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Notes -
I agree with your final point about the evolution of human relations. People do own their own labor and time to a degree never before possible.
However, @FiveHourMarathon has a point I don't think you can totally dismiss as "relativistic nonsense." Take an example that hasn't fundamentally changed in at least 100 - 150 ears; the Military.
A 2nd Lieutenant is typically between 22 and 25. A Platoon Sergeant (typically somewhere between E-5 to E-7 depending on factors and how fucked up the enlistment cycle has been) is within just a few years of age of that 2nd LT .... probably late 20s.
On paper, the 2nd LT is utterly superior in everyway to the Platoon Sergeant. Short of physical violence, the 2nd LT has dictatorial control. In real life, the platoon sergeant has about a decade of experience (and, for this generaiton, a lot of that in combat if its a combat arms MOS). They know then ins and outs of the organization, the duty station, the personalities up and down the command. If the 2nd LT does not strike a balance of experience deference to the Plt Sergeant while not looking weak in front of the men, he's going to have a bad time. A lot of self-conscious but very gung ho 2nd LTs will totally blow off the subtle suggestions of Plt Sergeants ... and learn some hard lessons about leadership the hard way.
The point is, even in a situation where, yes, you have close to absolute superiority in every way over a "subordiante" (fun fact the etymological root of Sergeant is Servant) if you're going to have a long term or just a non-transactional relationship with that person, you have to invest in the relationship somehow.
That relationship is still hierarchical, but it has almost nothing to do with the absolute superiority of the past, of servants and slaves. In pre-19th century armies (later for less enlightened societies, like russians or arabs) , the lieutenant could have the sergeant and his men flogged at will. This has proven to be a cruel and inefficient way of handling human relationships. This is the supposedly authentic and empathic model fivehour and the others are defending.
Yes, but he still needed them to be loyal and effective soldiers. There was even then a balance that had to be struck, and it was the accepted duty of the commander to command effectively as much as - if not moreseo - it was the duty of the soldiers to obey commands. Was it cruel? Surely that depended on the effectiveness of the commander - is it cruel to win? Was it inefficient? Consider a different world, where materials and manufactured goods are rare but illiterate, unskilled manpower is not.
But that is my point, they did not win, you don't get loyal and effective soldiers this way. You don't get a productive underclass either, the cruelty is not just gratuitous and prejudicial to them, it also harms the elite, their institutions and goals. Feudal peasants/slaves are unproductive, and feudal peasant armies are dogshit. Armies and societies which treat and treated their underclass with great brutality end up poor and lose wars.
e.g. , old monarchical armies versus more enlightened french and english, southerners versus northerners in the ACW, WWI losers (who had the harshest discipline and the highest number of soldier executions? Of course the garbage tier of WWI: Austria, Italy, Russia) , arabs in the latter half of the 20th century (earlier too, but now it's getting real embarassing).
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