Taking twenty dollars from someone’s wallet steals their property, but debasing that twenty-dollar bill steals the work, the stored effort and time, that the bill represents. Much like the ancient sophists, today’s skeptics fixate on accidental attributes, confusing matter for form. They insist that forcing someone to pick cotton is completely different from forcing them to endure a little debasement: utterly incomparable in their eyes.

— Neal Flesher, Modern Chains (Chapter 1)

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