"Gold is the currency of kings; silver is the currency of gentlemen; barter is the currency of peasants, and debt is the currency of slaves."
I saw this quote on a bumper sticker and it got me thinking about slavery. With 70% of GDP being consumer driven spending, (debt) it follows that most of us are already slaves. The question isn't about WHO is the slave, but Who is the slave owner. It is my belief that in reality, the "haves" have been making slaves of the "have-nots" since December 23, 1913. Slavery in the sense that it exists today is not about race or class, but about the miracle of compounding interest. To answer the original question, slavery has ALREADY grown the US into the World's largest economy by a very wide margin.