Slave Justification

I had a discover in class on Friday when we were discussing the development of slavery. I suppose I never really thought about how it had to... develop. It didn't just snap into existence out of nowhere. People had to make the conscience choice to increase the trade and hold more people captive. The issue then becomes "Why did they do it?". I find it hard to believe that those people could initially justify their beliefs by saying whites just had to be supreme or some other ideology. Then again, I come at it with quite a different perspective than those people in early America did. But wouldn't some little voice in your head say "Hey, they're humans too... and I would never like to personally be enslaved."
If this little voice is true, then what reasoning did these people use for justification. Well, one is obviously financial. It costs much less to keep a slave in awful conditions without proper wages than it does to pay for an actually servant who would probably demand the equalities the owner had. As it became a cultural phenomenon people probably justified it by saying "Everyone else is doing it, so might as well too."Individuals probably convinced themselves that the whites managed to win the social survival of the fittest.
What scares me is the dark side of people that probably enjoyed ruling over someone. Slave owners became addicted to that position of power and didn't want to part with it easily. All the other reasons still held true, but were they really just a facade for this darker, more macabre motivation? I sure hope not. Because that implies some scary things about human nature.

I was talking to Athena and I asked her if China ever really had the similar with slavery that America did. She said no, though there might have been something more similar to indentured servitude; in China it was never really centered around race. Perhaps slavery was more of an addiction, and once America started it was hard for Her to stop cold turkey. I suppose that's true of any social standard. Once it becomes the norm it's hard to change again; that requires altering the thoughts of an entire society of people.