The issue of the ‘worth’ of civilization is fascinating to me. I do think for anyone it is in some ways a matter of comparison to non-civilized society.

For some of them life was rather bleak, such as the poor souls living naked in Patagonia at the time of the Modern European explorations. Even then, though, they only knew that as what life was, and doubtlessly got their pleasures where they could. We know that others had rather an easy time of it most of the time; knowledge for living that kind of life had been accumulating for more than two hundred millennia before civilization developed. (Again, Kynefin’s essays are excellent.)

Hobbes’s — and Locke’s — “State of Nature” referred to people living as isolated beings, without any society at all; even non-civilized society involved a “social contract.” It is somewhat hard to tell whether either of them thought of that as an actual state of existence that humans had at one time experienced or whether it was purely a hypothetical to illustrate a point.

Either way, we now know that it is utter nonsense. Humans are social beings; we have always lived together in groups. That was true of hominims even before Homo erectus. To base any notion of anything on the existence of human beings as isolated individuals is preposterous.

Yet, that is how both men derived their theories for the ‘correct’ governance of governance. For Locke, it was the source of what I call his ‘radical individualism’, which plagues us yet.

That gets me to my approach to justice. I have published a very dense summation of it here on Medium, “Real Justice (summarized in a ‘5 min read’).”

As for ‘wage slavery’, in bondage slavery the slaves are capital, not labor. Economically, they are counted like machines or draft animals. To work for wages (or a salary) is to be used like a machine (usually a machine that operates a machine) — or a draft animal: thus, wage slavery. Even in bondage slavery some were overseers, some died wealthy, and some even became societally powerful; with wage slavery there are more overseers, more die wealthy, and more become societally powerful, but all who are paid wages or a salary are still wage slaves. Those who own the businesses are wage slavers.

Is wage slavery a step up from bondage slavery? I would say it is, but that is only a personal judgement, as any moral judgement can only be. Someone with different morals could disagree and not be irrational.

I can, however, envision a society in which everyone would work for the good of all (all work is, after all, a productive contribution to society), and no one ‘exploits’ any other. I have recently come to define ‘exploitation’ — economic or any other kind — as choosing to use another as a means to one’s own end without allowing that person any choice in the matter. All that follows from my approach to justice (with that definition also invoking Kant’s “Categorical Imperative,” as I expect you recognized).