“[O]wnership of humans is possible too; not in terms of actual slavery, which they are proud to have abolished, but in the sense that, according to which sex and class one belongs to, one may be partially owned by another or others by having to sell one’s labor or talents to somebody with the means to buy them.” –from a description of the Empire of Azad in Iain M. Banks' The Player of Games.
“[O]wnership of humans is possible too; not in terms of actual slavery, which they are proud to have abolished, but in the sense that, according to which sex and class one belongs to, one may be partially owned by another or others by having to sell one’s labor or talents to somebody with the means to buy them.”
–from a description of the Empire of Azad in Iain M. Banks' The Player of Games.