I found this paragraph in the Memoirs of Hadrian very incisive and relevant to this sub. Quick and dirty attempt at an English translation:
I doubt that all the philosophy in the world will ever succeed in destroying slavery: at most we will change its name. I can imagine worse forms of servitude than ours, because they are more insidious: either we will succeed in transforming men into dumb and satisfied machines who think themselves free although they're subservient, or we will develop in them, in opposition to leisure and human pleasures, a taste for work as fanatical as the blood lust of warmongering barbarians. […]
(Context: Mémoires d'Hadrien was written by Marguerite Yourcenar in the 1950s. The book is a letter written by emperor Hadrian, on his deathbed, to his adoptive grandson Marcus Aurelius. The original autobiography did exist but was lost to history.)