There are some plagues that mankind seems to be incapable of fully destroying. One of these plagues is slavery, which has existed since man moved from being a hunter-gatherer to agriculture.

Slavery is the condition where an individual is deprived of much of the product he or she produces and often all or much of their property. The ancient Greeks held slaves. The Romans held slaves. The Chinese held slaves. The Ottoman Turks held slaves. Serfdom, a less restricted form of slavery, existed in Europe from the fall of Rome until it was finally abolished in Russia in 1861.

The harsher forms of slavery existed in Europe and most of the rest of the world until the 19th century ? when it was peacefully abolished in many countries, such as England, or through violent clashes, such as the U.S. Civil War.

By 1900, most of the “civilized” world had abolished slavery and serfdom. But then a more lethal variant emerged under the more benign names of socialism, fascism and communism. The implementation of these ideologies resulted in governments causing the deaths of somewhere between 100 and 200 million of their own citizens in the 20th century.

As in the 19th century, the peasants revolted, and late in the 20th century, those living in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union rose up and tossed off their yokes.

The peoples of the world had the opportunity to see the economic destruction, loss of personal liberty, and sheer misery that the various forms of slavery caused (including those called socialism or communism); yet, here we are, three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, with allegedly serious politicians calling for the re-imposition of socialism as if history had not happened.