Slave breeder would probably be a profession/hobby for the rich, not sure if people would want slave organs…though I suppose you can get heart valves from pigs (I think)
No, that would be like trying to adopt your dog, no legal mechanism for it and people would think you’re mad.
Owning 20 slaves is a pretty serious ongoing cost, so obviously you’d have to quickly set up a busines that can support 21 people (+dependants). But a 20 person workforce is a pretty decent sized medium company. If freeing them is not an option then obviously the best thing you can do is make a micro community that’s well off enough to shield your members from the worst of it.
I haven’t read the other responses and just going with the OPs hypothetical.
In the real world I find the idea of slavery repugnant due to enlightenment era philosophy and the ideas of human rights that spring from such. Assuming that I never encountered these ideas, how would I use my human resources to the fullest potential?
It depends. I know that’s a shitty answer, but it depends on where the labor shortages are. There are plenty of unskilled jobs out there, from farm work to customer service. Where ever there’s a shortage, that’s where my slaves would be. Prostitution, warehouse work, cleaning sewers, whatever the market demands. If I’m only out for me and I can move my human property where ever I want, I would follow the market.
Yeah, owning 20 slaves and not owning farmland for them to work seems fraught with difficulties. Can you just sell them to someone with land?
(that doesn’t make for a very interesting story, I guess.)
If you own mostly women you could set of a whorehouse. That’s what actual slave-owners mostly do in the US today, I gather.
There aren’t really a ton of jobs these days where any able body can show up and earn is keep. You’d need to educate them, so they can support themselves (and you.) So I suppose what you do with them depends on their abilities. Maybe you can start a plumbing firm, or a landscaping company. I don’t think you need to keep them locked up – these people have no legal status as people, where are they going to run? If you do a decent job managing them and keep them well employed, well fed, and well housed, they’ll probably think they are lucky they aren’t stuck with that incompetent owner
down the street whose slaves are always hungry and wear shoes with holes. Of course, maybe you are not a great manager… Can you train one of the smarter slaves to manage your plumbing firm?
Well wait a minute. Think about the crappiest, shithole situations you have seen in the world where the people, especially children, live under a piece of cardboard in a rat infested area with no food, sanitation, or anything else. Giving such a person a chance to move to the US where at LEAST they can live in a real home with running water, get decent food, get healthcare, and be able to earn a living - is that so horrible?
Now I’m not talking chattel slavery like in the old days but what about a type of indentured servant type of situation where they agree to work for say 5-10 years and after that, can return home or continue on as a paid employee.
We have people who immigrate to the US all the time and they say that while things can be pretty crappy here, its still better than being back home.
They can make dogfood for Rachael Ray!
I’m pretty ignorent about Middle Eastern history, but weren’t slaves in the Ottoman Empire more a luxury / status symbol than an actual large scale Labour force?
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