serfdom is just a politically correct term for slavery.
Not really since the two have different practices. Slightly, but significant enough to be meaningful. The serf himself wasn’t directly owned by another human, but he was legally considered a part of the land on which they lived. So they were only owned by a Lord through their ownership of the land on which the serf lived.
By contrast, the slave was owned directly by another person without the mediation of land.
The land mediation as well as the patchwork of different legal systems at the City-Level in medieval Europe also meant the serf had an easier time of self-emmancipation than the slave had. Whether or not he could be identified by a noble Lord as his serf, if said serf lived within city walls often for a year and a day, he was legally considered a freeman of the city. Full citizenship of the city not with-standing because that’s buried behind more legal qualifications to obtain (marriage, guild membership, property, etc)
However in the modern world of the liberal nation-state the distinctions are practically a mute point and for the liberal revolutionaries of the French Revolution and onwards serfdom was often treated the same as slavery as a form of un-freedon
