“The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison.”

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

What if the most effective slavery in history isn’t hidden—but public, celebrated, and defended by the very people it enslaves?

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.