[insertUsername2]

I agree that policy could have an effect. But it does not explain all of it.

For example, I do not think that "the wealthy" could make slavery fashionable in a medium, lets say two generations time frame.

This is because we have, at least in most places, accepted on a cultural and moral level that slavery is deeply wrong.

I do realize that you can argue with eg. cases in Bangladesh or children in African cobalt mining, but to bring back slavery in Europe or the US would take a massive cultural shift over generations.

[MereInterest]

Start by undereducating a population. Tie school funding to property values, so that existing imbalances are accentuated in the next generation. Promote a mentality of punishment, even for minor offenses. Always push the framework that an individual is solely responsible for any actions, even when there are overwhelming societal issues.

That sets the tone and the public support for the direct actions to come next. Have increasingly severe punishments for minor crimes. If any politicians speak out against it, run ads describing them as "weak on crime". If necessary, invent entirely new crimes to target the groups that you want to target.

Now you have a captive population, and public support for punishing them. Since the framework emphasizes individual actions and individual "debts", there is no backlash in having that population work while captive.

Slavery is deeply wrong, and exists in the US today through the prison system.

[DoingIsLearning]

> but to bring back slavery in Europe or the US would take a massive cultural shift over generations

I think that example is taking it off-topic from humans' environmental destruction.

Nevertheless, I hope you are aware that US for-profit prisons have a legal framework for institutionalized forced 'penal labour'. [0]

All you have to say is that these are 'bad' criminals and that they deserve it, and public inertia will allow for this to be accepted and slipped into the background. While for-profit prison cronies are allowed to rent out people to business at zero cost. This is not prison 'professional' rehabilitation this is forced labour.

Money shapes policy, outside that, policy only changes when an extremely high social threshold of indignation is reached.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/23/prison...

[insertUsername2]

Depressing.