[slibhb]

The ubiquity of slavery doesn't imply that slavery was necessary for the development of modern countries/economies.

It just implies that, through much of history, people didn't see anything wrong with slavery.

[iamnothere]

I never said it was necessary, only that it was universal.

I suspect that the recent aversion to slavery is more of a function of our relative level of development (and the education that comes with it) than anything else. Morality can only thrive when there is a reasonable standard of living, otherwise people will find ways to justify evil.

Today it seems that we are at a level of development where we can only justify slavery if it is out of sight. I hope we can advance further, but we may be at our limit, as other moral taboos are already breaking down.

[slibhb]

> I never said it was necessary, only that it was universal.

Fair enough!

I'm much more optimistic than you. I think we'll keep muddling along, slowly improving morally for the forseable future.