Slave Planet

It explores the apparent ubiquity of slavery in civilizations from the Egyptian to the American. By casting it in the form of maximized capticalist exploitation, the story seeks to reveal the inherent corruption of capitalist endeavor that relies on slave labor to maximize profit over productivity.

The story looks at the perspective of the capitalist, who is deeply embeded in the system, some of the overseers and a few of the slaves. in this instance, the slaves are simple aliens, carefully programmed to believe they are part of a natural order, one they would not survive without.

The paralells between this story and New World chattel slavery are obvious, although modernized and set in a world where the slaves are still embedded in their own milieu, albeit removed from direct contact with it. This compromises the story, as slaves who know their way around in the wider world were very difficult to control as escape was commonly successful.

The brevity of the tale makes it necessary to simplify the characters involved, but the strength of the characterizations is still there. While not a classic in SF, it is still a powerful statement about the persistence of exploitation, its justifications, and the awful impact it has on master and slave alike.