This is a very simplified view on history:
Back in the Middle Ages in England, the population was divided into 10% free tenants, 10% slaves, and 80% serfs. The serfs were tied to their lord's land and had to pay taxes with agrictural products, plus corvee (unpaid labor) to their lord on certain days of the week. Consider the origin of the word "landlord". If a serf girl wanted to get married to a boy who belongs to another lord, they'd have to pay off the girl's lord for "loss of labor". Plus when she leaves, the landlord can't boink her anymore.
The serfs could sell surplus crops for a little money, but most were piss-poor and you really couldn't tax much out of them. Plus, serfs far out-number their Lord and his small number of men-at-arms, so when the serfs get really pissed off, they simply zerg their landlord and chop his head off.
Somewhere between the Middle Ages and today, the landlords figured out that it's better to just let people work for themsevles. The more money people made, the more they have to spend on buying stuff, pay rent (or mortgage), and in taxes. Let's face it, people don't look forward to unpaid manual labor on a farm. But if you show the guy a brand new 5 bedroom McMansion, he's going to run the rat race to afford it.
Unlike slavery and serfdom, you don't need to force people to stay and work. People have the freedom to vote with their feet, be a bum, move abroad, and do whatever. In the Landlord's eye,
you're easily replaced and frankly, he has even less incentive to keep you than his predecessors 900 years earlier, because replacements just magically appear like elves! Unlike the buxom serf girl who's boinking that handsome, well-endowed young lad from your neighbor's land, the landlord doesn't need to demand a payment for "loss of productivity" when she gets pregnant and has to marry the guy. There's enough people today who'd be happy to come and run the rat race for one of these:
Which, in their mind, will buy them a lifestyle like this (
results may vary):
In reality, many probably end up sitting in one of these for 40+ hours/week (I do it for up to 30 hrs/week myself):
Think that's bad? There are 1.7 billion people in the world who lives in sh*tholes like these, who would be more than happy to sit in an clean, air-conditioned cubical, with over-sized doughnuts and starbucks coffee on the table:
So if you're worried about "Big Brother" having a "program" to turn you into a busy little worker bee, congratulations on being well-off enough (full belly, roof over head) to afford the luxury of sitting around and reciting the verses of Jabberwocky:
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!�
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!�
He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
