Types of Slaves

 Slaves can be distinguished from peasants by the need for constant supervision. Both peasants and slaves are like programmable machines, but slaves are like machines with bad memory that spontaneously drops instructions - often daily or even hourly.

 The primary kind of slave is the perverse "bad and the desire for the bad" kind of slave. They disobey because they feel getting whipped is good. The more they're whipped, the better they're playing the role of slave, and obviously the point of society is to fulfill social roles in some kind of cosmic drama. Their work is unpleasant because it's the assigned role of work to be unpleasant, not because folk will do pleasant things without having to be paid.
 The constant interruptions required to fulfill their need to be whipped consumes a lot of supervisor time and makes their work inefficient, mimicking an inability to concentrate. It is tempting to whip them so hard they can't work, which will at least, for a time, produce proper deterrence, but then they can't work. It's counterproductive, and regularly even more counterproductive than just literally whipping them into shape multiple times a day.
This kind of slave can't hold a normal job because they either get fired for insubordination, or, after the sensitivity training, they deliberately sexually harass some poor ugly chick.

 

 The least interesting kind of slave really is that stupid. In the middle of picking cotton they forget they're supposed to be picking cotton and wander off. They genuinely can't concentrate. "Why do I have this basked of white stuff strapped to my back? I don't remember. Is the white stuff tasty? Doesn't look tasty. I wonder why it's in there. The basket is heavy, I'll put it down." They can't hold a normal job because they forget what an alarm clock is supposed to be for, turn it off because it sounds bad, and don't show up for work. In a less atomized society with rigidly regimented and longhouse-panopticon'd social roles, they can maintain a normal job as they will get to work out of sheer herd instinct, following their peers because they're there and moving.

 Slaves like this used to be used in many computer applications. They're still useful for bot-resistant tasks that are still very simple and repetitive, like digging ditches or mopping. Maybe painting. Since they can't remember their own task, they need a supervisor to remember on their behalf. Alt: to be part of a herd of slaves all doing the same thing, thus constantly reminding each other by example of what they're supposed to be doing. Due to the need for constant reminders, the task has to be something explainable in words. Probably 100 or fewer words, which in turn means the supervisor must verbally understand the task. Sometimes you can get away with showing them what to do and having them copy you.

 The barest touch of the whip is all that's needed to keep this slave in line."Oi, back to work." "Oh, right, work. Whoops." Going further is pointless, as you can't whip someone smarter.  

 Pretending these slaves aren't slaves produces useful camouflage for anyone who wants to go to the washroom and "forget" to come back to work. "Oh sorry I got distracted (lol)." Works due to broken window fallacy: it's easy to forget someone who's missing, whereas someone slacking next to all the hard workers is someone who stands out. Sadly minimum wage laws have pushed almost all of these slaves out of the workforce. 

 The final type of slave is incredibly prideful. They think they know better than everyone else, but can't distinguish better and worse, they can only distinguish same and different. Hence, to prove they know better than you, they will do something that differs from what you said. Hence, if what you said was right, they're guaranteed to do it wrong, unless someone violently forces them not to. If you deliberately say something wrong, they will only get to right by chance, and anyone who isn't this form of slave will be doing it wrong on purpose. They can't hold a normal job because they get fired for incompetence. It's not that they can't understand what they're supposed to be doing - it's that they deliberately choose not to do it.

 This kind of slave loves to post of web fora. "Look at this herd of sheep," they think, "I'm better. I'm different." Yup, they're certainly different all right.

 When this kind of slave inevitably fails, because they're trying something dumb, they blame someone else. 

 Even if they stumble across a good idea through heavens-defying luck, they won't keep it, because they even need to be different from themselves. "I'm always improving!" Still can't distinguish better and worse, so it will be worse. 

 Sometimes these slaves will coordinate on a forum A, saying they're all better (different) than some forum B. This obscures their basically contrarian character. It shouldn't work, they should notice they're now conforming, but they're stupid so they won't notice until the above "always improving" dynamic triggers. "I used to visit forum A all the time. Now that I've grown..."

 At least, unlike the first kind of slave, they can be terrorized into obedience. This is the kind of slave 'encourager les autres' was invented for. However, they will ultimately fool themselves into thinking they can get away with disobedience, "stupid boss, I'll show him," and you'll have to whip them again. The longer they go without showing they're "better" the more desperate they get and the more force will build up behind their self-delusions. "I''m not a slave! I'm better than this!" They cannot accept their lot in life. When defeated, they always delude themselves into thinking it's a temporary setback and one day they'll show us, show us all.

 

 Although the underlying causes differ, slaves have very limited training capacity. They have to be re-trained constantly. They can't accumulate complex skills.

 Children also. You can send them to school, but they're going to forget anything they learn. If they need to know they'll have to be re-taught later, in a short enough time window that they don't forget before they use it. 

 Using chunking a peasant can be trained in almost arbitrary skills, but remember they will never be able to deal with novel situations. You're lucky if they can even identify a situation as novel and notice their training doesn't apply. Equivalently, you get peasants who regularly see superficial meaningless differences as totally novel situations and freeze up. If they could produce healthy responses to novel situations (and novel responses only to novel situations), they would be lords.