Instead of an Underground Railroad, we see the Underground Airlines, but there's a problem. Without the cultural reform that Lincoln's presidency brought to the US, there is a lack of urgency. The establishment of slavery not only continues in this novel, it thrives, and the novelist explores the way regular white collar crime could have made slavery into a permanent problem, given the modern issues of genetic engineering. The book says that the companies who use slave labor would have been interested in various other kinds of injustice as well.
One should find it confusing and painful to watch the scenes unfold when Victor learns more about slavery. Because the businesses don't perceive slaves as people, they often feel entitled to treat them inhumanely, which is weird, because even if they were only animals, there still is no reason to treat them inhumanely. Instead this should be seen as a commentary on the truth about slavery, that at the heart of slavery is not economic gain—that's just a fancy byproduct—the real reason for slavery is unfettered hatred against another people group. Essentially, the book presents slavery as a problem of racism.
This racism leads the main company in the novel, GGSI, to attempt genetically engineering ideal slaves and mass-producing them. The idea of mass-producing humans for the purposes of enslaving them is a symbol, because it is not different than the real history of slavery. Instead, Winters takes a true component of US slavery and blows it out of proportion. It seems an Underground Railroad is much more efficient than an Underground Airline, because the future is so technologically advanced that it would be nearly impossible to defeat big businesses now, if businesses started enslaving clones or something like that.
