1) Modern workers are not owned from birth.
2) Debt is not forced upon you against your will, debt is a choice.
3) The alternative to choosing debt is not getting whipped nor killed.
4) Bankruptcy is neither getting whipped, nor killed.
Debt for an individual is a choice. However our monetary system mandates that some people or entities must always be in debt. If there were no debt there would be almost no money in circulation.
So while you say that debt is a choice, it is impossible for everyone to be debt-free. If everyone stopped borrowing (consumers, industry and government) in this country, we would have a complete economic breakdown.
This is like saying smoking is a choice: from the perspective of the single potential smoker, it is. From the perspective of the marketer this is unimportant as they don't need you to smoke, they just need some people to smoke.