A few weeks ago, the Sydney-based Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) released an interesting report, warning that, ‘A culture of dependency and entitlement has taken root in the population and political behaviour has become only too willing to accommodate and encourage it in a feedback loop.’

More than half of the population relies on the government for their existence, whether it is through government employment, allocation of pensions or other benefits, or government contracts. This government dependence decreases the size of the private sector in Australia’s economy, thereby decimating entrepreneurship, demonising small businesses, and increasing public spending and debt. The CIS report is a sober acknowledgement that Australia has been transformed into a welfare state, where people depend on the generosity of governments. Yet, it is interesting that many people are happy with this situation, not realising that they have in fact become modern slaves. In making this claim, are we exaggerating, you might ask?

To answer this question, we need to look at the main characteristic of slavery. To that purpose, we could rely on the Slavery Convention of 1926 which stipulates in its Article 1(1) that ‘Slavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised’. This ‘right of ownership’ typically manifests itself as a right over the person himself or herself, or as a right to appropriate their property at will.

Historically, in the 19th Century, a person was a slave if they were the property of a slaveholder. This institution existed throughout the world, notably in the Confederate States of America. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney of the American Supreme Court confirmed their status as slaves in his now-infamous Dred Scott v Sandford decision. Decided in 1857 – 24 years after slavery had been abolished in the United Kingdom in 1833 due to the advocacy of William Wilberforce – Taney wrote that slaves are not citizens and have no rights under the Constitution.

The formidable work of William Wilberforce in the United Kingdom and President Abraham Lincoln in the United States were monumental milestones in outlawing slavery. In the United States, President Lincoln signed an Executive Order, known as the Emancipation Declaration, declaring that ‘all persons held as slaves’ in the rebellious Southern states ‘are, and henceforward shall be free’. He went on to say that, ‘…upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.’

Fast forwarding to our time in Australia, although people themselves are no longer the property of a slaveholder, governments of all persuasions routinely sequester people’s property. The following examples are evidence of this.

First, the government’s seeking to destroy farms and sterilise productive arable land by building environmentally destructive wind turbines on the property of farmers – a result of the government’s obsession to achieve impossible and futile ‘Net Zero emission targets within arbitrary deadlines.

Second, government policies such as confiscating machetes to curb youth crime, and third, a demonstrable propensity to repress free speech to control what people are allowed to see and say.

It is not controversial that each time farmers’ properties are invaded without their consent, or people are compelled to hand in machetes or other implements that could be used as weapons, or have their free speech rights restricted, their property is taken away by an all-powerful government. Of course, whilst in the past, slaves themselves were property of the slaveholder, now the government has become an entity that compulsorily takes property for its own purposes, even if it bankrupts people or confiscates their time in complex accounting for what they have done to earn an honest living. This point is germane to this discussion because the confiscation of people’s property, time and savings, dehumanises the victims of the appropriation: it is effectively the functional equivalent of ‘owning’ the person. An all-powerful government that enforces compulsory wealth sharing overlooks how such policies can undermine the incentive to create wealth. The proposed tax on unrealised profits is but the latest example of this ill-conceived practice. Hence, to be released from enslavement to socialist tax acts that require people to work all day to produce and exchange goods and services, and spend all night worrying and accounting to a governmental slave-master, it is necessary to become a member of the omnipotent government, or an acolyte who benefits from the resultant legal and accounting complexity.

In Victoria, farmers in regional areas, are threatened with monstrous $12,000 fines if they refuse to let ‘climate change’ contractors on their property to erect gigantic wind turbines. And as there is a severe crime crisis, the Victorian government’s response is to ban machetes and to place machete amnesty bins around the state. Australia is experiencing rising immigration, contributing to housing and employment challenges. In response, the federal government is introducing hate speech laws that involve monitoring online anti-migrant statements by citizens.

All these problems are facilitated, if not created, by governments. Indeed, governments allow elevated levels of immigration, are soft on crime and encourage rampage by opposing youth gangs; they tolerate a woke education system that fails to make teenagers resilient and civic-oriented. Yet, their response is to ban machetes, free speech, and trample the rights of farmers who feed the nation.

For a long time now, governments around Australia have created or exacerbated these problems and its solution is to effectively condemn people to a life as a slave, deprived of their property. The response of the government that created these problems in the first place is to ban access to the media by under-16-year-old teenagers, including YouTube, impose excessively high fines on dissenting farmers, and condemn people to poverty by the adoption of business-unfriendly measures that promote, not prosperity, but poverty and economic ruin.

To think that slavery was abolished in the 19th Century is thus to think narrow-mindedly. That century was certainly instrumental in facilitating the elimination of one form of slavery, but nowadays, many people are content to be slaves. People value comfort and transient pleasure more than freedom and property. It reminds us of a quote attributed to Fyodor Dostoyevsky: ‘The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison.’

The CIS report is a disturbing, but timely reminder that freedom cannot be taken for granted. It recalls the continuing validity of President Ronald Reagan’s statement that, ‘Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.’