If you look at the timeline of the illegalization of slavery, you’ll find that it roughly paralleled the rise of nationalism. Citizenship is actually a form of bondage, but fealty to lords anointed by the clergy was replaced by fealty to nations sanctified by “the people.” This “sanctification” or blessing must come not only from the people of the country itself, but also from the “international community.”

There are many ways to view this system; as a legal paradigm, a form of identity, or a political system. One neglected but important way of looking at it, however, is as a method of organizing labor.

Under the feudal system, serfs were tied to their lords and had limited choices about the kind of work they did and where they could live. This was considered a sacred bond of obedience, so that obeying your lord was a part of obeying God. The labor of the peasants helped provide for the knights, who were meant to defend the homeland and the faith.

Peasants were tied to the land, and in many places there were prohibitions on them traveling to the domains of other lords to work. If they did, they could be arrested and returned to the lands of their original lords. Still, when conditions got bad enough, many peasants would flee and try to live and work elsewhere.

This is actually very similar to the modern system. The nation has the option to deny anyone a passport and forbid them from traveling, but when conditions get bad enough, many people will travel illegally and try to work in other countries anyway. Some get arrested and sent back to their lords.

In most modern low income countries, you can find a majority of the people would like to leave and work in other countries because of low wages, corruption, oppression and other reasons. They are forced to work in whatever jobs they can find locally. There is limited opportunities for migrant labor, but migrant laborers often have restricted rights and no real opportunities to permanently settle in another country.

There are parallels to slavery here too. In American slavery, for example, when a black slave adapted to white culture and became especially pleasing to the whites, whether as an entertainer, a servant, or by learning to think, speak, and act like them, they could become “house slaves.” House slaves had better living conditions, including better, food, clothing, and housing than field slaves, and were often hated by field slaves.

In the modern world, people from low status nations can emigrate and live in high status nations, and enjoy more luxuries, but only if they are pleasing enough to the high status lords. Usually being accepted to move to a high status country requires adopting the thinking, speaking, and behavior of the people of those countries.

For example, it’s almost unheard of for someone to go to a visa interview at the US embassy wearing traditional clothing. Usually people put a lot of effort into speaking English, wear American style clothing, and strive to exhibit acceptance or at least submission to American values to get a visa. If they don’t do these things, they will usually be denied a visa. Getting a visa also usually requires proving that they can be useful to America, usually through money or educational attainment.

I’ve also personally witnessed people from low income countries who went to America and became citizens return to their home countries, behave arrogantly with people because of their new status, and be hated for it, just as house slaves were hated by the field slaves.

Feudalism, American slavery, and nationalism are all systems of organizing labor. All of these systems control and restrict where people can live and what kind of work they can do.

Viewing the modern system in this way can help to understand why it is so important that Muslims revive slavery as a system of organizing labor. As slavery was eliminated in Muslim countries, nationalism moved into to fill the regulatory and economic gap. Nationalism’s similarity to feudalism should also make it clear that it is very much rooted in the Western Christian legal tradition. It was imposed almost exclusively by Christians, and the system as a whole is designed to serve the interests of the people of Western Christianity (ie. ethnic Western Europeans).

Slavery completely upsets this system, for many reasons. It completely changes the type of productive ventures which are popular, because many kinds of labor which require equipment manufactured by industries dominated by Europeans can be carried out by slaves instead. For example, irrigating agricultural land can be done by slaves rather than water pumps. The land can be tilled and produce harvested by slaves rather than imported machines. The trade in slaves itself is very lucrative, providing more opportunities for income.

Furthermore, importing slaves can also increase overall birth rates and the numbers of Muslims, allowing for more human labor power under a single family head. This allows for concentration of capital and economy of scale similar to what is achieved under mechanized models of labor organization, without the need for labor colonies as with the development of European mechanization.

Classical economic analysis views human power productive systems as less efficient since more workers produce less output. This analysis does not take into account, however, that the distribution of resources is much better. Even slaves receive food and housing as their share of the labor, and many more people are employed in a single enterprise. This reduces the cost of military and police forces, since more equitable distribution reduces the pressure to immigrate and the levels of crime within a society. It also does not take into account the detrimental mental and physical effects of unemployment.