Except that:

a) slavery is still alive and well worldwide (one book I just read names that more individuals are enslaved now than a the peak of the African slave trade)

b) the moves to delegalize slavery happened as coal/steam power were in full control, not petroleum.  (which still allows the possibility that cheap power was part of the reasoning)

Slavery was simply less cost-effective than steam power and less consistent than skilled labour in an industrialising economy. For essentially the same reason, horses are rarely employed in industry anymore.

Now, there are highly automated factories that come close to making skilled labour an unnecessary cost.

The quality of work is so poor that most employees in the biggest economies loathe their jobs... and, as income gaps continue to widen, the big money comes from investments that essentially a "system" -- you just need the power to rig the odds so your every bet pays out.... viz. the banks: they are still in business, their executives are still in the money and people who took mortages from them are unemployed and homeless. And we still believe that money has a value in its own right.

Somehow or other, sense needs to get back into politics to ensure that the economic system serves society, instaed of the other way around. The way it's headed, the human race is dead folks walking.

Slavery is, as GordW wrote above, alive and well and exists even in the good 'ole USofA.  Most modern slavery is to be found in the sex trade, both adult and child, but also the traditional "domestic" can be found in some wealthy homes.

Check out antislavery.org and  notforsalecampaign.org

I tried to embed a video but it is giving me grief

Not For Sale campaign video

And now we're all slaves to oil.

We can certain wean off oil... it is do-able. the MEANS are there. If we are slaves, our slavery is self-imposed.

It's the vested interests' control of OUR politicians and the lying propaganda that sustainable energy will devastate economies that present us with the BIG problem.

Well, now we have the devastated economy -- thanks to the same greed-gone-mad bunch of monetarist and "market force" obsessives who are giving us the line about oil's irreplaceability.

We need to get OUR politicians back... and drop the ones who want to stay curled up in the lobbyists' pockets. This is nothing new... for example:

FROM 24 August 1991

New Scientist

:Last October, the European Community decided that it would freeze its emissions of carbon dioxide at 1990 levels by the year 2000. This sounds like good news; carbon dioxide is the main gas that contributes to global warming at present. But it turns out to be not much of a promise.

A study by the European Commission has shown that emissions are likely to stabilise by 2000 through 'market forces' anyway. In other words, if people are given a choice, they will use more efficient technology and burn less fossil fuel.

But the Community further pledged to cut its carbon dioxide emissions substantially after 2000. That is an important and difficult promise, for it demands active measures to cut back on releases of carbon dioxide. But the pledge may mean less than it appears at first sight.

The Commission has yet to define what is meant by 'substantially', both for the Community overall and for each member state. A decision by European Commissioners and energy ministers is expected in the autumn. Meanwhile, a recent study by environmental group shows that so far, the Community is not really trying to cut back.

To find out what the various pledges will mean, the Commission last year contracted teams of scientists in each member country to come up with a least-cost means of meeting both energy needs and various carbon dioxide limits between 1995 and 2010. The study, called the CRASH programme, was based on a set of computer models. They combine predicted fuel prices, energy demand, legal constraints such as those on pollutants from power plants, predictions of road traffic levels, costs of changes in energy use and supply, and numerous other factors....

The models showed that efficient use of energy would contribute more to meeting needs and cutting carbon dioxide cheaply than any other option. The teams also calculated the costs and effects of other approaches to the carbon dioxide problem: changing to sources of renewable energy likely to become economic in the next 20 years; switching from coal and oil to natural gas, which produces less carbon dioxide per unit of energy; and introducing more efficient plants for burning fossil fuels.

But cutting carbon dioxide emissions further is another matter. As a test case, the CRASH teams determined which mix of energy sources and efficiency would provide the required energy services by 2010, with 10 per cent less carbon dioxide emissions, at the least cost. They modelled this by obtaining the most energy possible from the cheapest energy source, then doing the same with the next-cheapest, and so on until needs were met. The modellers included means of saving energy as well as producing it.

For the Community as a whole, the least costly mix of options to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 10 per cent included some 'end-use' efficiency beyond improvements driven by the market alone. This produced a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of 1 per cent, but it means again that governments would have to intervene in some way to encourage energy-efficient goods. More government help was needed for solar water heating, domestic heating with biomass, photovoltaic electricity, and more efficient cars and washing machines.

...

The question remains how to put pressure on markets and energy industries in order to achieve these goals. The only firm decision emerging from the discussions now under way in Brussels is for a tax on fuel, based both on the energy it produces - a means of promoting energy efficiency - and on the amount of carbon dioxide it produces - a means of promoting the use of natural gas. The figure now gaining favour, according to Community officials, is $10 per barrel of oil, or its equivalent.

But the response to the abrupt jump in the price of oil in the 1970s showed that such taxes are most effective if they are used specifically to support R&D for energy efficiency. They have far less impact if they disappear into the general government kitty, but one member state, Britain, insists that this is what must happen. It says the EC has no right to levy taxes, nor to tell member states how to use their tax revenues.

At present, Europe's prospects for keeping its promise of substantial cuts in carbon dioxide emissions in the next century look bleak. The scientists of the CRASH programme may have shown that Europe has the technology to cut its greenhouse gases, but the Community has a long road to travel before it develops the political will to do it.

Personally I would use the phrasing "addicted to oil" but same end result