Slavery and oppression of blacks violates the same moral rules as oppression of businessmen

To start with, I must note that I did not in fact claim that businessmen had been regularly physically beat and tortured, or made to forget their names, or "smuggled on slave ships.". I stated the opposite, by replying, when you listed those issues, "difference in degree and not in kind," acknowledging the difference as existing, simply not relevant to the discussion. I also never denied that the past slavery of blacks had anything to do with race, I think you misinterpreted when I was stating that the ESSENCE of slavery ignores race, the term slavery is applicable regardless of whether race is the reason for slavery. Whether a comparison offends anyone is, frankly, irrelevant to the debate. Suffering is not a commodity, to be haggled over in weights like old gold coins. It is something to be destroyed. Also, I'd like to amend the matter on apartheid (enforced separation of groups). Specifically, I would not claim it was totally lacking, simply that the attempts at it had very minimal success. It's rather like Prohibition in this sense-- still wrong, it just didn't accomplish much. The societal arrangements by which blacks and whites had always, regardless of the power difference, interacted in their daily lives, trumped legal attempts at changing them. 1. Stripped of their culture The culture of business is one where productive success is the highest virtue. According to the ruling in United States v. Alcoa (and it was practiced well before then), it is a crime, and the government WILL place anyone attempting to practice it beyond a certain point in a cage (prison). Imprisoning people for practicing the essence of their culture strips them of their culture. Of course, the effects of such "Antitrust laws," since society is dependent on business, affected the whole of society, but that doesn't alter their target. The effect was a massive contribution to the Great Depression, after which point Roosevelt decided to get rid of the charade and just nationalize everything. " 2. Robbed from their homes" Imprisoning someone takes them from their homes. If they have harmed no one, it is an initiation of force, and therefore you are robbing them from their homes. " 3. Separated from their children and families" Prison separates people from their children and families, pretty simple here :). " 4. Smuggled on slave ships" The slave trade ended in 1808. Unless you also wish to claim that slavery ended in 1808, I rather think you should especially concede that this is definitely not a necessary condition to the question of whether slavery occurred :). " 5. Sold to "owners"" The government has, from the very beginning right up to this day claimed to own businessmen, though not in so many words. Business being what it is, they claim in it the form of a share rather than the whole-- this share has varied from nominal rates in the 19th century, to a peak of NINETY PERCENT in the middle of the 20th, to an insanely complex to calculate amount today. Nominally, it claims on average, 18% of a person's income as the dividends for it's ownership share, but businessmen have higher incomes and the tax rates are thus higher for them. But, when you take into account thousands of regulations, which also claim ownership of income but destroy it before it can be calculated instead of taking it for their own use, the ownership share has to be significantly higher. Now, as for whether they sell this ownership share, that's where campaign finance comes in. Congressmen regularly sell complex derivatives on the income from their human property in the form of government programs, both for campaign finance (typically selling it BACK to some other businesses-- just like with how black slavery there were also black slaveowners, there are businessmen who purchase ownership shares in other businessmen too), and for votes from voting blocs. The fact that you're selling a derivative on credit doesn't change the fact that credit is your product, and it is the same with derivatives of the ownership of human beings. "6. Beat and tortured" Black slaves were beat and tortured because that was what the slaveowners at the time thought would be the best method of obtaining a return on their investment in their chattel. The slaveowners of business are more sophisticated, and resort to other methods, resulting in a far greater return on investment. " 7. Raped" This is reserved by the government largely for a specific kind of businessman, the drug dealer. Since they regard drug dealing as a greater offense from their chattel than most other things, they punish it more severely, by placing them in prisons where rape is encouraged by the very nature of the place. They officially wash their hands of the matter, just like most owners of blacks hired someone else to do the whipping rather than get blood on their own hands, but the fact remains that they are the first cause of it. " 8. Made to forget their given names African slaves were given new names and made to respond to those names by their "masters"." The government now has ownership claims on too many people to practically make up new names for them all. A cost-cutting measure. As such, it instead gives them new numbers to treat as names, and requires them to respond to those. It figures if it also lets the slaves in question keep their old names too, they will resist less. "9. Systematically Dehumanized" The claim of ownership in another human being is itself so dehumanizing that other matters are frankly irrelevant once that has been established, given that ownership is by it's very nature a condition that can only rightfully be applied BY, not TO, a human. Nevertheless, the government regularly encourages various mobs to shout out what kind of nonhuman monsters they think businessmen are, and regularly uses it's less defined laws to call up show trials damning the businessmen for daring to be what they are, though it usually stops short of the death penalty (lynching) for practical reasons (It does not do so in most other countries, which is why most other countries do not get as high a return on investment on their ownership shares in businessmen). The fundamental moral rules violated by both cases are the rights to liberty and property, both of which are consequences of the right to life-- so long as you respect that others own themselves and what they have created until such time as you voluntarily give either up, you are to be treated as you own yourself and what you have created until such time as you voluntarily give either up. These cannot be violated except by the initiation of force, and the initiation of force necessarily violates them. Force has been initiated in both scenarios, against the blacks, and against the businessmen.