through their votes and subsequent representatives then you can't say in general, that taxes is a form of servitude. Of course, metaphorically speaking, sure you can make those comparisons and call say it seems like servitude.
So you see my point, many people say the Bible is in error because it has slaves mentioned there, but they don't understand slaves still exist today, even in america.
I agree with this sentiment. Many people don't understand the history of slavery, their knowledge stops at colonial era, primarily in the West. They don't even venture beyond that to realize during that time Muslims were enslaving Africans
and Europeans
and fellow Middle Easterns
and Muslims. They don't expand their knowledge to realize Blacks owned Black slaves as well in the U.S. South mind you. They also ignore the reality that when God brought the Israelites into the Promised Land, slavery was already in full practice so He was regulating it for the Israelites.
To be fair, many who take this route with the Bible and slavery do so because they can see how slave owners in the West tried to use the Bible to support the institution of slavery and racist views. However, they tend to selectively ignore the others during that time who also used the Bible to argue against slave supporters and racists views and spearheaded the Abolition movement.
What do you think a nanny who happens to be hispanic is? (working for minimum wage or under the table), that is servitude.
I think the nanny has a low paying job and is getting paid without having to pay taxes like I do. That's not necessarily servitude, that's selling her labor for pay.
Again, one thing you have to stop doing is conflating servitude with slavery. The latter tends to occur when the individual loses all ability to choose paths for themselves outside of their owner's will in a permanent sense, not all the time, but generally speaking.
Edited to add: Had a bad tag for the quotes.
