> since most of my ancestors were peasants I believe my PoV is reasonable.
Uh, that is... quite a leap there. Not sure that one follows from the other.
True up to a point, but the agriculturalists are able to support far more human flourishing on the same land - hence why they won the fight. And AIUI for much of the time when both existed and were in conflict, the pastoralists were essentially parasitic on the agriculturalists (in that they were taking more by raiding than they would ever have gained through hunting).
> And it is states -- which are without exception agricultural socieities -- that are responsible for the vast majority of human slavery in history.
Formal, documented slavery perhaps - but that's because those are the only societies with formal, documented anything. How much choice do people in those societies have of what kind of work to do, much less not to work? How much choice do women have of who to marry, much less not to marry (and how much choice of how they're treated within that marriage)? Of course you can choose not to follow the customs of your tribe, but at that point how much protection is there for your property or even your life?
If you conflate these two options, though, it does not make sense to discuss anything with you.
>> hence why they won the fight.
More likely, they won because there were always far more of them, and Eurasian trade shifted from the "silk road" to the oceans.
>> those are the only societies with formal, documented anything
You can't be serious.
As a percentage of the population, or in absolute numbers?
In 'recent' history, Viking/Norse-Gael Dublin was one of the major slave trading centres of Europe from the 9th to the 12th Century.
Do we classify the Vikings, here settled in the one city and raising crops for three hundred years, as nomads? Is their state the state of Ireland, the place that they are taking many slaves from?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Ireland#Viking_peri...