Robert Higgs destaca diez razones que los partidarios de la esclavitud han empleado históricamente para racionalizar esta práctica.
1. Slavery is natural.
2. Slavery has always existed.
3. Every society on earth has slavery.
4. The slaves are not capable of taking care of themselves.
5. Without masters, the slaves will die off.
6. Where the common people are free, they are even worse off than slaves.
7. Getting rid of slavery would occasion great bloodshed and other evils.
8. Without slavery the former slaves would run amuck, stealing, raping, killing, and generally causing mayhem.
9. Trying to get rid of slavery is foolishly utopian and impractical; only a fuzzy-headed dreamer would advance such a cockamamie proposal.
10. Forget abolition. A far better plan is to keep the slaves sufficiently well fed, clothed, housed, and occasionally entertained and to take their minds off their exploitation by encouraging them to focus on the better life that awaits them in the hereafter.
Higgs desarrolla brevemente cada punto, y señala la curiosa similitud con los argumentos de los estatistas a favor de un Gobierno intervencionista y el pago de impuestos.
Today these reasons or very similar ones are used by opponents of a different form of abolitionism: the proposal that government as we know it—monopolistic, individually nonconsensual rule by an armed group that demands obedience and payment of taxes—be abolished. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide whether the foregoing reasons are more compelling in this regard than they were in regard to the proposed abolition of slavery.
