<p>I found the article highly interesting and disturbing in its potential implications:</p>
<p>[The</a> Messy Link Between Slave Owners And Modern Management - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2013/01/16/the-messy-link-between-slave-owners-and-modern-management/]The”>The Messy Link Between Slave Owners And Modern Management)</p>
<p>Thought this would be an interesting article for discussion.</p>
<p>There are parallels but I think it would be silly to imagine that slavers would organize their activities in some unprecedented manner or one unrelated to modern business. They were businesses, at least when slaves were used for production. As far as I know, similar methods were used in the management of estates in ancient Rome. I don’t see how one could think methods developed in pre-industrial societies where wage-employment was small scale would be otherwise. That would either assume people in the past were stupid or that wage employment is some sort of quantum-like change in human nature.</p>
<p>Hard to tell from the Forbes article whether the book just points out typological similarities, or if it tries to show a genealogical link. The first one would be not very surprising, the second would be very interesting.</p>