[Gatac]

But morality follows from the basic rules on how people should live together. Nobody sat down and said "Hey, wouldn't it be swell if we didn't kill each other on sight?"; this basic rule follows from the age-old revelation that when you've got more time to eat when you're not constantly watching your back.

Reread my post, Valium. Nowhere do I say that it was morally right. I do not agree with slavery. There, I'll say it again. Slavery is wrong to me. My point was, back in the days, it was still wrong, but it made economic sense. Corporate towns existed beyond actual slavery before the workers flat out refused to do anything, and today, we're headed in a similar direction again. It's a simple economic truth that when you already have a market to sell to, your best bet is cheap - very cheap - labor. The rise of wages throughout came from the realisation that the workers were the new market. (There's currently an uproar over working conditions at Electronic Arts - they have their staff work 7 days a week with barely enough time off to sleep, and then have the guts to claim that the creative guys are not entitled to overtime pay. Tell me how this is not alarmlingly similar to slavery.)

Of course there was greed behind it. Greed drives many human endavours, both positive and negative.

This actually illuminates the quote quite well - the majority believed it was right, but we know now that it wasn't and still isn't. History does not record many cases where the majority was right.

If there are moderating influences, then it's not absolute, or? I'm sorry, but this sounds like a logical contradiction. So there's a few things that are always wrong or always right, and then there's a big gray smudge between them for everything else?

I know I'm dragging up a lot of bad things, but those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Gatac