Slavery was so common just 300 years ago hardly anyone raised any objections. For the human species, work is a second choice. Efforts to live off the efforts of others have been ongoing for all of recorded history.  The simplest way to gain from someone else’s work is to own another human. Most Americans have ancestors who were slaves. Africans became slaves after becoming prisoners of war in their own continent.  White Europeans were serfs, bound to the land and were slaves to the land owners or landlords.

Early economists used the term rent seeking to describe the activities of the land owners on their European countries. They received rent off of the land they owned and always had owned. Their land was not bought with earned money. The land was passed down for countless generations.  The landlords produced nothing and contributed nothing towards the growth of the economy.

Modern rent seekers are the financial institutions and individual wealth holders who through their enormous political power dictate government policy. With the cooperation of congress, the wealthy pass laws that force the public to buy their products and services. Federal Reserve policy elevates profit margins that would not exist in a free market setting. Prices consumers pay remain high. In the modern world, this process is a substitute for slavery. No, in the United States, human beings cannot be owned outright. Humans can be forced, by the use of government, to work for less than they are worth. They can be forced to pay higher prices due to monetary policy that is carried our for the purpose of artificially elevating profit margins. They can be forced to buy certain goods and services.

In the old days, at least slaves knew they were slaves and wanted out of the situation. Today Americans are completely unaware of what is being taken from them.