alt Hacker NewsIn a pre-industrial agricultural society, slavery or something similar (serfdom etc.) tends to be widespread, as human and animal muscles are the only reliable and ubiquitous source of energy. Humanity only really started getting rid of unfree backbreaking work by adopting steam engines. 300-400 years ago, most of us forists here would be unfree people working the fields in unfavorable conditions, with maybe 5 per cent being burghers and 1 per cent nobility.
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It's not that pre-industrial society causes slavery, it's closer to the other way round. If you're pre-industrial then everyone has to do farm work, yes, but slavery is /economically inefficient/ because the slaves don't provide demand (since you don't pay them) and don't grow the economy.
This is why economics was called "the dismal science" - economists told people to stop doing slavery and the slaveowners called them nerds. They wanted to own slaves because they wanted to be mini-tyrants, not because they were good at capitalism. Adam Smith did not go around telling people to own slaves.
The mistake was inventing agriculture.
> slavery or something similar (serfdom etc.)
Serfdom is very different from slavery. Even slavery is not always as bad as Roman slavery.
Roman slaves could be legally killed, tortured and raped (even children). Serfs might not have fair access to the law but at least in theory they had recourse and society recognised mistreating them was immoral.
Serfs could (meaningfully) marry. They were tied to the land so could not be separated from their families and sold elsewhere.