Master and Slave II
Channel: Anekantavad
Date: 2017-01-08

Response to this comment:

1. There exist moral frameworks that improve the general welfare and facilitate social and technological progress.
2. Societies which find those frameworks that lead to more highly felicitous states will have a comparative advantage over those societies which fail to find socially productive mores. 
3. Those societies ("master races" I understand the term has negative connotations, and I use it specifically to challenge prevailing sentiments against hierarchy and authority) which find productive moral/legal systems will come to influence those societies which do not, either through conquest, annexation, or through the diffusion of beneficial social and physical technologies.

You emphasize that you do not conceive master or slave to be superior or inferior to each other (I never advocated slavery btw, masters are not always masters over slaves), but superiority and inferiority in this hierarchical context simply refers to relative positions in the social system. A private is inferior to a sergeant, a sergeant is inferior to a captain etc. If the master is not superior to the slave then the master is not the master, if the slave is not inferior to the master then the slave is not the slave.

The role of the master should not be sought for its own sake and power is not an end in itself, but superior social roles exist in all market driven systems because of innate differences in mental capacity. The less capable need the help of the more capable. You point out correctly that the role of the master is in some sense a servile one: the master has obligations to help those beneath him in his hierarchy. The sergeant's job is to make sure his privates get what they need, which does include direction. I understand the desire you express to step outside the hierarchy and be an autonomous individual, but that means shirking the obligations and duties that come along with being a person of great capacity. Society needs leaders because many people need help.