[asobalife]

> A happily paid worker with their own free time isn't likely to revolt and kill you

Historically, slave revolts are extremely rare. Most slave populations are deliberately beaten into a state of learned helplessness so that they don't even believe that revolt will get anywhere. Or they are given just enough such that there is something to lose (besides their lives) in revolt, and the natural human aversion to loss kicks in. Many slave economies in human history have relied on this - see ancient Rome as an example.

> A free child that is educated has a much higher return on investment on average.

But that ROI takes 20 years to be realized. How many people, really, are going to forgo ROI today for bigger ROI two decades from now? There is a reason why on a normal yield curve, loans with long term maturity have higher rates of interest - psychologically, we are biased towards present income vs future income.

> your models.

Human history and empirical human psychology?

[Kim_Bruning]

> How many people, really, are going to forgo ROI today for bigger ROI two decades from now?

That's (part of) what governments are good for! They are great for making decisions in situations where larger investments over longer time periods pay good dividends.