Are you being groomed into being a Modern Slave?

Most people hear ‘modern slavery’ and picture trafficking victims or sweatshop workers—suffering that’s clearly visible, obviously wrong, and comfortably distant from their daily lives. What if the most effective slavery in history isn’t hidden—but public, celebrated, and defended by the very people it enslaves?

I understand that comparing contemporary life to slavery will make some readers uncomfortable. That discomfort is the point. We’ve been conditioned to reserve the word ‘slavery’ for its most extreme historical forms, but slavery is fundamentally about the extraction of labor through coercion—regardless of whether that coercion is applied with whips or withholding.

To be clear: I’m not minimizing the horrific brutality of historical slavery or the ongoing horrors of contemporary trafficking. Chattel slavery involved unimaginable physical cruelty, family separation, and dehumanization that scarred generations. The whip, the auction block, the chain—these were instruments of terror that reduced human beings to property through violence and degradation.

I recognize that freedom and slavery exist on a spectrum. Between the plantation owner’s whip and complete autonomy lies a range of arrangements—serfdom, indentured servitude, debt bondage, and various forms of regulated participation in society. Most people would place our current system somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, arguing we have enough choices and protections to avoid the ‘slavery’ label.

But consider where we actually fall: When you cannot keep the majority of your labor, cannot opt out without facing state violence, cannot choose how your extracted labor is used, and face increasing surveillance and restriction of movement—how far from the slavery end of the spectrum are we really? The question isn’t whether we’re chattel slaves, but whether we’re close enough to that end to warrant the comparison.

I use ‘slavery’ not to minimize historical suffering, but to cut through the comfortable language that obscures the actual relationship. Terms like ‘social contract’ and ‘civic duty’ prevent us from examining what’s really happening. Sometimes the most uncomfortable comparisons reveal the most important truths.

This isn’t about personal hardship or material deprivation. Many people living under this system—myself included—enjoy comforts that would have amazed historical royalty. The sophistication of modern control lies precisely in maintaining compliance through comfort rather than suffering. A golden cage is still a cage, and a comfortable slave is still a slave.

What if the most effective slavery in history makes its subjects grateful for their subjugation?

The Invisible Shackles

The genius of contemporary slavery isn’t the whip, it’s the W-2. It’s not the chain, it’s the mortgage payment. It’s not the overseer with a gun, it’s the IRS agent with a lien.

Think I’m being dramatic? Let’s examine the mechanics.

You surrender 30-50% of your labor before you ever see it. If you refuse, men with guns will eventually arrive at your door. The extraction is comprehensive and inescapable: earn money, pay income tax; own property, pay property tax; spend money, pay sales tax; save money, lose to inflation tax; invest successfully, pay capital gains tax; start a business, pay for licenses; run a profitable business, pay corporate tax; give money away, pay gift tax; die with assets, pay inheritance tax. Every economic action becomes a revenue opportunity for the system that owns your labor.

You can’t opt out of funding wars you oppose, surveillance systems that monitor you, or bureaucracies that regulate your choices. Your ‘property’ can be seized for unpaid taxes, even if you own it outright.

Historical slaves at least knew they were enslaved. The violence was visible, the coercion obvious, the enemy identifiable. Today’s slaves are convinced they’re consumers.

But here’s the real masterpiece: you’ve been convinced this is freedom.

The Comfortable Cage 

The cage isn’t just bigger now—it’s learning. As I documented in “The Invisible Leash,” we’re witnessing the elimination of cognitive friction itself. When AI systems can predict your needs before you feel them and shape your choices before you make them, you’re not using technology—you’re being optimized by it.

But the technological cage is only half the story. We’re witnessing the colonization of human biology itself.

The modern slave doesn’t just surrender their labor—they surrender their cells. Your nervous system is being mapped for networking. Your DNA is being collected, stored, and potentially auctioned in bankruptcy proceedings.

When 23andMe filed for bankruptcy, it left 15 million DNA samples vulnerable to creditors, while officials like Netanyahu openly announced genetic database plans and Congressman Crow warned about DNA-targeted bioweapons.

When RFK, Jr. announced universal wearables within four years, the infrastructure required—regardless of stated health goals—represents the final component of comprehensive biological surveillance that creates permanent legal records for insurance companies, employers, and courts to weaponize against you.

This represents the perfect synthesis of my previous investigations: “The Corporate Veil’s” legal transformation that created the framework for treating citizens as corporate assets, the technological apparatus that perfected the delivery mechanisms, and the biological colonization that provided the final substrate for control.

But here’s what makes this convergence truly unprecedented: we’re witnessing the emergence of anticipatory compliance. Your smartwatch doesn’t just track your health—studies show wearables can detect conditions like Covid-19 up to 7 days before symptoms appear, while insurance companies like John Hancock offer up to 25% premium discounts based on your activity data. Your phone doesn’t just suggest routes—it knows your behavioral patterns well enough that employers are using fitness trackers to monitor employee performance and “reliability” based on movement data. Your streaming habits don’t just reflect your preferences—they shape your psychological profile in ways that determine your access to credit, housing, and employment.

The modern slave isn’t just compliant—they’re predicted, pre-approved, and programmed for the life the system has chosen.

The Evolution of Bondage

Alongside this invisible system, the old brutalities persist today. Children mine cobalt in the Congo under armed guard to power our smartphones. Human trafficking generates $150 billion annually through forced labor and sexual exploitation. Millions remain trapped in debt bondage, forced marriage, and industrial slavery that looks remarkably similar to bondage from centuries past.

What makes the form of slavery I’m describing historically unique isn’t its cruelty but its invisibility. Traditional slavery—both historical and contemporary—relies on obvious coercion: if you’re owned, you know it. The master’s authority is visible, violent, and direct. Resistance means physical punishment, but at least the enemy is identifiable.

The slavery of the developed world operates through what we might call the ‘white glove model’—polished, comfortable, and marketed as benefit rather than bondage. Traditional slaves are told they’re property; modern slaves are told they’re customers. Traditional slaves are controlled through fear; modern slaves through convenience. Traditional slaves are kept ignorant; modern slaves are overwhelmed with curated information that shapes their conclusions.

The plantation owner never convinced his slaves that chains were jewelry. The Congolese warlord doesn’t pretend the cobalt mine is a wellness center. But we’ve been convinced that surveillance is safety, that debt is prosperity, that algorithmic control is empowerment.

Traditional slavery was economically inefficient—you had to house, feed, and guard your property. Modern slavery is self-maintaining: the slaves pay for their own monitoring devices, compete for their positions, and attack anyone who suggests they’re not free.

You celebrate when your smartwatch reminds you to exercise. You feel grateful when your phone suggests the fastest route. You trust algorithms to curate your news, your entertainment, your potential romantic partners.

We’ve been conditioned to love our cages so thoroughly that questioning them feels like madness.

The Financial DNA of Control

The economic architecture of modern slavery operates through the systematic conversion of citizens into corporate assets. The legal frameworks established after 1871 created the foundation for treating people as revenue-generating entities rather than sovereigns, as evidenced by how your name appears in ALL CAPS on government documents—the same format used for corporate entities.

This isn’t just bureaucratic formatting—it’s the paper trail of your conversion from citizen to inventory. You’re not exercising rights; you’re generating revenue for systems that process you like any other corporate asset.

The financial enslavement operates through debt that can never be repaid because the ‘money’ used to pay it is itself debt. Federal Reserve notes aren’t currency—they’re IOUs in a system where every dollar represents an obligation to private banks. You’re trying to pay off debt with debt instruments, which is mathematically impossible.

The $37 trillion national debt isn’t just a number—it’s a lien against your future productivity. You didn’t vote for this debt, you can’t discharge it, but you’re legally obligated to service it through your labor

And here’s where the noose tightens: Central Bank Digital Currencies represent programmable money that can expire, restrict purchases, or shut off entirely based on compliance—eliminating the last vestige of anonymous economic activity.

The trajectory toward financial control wasn’t accidental. The Economist’s 1988 cover predicted a ‘world currency’ emerging from the ashes of national currencies by 2018—exactly when cryptocurrency and CBDC development accelerated. By 2021, the same publication celebrated ‘Govcoins’ as inevitable, replacing ‘In God We Trust’ with ‘In Tech We Trust.’ This 33-year progression from prediction to celebration reveals the deliberate timeline for eliminating monetary sovereignty.

Cash, the last vestige of anonymous economic activity, is being systematically eliminated. What they call “financial inclusion” is actually economic imprisonment: making every purchase a permission request to algorithmic authorities.

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Authored by Josh Stylman via The Brownstone Institute,