Servitude persists even when the servant is well-treated and chooses freely

Evidence

This is the pure form of servitude: to exist as an instrument, as a thing. And this mode of existence is not abrogated if the thing is animated and chooses its material and intellectual food, if it does not feel its being-a-thing, if it is a pretty, clean, mobile thing. Conversely, as reification tends to become totalitarian by virtue of its technological form, the organizers and administrators themselves become increasingly dependent on the machinery which they organize and administer. And this mutual dependence is no longer the dialectical relationship between Master and Servant, which has been broken in the struggle for mutual recognition, but rather a vicious circle which encloses both the Master and the Servant. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 188

Categorization

• DEFINE: Marcuse’s core definition of servitude as thinghood that contented self-choice does not dissolve.
• XREF: Directly contradicts the Master-Servant dialectic of Hegel as mediated through Marx and Lukacs; a key Frankfurt School revision. — connects to: Pious submission can be a genuine autonomous choice, not imposed subjugation; Institutions can deliberately cultivate servility as a form of unfreedom; A freely chosen contract can still create relations of domination between parties — Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and…, 745 (+1 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that animated, self-choosing thinghood is still pure servitude is the book’s central and most durable provocation.

Broader Connections

• Pious submission can be a genuine autonomous choice, not imposed subjugation #qualifies (0.85)
• A freely chosen contract can still create relations of domination between parties #corroborates (0.85) — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 745
• Institutions can deliberately cultivate servility as a form of unfreedom #expands (0.82)
• Indentured labor replaced slavery while being chosen voluntarily in some cases #exemplifies (0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3849