Are Poor People Slaves?

Last week, if I remember correctly, Mr. O'Connor said in class that poor people are essentially slaves. He pointed out that since poor people have to work so hard and still struggle to get by, they are practically enslaved. I disagree with this assessment for three main reasons.

For one, I believe that people are entitled to their life, liberty, and property, and unless somebody takes those things away, you should be considered free. As the Founding Fathers said, there are things such as Natural Rights - or rights that every man, woman, and child is automatically born with. Life, liberty, and property are Natural Rights, and I believe that nobody should be entitled to anything more. Just because people are making a voluntary decision to work and support themselves financially doesn't mean that they are entitled to anything else. To do that would be to take away somebody else's rights, by taking money from them (perhaps through taxation).

Also, I feel like Mr. O'Connor is overlooking the fact that although poor people may seem to be struggling, rich people only a century ago could only have dreamed of such luxuries that are considered common today. Many of the things that we take for granted these days - like TV's, phones, an computers - were beyond people's imagination back then. I would say that poor people have a higher standard of living than rich people from the past. So with this train of logic, were kings and queens many years ago slaves too? What about the hunter gatherers from thousands of years ago?

And thirdly, if we are to consider poor people to be slaves, can't anyone be considered a slave? Shouldn't students at New Trier be considered slaves, since they are confined in a building for over seven hours a day and spend much of their remaining free time doing homework? And students don't even get paid. In fact, I would argue that what many young people are forced to go through could be considered slavery, to a certain extent. I mean, most of the people at school don't have a choice whether or not to go to school, and many of the students in level 4 classes are practically forced to take them because of pressure from home. In a sense, I'm required to work for a minimum of seven hours a day, and I think some of my Natural Rights have been taken away. But my point is that billions of people live very tough lives, and are we really to see them all as slaves?

What do you think? Are poor people essentially slaves, or am I right in arguing otherwise?