So you prefer owning people? Or you just object to work? It's not clear what you are advocating for. We live in a world where people need three square meals a day, they want heating and transportation and energy, and other people have to work every day to provide those services.
It seems a bit entitled to be moaning about the fact that one must work to survive in life -- that's kind of how this whole life thing works.
The important thing is not whether something is labeled slavery but rather looking at the dynamic where someone coerces another to spend their time working for someone else. Labeling the dynamic based on the amount of time and degree of suffering is counterproductive. I think most of us can agree that reducing how much that dynamic is in play in the world is ideally a goal for any civilized society. And that the current amount that people are forced to work for the benefit of others is far more than they need to for their own well-being and the wellbeing of society. The amount of labor many, many people are coerced to perform is used as a control mechanism as often as it is for productivity, and in some countries, its use as a mechanism of control rivals productivity as its primary purpose.
The problem is when you start classifying voluntary exchange as coercive, then language loses meaning and you can start reaching really dysfunctional and foolish conclusions.
So no, needing to provide a good that someone is willing to pay for in exchange for getting a good that you want to pay for is not "coercive". It is not slavery. It is a recognition of the fact that humans constantly need support from others. We are dependent on each other. Animals need to hunt every day. That's not coercion, its dependency on the environment. Humans are dependent on each other. That means we have to do stuff we may not feel like doing, but that others are willing to pay us to do. But the only reason you need to work is to get money, and the only reason you need money is to buy a good or service provided by someone else. If you start calling that "slavery" or "coercion", then you are distorting the language, and the only reason to play language games like this is to deceive, not to get to the truth of the matter or make any meaningful, practical, improvement.
So if you feel that, for example, modern industrial economies are too bureaucratic and have too many paperwork jobs, or if you feel inflation is unfair, or that wages are too low, then just discuss those issues. Don't twist the language to try to call needing to work "slavery" - which is a highly charged term - in order to hope that this type of rhetoric will get you over the finish line. The questions of things like wages and pensions and working standards are too important to be subject to this type of polarizing linguistic obfuscation.
> The problem is when you start classifying voluntary exchange as coercive
Is it really voluntary though? Without money, you'll starve, lose your home, etc. People need to get a job and make money.
Voluntary is when I sit down at my computer to hack on some project for fun. I'd do this all day but unfortunately I have to work.
> Humans are dependent on each other.
> That means we have to do stuff we may not feel like doing, but that others are willing to pay us to do.
If you have to do anything at all, you're being coerced. Being forced to work for someone else is slavery. All that's changed is the means of coercion: it used to be force, now it's debt.
> "slavery" - which is a highly charged term
The fact the term has connotations doesn't matter. The similarities are there, so I will call it what it is.
I understand there is this religion of "liberation" in which being bound by the law of entropy or subject to electroweak forces is considered coercion and slavery.
That is not what these terms mean. Man is a limited creature dependent on and subject to many things by necessity of being real rather than a mind object. He is also subject to biology, geography, customs, etc. Those who attempt to rip man out of these constraints in the name of liberation always fail and in the process hurt humanity just as lifting a fish out of water to "liberate" it from being dependent on water is doome to fail and to hurt the fish.
> If you have to do anything at all, you're being coerced
So you are coerced into needing air to breathe. You are a slave of entropy. This is not what these terms mean. Words like "coercion" or "slavery" refer to an actual person forcing you to do something that you could conceivably not do if they didn't intervene. If you expand the definition to coercion to include the second law of thermodynamics, then everying is being coerced and the word loses all meaning. Another attempt to lift the fish.
The only the reason you need money is to get something from someone else. So if you can't get that thing voluntarily, you need to coerce them into giving it to you by force so that you can be "liberated" from paying for it. In other words, you are defining liberation (for you) as coercion (of the other) and freedom from coercion (for you) as slavery (for the other). But even this wont work because it takes a great deal of effort to coerce someone into giving you stuff for free, and that effort itself is work which you need to do yourself or pay someone else with money to do. So it is inescapable -- getting that sandwich always requires work:
We don't live in a universe in which things like food appear out of nothing (entropy again) but they require effective effort to create, and money is just one technology we use to track that effective effort, also called work. This basic fact is just the result of electro-weak forces and entropy. Complaining about being subject to these forces as "coercion" or "slavery" serves only to obfuscate.
There are real slaves still in the world - Libya has open-air slave markets - and there was real slavery in the past.
Saying "I'm a slave, too, because I can't get free sandwiches" damages what the word "slavery" means and hurts the language.
Similarly declaring yourself subject to "coercion" because you are subject to the laws of physics makes everything subject to coercion and thus the word is rendered meaningless, making it harder for people actually undergoing coercion to be helped.
So please try to help rather than hurt. Please use the words in their commonly understood meaning if you intend to engage in productive discussion rather than in destruction.
The Yes Men pointed this out explicitly in their presentation to the WTO on Leisure Wear for Managers of the Future. The golden penis suit was just the cherry on top.
That way ensuring they are provided the necessities of life becomes some else's problem. Less liability.