Civilization Requires Slaves

The fact is, that civilization requires slaves.  The Greeks were quite right there.  Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing.  On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.

-- Oscar Wilde (1853-1900), Irish essayist, novelist, playwright, and poet, The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1895)