Around 1400 B.C., the people of Athens were forced to pay tribute to the Kingdom of the Cretans. Every year, their tribute took the form of sending noble children to Knossos, the Cretan capitol. They were, supposedly, sacrificed to the Minotaur. More likely, most of them would have been sold into slavery. Even the Cretans knew the value of Greek slaves.
A thousand years after Theseus, Greeks were valued as slaves by Persians and Romans. They were worth a lot as tutors, bookkeepers, accountants, advisors, doctors, and other occupations requiring education. Educated Greeks were some of the most expensive status symbols to be found in slave markets all over the ancient world.
Today, Greece is $450,000,000,000 in debt. There are eleven million Greeks. It is astounding that they were allowed to accumulate debts that total over $40,000 per Greek. But, few bureaucrats in the Worldwide Bureaucracy want to see any of their brethren deprived. So, Greece was allowed to let its public sector swell like a malignant tumor.
A thousand miles Southeast of Greece, Kingdoms like Saudi Arabia still have slaves, Africans captured by Moslem slave traders. Christian missionaries report that many are captured and sold for as little as $20.00/each to do simple house and field work. No one in the world seems to care. The paid media, enslaved by money, is handsomely remunerated for not publicizing such things.
We may assume that the average salary now being paid to each of the skilled medical, computer, financial, educational, security, and administrative personnel in cash-overflowing Arabian kingdoms is two hundred thousand a year.
Ishmaelite purchasers would make a tidy profit by buying skilled, educated Greeks for two million dollars apiece. After the 10th year, they’d save 200,000/year for every Greek slave they’d purchased for that two million dollars. After twenty years, they’d be $2,000,000 ahead, per slave, less what was spent on their communal barracks, dining rooms, whips, and chains. They’d have all their money back.
To solve its debt problem, Greece’s government only has to sell 225,000 Greeks to the Arabs for $2,000,000 each. That would still leave 10,775,000 Greeks at home. After selling their smart, young Greek countrymen, they could cheerfully continue to run up debts that future generations of Greeks would pay off in exactly the same way.
Frankly, it could be even more lucrative for them. If marketing plans developed even larger markets for Greek slaves, Greece could sell another 225,000 young Greeks into bondage, and become the wealthiest country in Europe. It would have a half-trillion dollars in cash. There would still be more than ten million Greeks. Their spending could go on for two or three generations.
The financial benefits of selling their over-educated countrymen into slavery are easy to see. Any moral issue may be solved by asking: “Just how many Greeks does Greece really need?” It is a proven fact that the fewer Greeks there are, the more slowly they will spend themselves into bankruptcy. So, getting rid of a quarter or half million Greeks offers a hidden financial benefit to the 100% of remaining Greeks who want government jobs.
Is it wrong to sell young Greeks into slavery? The Greek legislature has legalized the killing of unborn Greek children by abortion. Could selling older Greek children into slavery for twenty years be any worse?
Greek slaves, Janissaries returning as techies, could serve wealthy Mohammedans better than the hordes of high-priced accountants, teachers, private tutors, computer programmers, bodyguards, mercenaries, medical, and financial staffs currently on their collective payrolls. Slave traders learned an important lesson when they sold Greek slaves to rich Romans, Egyptians, and Persians. Greek slaves could be marketed as “status items”. An effective marketing plan would cause conversations that included the phrase “My Greek slaves are smarter than your Greek Slaves.” to take place throughout the Middle East.
So, it’s easy to solve the Greek financial problem. And, it’s not utterly hopeless for those sold into servitude. They would remember that many wealthy Romans freed their Greek slaves if they worked particularly hard. They would recall that Darius particularly valued and rewarded his physician, one of countless Greek slaves. They also would remember those Greek hostages sent to Knossos 3,000 years ago to be sacrificed or enslaved. They would all believe that a Theseus might come to set them free.
Some sort of “lease-purchase” agreement might even guarantee some of them the right to return home. They should arrive to heroes’ welcomes, having given their working lives so that the ten million Greeks whose spending was subsidized by their sale could continue unabated.
