Meta: Abolitionists and Slaves

[telesilla.livejournal.com]

So, I have a bit of a meta question....

We've seen people like Jeff, Dylan and even the Catholic Church, argue that, given the state of things in the USNA, keeping slaves and treating them well is the right/humane thing to do.

Then there's the argument that keeping slaves at all is wrong, and that it's better to either pay the fines and remove yourself from society (Cate Blanchett is a good example) or to deliberately live poor so that you don't have to own slaves (although we haven't gone into this much yet, David Hewlett's mother and his sister Kate live like this).

I'm kind of curious as to what people here think: which way makes more sense in the context of the AKB verse and which way is more ethical in that same context?

PS: There may be other examples of both sides, I'm kind of behind on the more recent additions to the 'verse.

Comments

[asknosecrets.livejournal.com]

I would say it's more ethical to keep slaves and treat them well. If you work on the basis that there will be slaves, and they will be treated badly by most, then it's better for you to give some as decent a life as possible. It doesn't strike me as being like the fur market, where if you buy some, you're encouraging trade. I'm not sure why - I'm rushing out the door, I'll think on that more later - but it seems like people are becoming slaves out of circumstance, not so much because the market pushes for more.

So if you can't reduce the number of slaves that there are, you can at least reduce the number that are treated really, really badly (while working towards removing slavery full stop.)