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Comment by rjh29 | Hacker News Reader

When I think of slavery I usually think of working for free, not H1B tech worker salaries which are insanely high on a global scale. It's also something people actively sign up for.

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To echo a sibling comment: freedom, not salary, is under question. Agreement should not be given one time at sign up, it needs to be given continuously. High cost associated with being compelled to leave the country upon quitting, low mobility between employers, etc. reduce that freedom.

Worth reading about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labour, it's not just the practice of chattel slavery, and various forms are still legal in the US.

The free part of slavery is about freedom, not payment. It was not uncommon for enslaved people to buy their way out of enslavement.

The defining feature of slavery is the involuntary part of it.

Quick googling (could be wrong), thousands bought freedom, approx 4 million were enslaved. It would have been uncommon, ballpark 0.1% (which still seems high to me. The issue is a very large denominator)

Slavery was around long before the US existed. In Ancient Rome it was much more common for slaves to buy their way out of slavery..

Sure, but the context is America. It would have been helpful to make clear you are referring to other systems of slavery (for which i would still want to see data for).

Again, the resources I found in a quick search state about 5M slaves in Rome, and buying freedom was uncommon.

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