Well, the "comfortable" in the US could not be that way without some form of slavery. We *still* enslave people domestically--all of those on the bottom tier of the economy, the "47%" if you will who put much more into the economy than they are paid back so that the rest of us can pay less for goods and services than they "should" cost.

We enslave people in other countries. Most recently and obviously, China. But, many other countries, too. They are paid a pittance of what their time is worth so that we can have plentiful cheap goods.

And we enslave the environment. We take waaay more water than nature can continue to provide us. We take waaay more animal life for food than nature can replace. We take more from the soil than it is really capable of giving through the use of petro-chemicals and genetic engineering. We take coffee, chocolate, tobacco, and alcoholic beverages that make huge demands on the soil and the people who must gather and process the raw ingredients that we don't "pay back."

We also take coal, oil, and gas and send their burnt remains into the air and leave yucky stuff behind that is the result of mining and refinement. These are all examples of how we "enslave" other beings and the environment. We could not live as we do without slavery.

Saul