Glad you liked the story Eva. Slavery seems to us such an appalling thing, and yet it was thought good economic practice for so many centuries. Indeed, it still continues in a number of different forms even today, and is defended on economic (and sometimes cultural) grounds. A good reason to be wary of people who advocate giving market forces free rein, i think.

Reading about the morality of non-human animals, as we have been doing recently, has me wondering whether humankind’s treatment of animals will ever be classed as slavery.

And now I think I should look out my copy of Gulliver’s Travels when I get back to Gothenburg at the end of the month and re-read the fourth voyage – Gulliver among the Houyhnhnms. Do you remember? The horse-people who kept human-like Yahoos as their beasts of burden.