The Reinstatement of Slavery as the Last Hope for the Third World and the Future of Employment in the First World

The current educational model is not economically viable. The humanistic philosophy that advocated for individual freedom is to blame for this

The Girl or the Vase? (The Slave Trader) - Henryk Siemiradzki  (Source)

Slavery has terrible public relations. In an era of political correctness, the very suggestion of it as a legitimate option is inconceivable. This is despite it being legitimate throughout most of history in various exemplary societies, where its existence was regulated under a system of duties and rights that sometimes led people to sell themselves into slavery. What elements of this phenomenon were positive? What aspects of owning a person, or partial ownership, could enable economic models that don't exist today and would benefit populations left behind? What is more moral: allowing migrant workers to drown at sea and rot in poverty, or allowing a moral form of slavery that also has an economic rationale? What could such a form even look like?

The current educational model is not economically viable. If in the past, the entity training a young person would directly benefit economically (as a parent in old age or as a master of an apprentice, for example), today only the state itself has an economic interest in training people who lack the resources to train themselves - and it shows. Since there is no widespread and attractive economic model for developing human capital, education is seen as a right of the citizen rather than a business opportunity appealing to entrepreneurs. Educational institutions don't compete for students who can't afford tuition, and certainly the vast wasted human capital from the Third World is considered to have negative economic value - more trouble than it's worth. Migrant workers, hunger, and war consume many resources for their absorption, compete with local poor for social services budgets, and provoke popular opposition that elevates right-wing politicians across the West.

Why can't a profitable business model be created for developing human capital? Ostensibly, education and training are highly profitable business activities. A one-time investment in an asset (although uncertain in its results) leads to a dramatic increase in income over decades. Why isn't this economical? The reason is primarily cultural. The philosophical paradigm of the Enlightenment - and consequently the legal one - opposes viewing a person as an object like a productive asset, and demands allowing them the autonomy of a subject, thus there is no way to compel them to repay the investment. Education is seen as a personal investment in oneself, the fruits of which belong to the subject themselves and not to those who trained them. The cumbersome and failing American model forces students into enormous debt to finance their own training, while the no less failing European model imposes this on the state, that is, on all citizens. This is instead of allowing the training institutions themselves direct income from the fruits of investment - ownership of part of the human capital they produce as a productive asset, namely slavery in percentages.

Such a model, of percentages from all future income of the student or pupil, would completely change the incentive structure of educational institutions, and would address at the root many of the ills they suffer from today, to the point of losing relevance. Among other things, institutions would have an economic incentive to personally care for each student, from the weakest to the strongest, and to maximize their training, and not allow students to drop out. Institutions would also have an incentive to provide up-to-date education relevant to the world of employment, including tools for wise conduct within it. Additionally, institutions would have an incentive for the graduate's placement in the most profitable work for them, as a continuous and integral part of the training process itself. And most importantly - since the improvement of human capital would be economical and provide dividends for decades, institutions would have an incentive to court students, including students from weak populations and backgrounds. As a result, and certainly in exchange for higher percentages that reflect the investment, it would be worthwhile for educational institutions in the West to import any talented person from the Third World and train them for the skills needed in the First World.

Trading slaves in percentages between the Third and First Worlds could be the first working solution to the situation of Third World people, whom the progress of the West leaves far behind and for whom there is currently no economic viability in their training, which creates a global dynamic of widening abysmal gaps. One can certainly imagine educational institutions in the West examining all Third World children, and offering those with the highest intelligence among them to come and study in the best possible training that ends with placement in the global job market, to maximize profits for both sides, for example in exchange for 30% of all future income. According to this vision, there would no longer be gifted individuals who don't contribute to GDP just because they speak Telugu.

How many percentages of slavery are we talking about? This can be left to the laws of supply and demand in the market. If it turns out that the percentage slavery market fails, for example becomes too monopolistic, surely the regulator can intervene and set reasonable percentages that allow profit for both sides. It's likely that a Western student could obtain maximum education in exchange for a few percent of their future salary, while an African student would be required to pledge dozens of percent in servitude. But the lack of moral aesthetics in percentage slavery pales in comparison to the freedom from the horrors of the Third World, against which moral aesthetics is a privilege. And if the word "slavery" is what's bothering - it can always be called this: "A binding and irreversible arrangement applying to the legal personality itself without limitation of time and place, enslaving part of its income while proportionately infringing on freedom of occupation but without limiting other liberties". Aesthetics are important too.