The excerpt from Kurt Vonnegut’s "Breakfast of Champions" highlights the troubling legacy of slavery and its aftermath. It suggests that the sea pirates, instrumental in establishing a new government, viewed humans as mere tools for their purposes, treating them as machinery rather than as individuals. This dehumanization underscores a fundamental flaw in the societal mindset of that era.

Even after the abolition of slavery, the descendants of these pirates maintained this degrading perception of people, seeing them through an industrial lens. This enduring viewpoint reflects the deep-seated issues of objectification and exploitation that linger in society and suggests that cultural attitudes can persist long after the formal practices are abolished.