Long-term economic feasability of slavery

It seems to me that a large middle class consumer base is the hallmark of a developed nation. Smaller middle classes always mean a smaller economy, and a shrinking middle class is aways a sign of serious economic trouble.

Also, it seems that on the average, wlaves would be less motivated workers than workers in a hardcore communist state.

So to me it seems that a state which extracts any significant number of people and puts them in a slave state is going to do badly compared to an entirely free nation. And the greater the percentage of slaves, the worse it'll do. Even if there is an economic advantage to an individual in using slave labour, that may well be paid for on the society vs. society level.

Of course, that might not matter if all nations are slave states.
 
Hnh. Can you identity a key thinker whose work led to this idea, or do you think it was a collective effort?

Almost certainly a collective effort. John Locke was probably the first big name to push the concept that we all had equal rights, and then Jefferson's Declaration of Independence gave it another huge rush of attention. The French Revolutionaries pushed it further and the rest is history.

I believe that both the Bible and the Qur'an have passages that can be interpreted as "it's okay to enslave other people but not your own", but I'm far from an expert and may be completely mistaken.Those hardly seem like difficult factors to achieve.

The Old Testament allowed slavery of Israelites, and the New Testament orders slaves to follow their Masters "as to the Lord". I believe in the Koran, that free Muslims can not be enslaved, but Muslim slaves (and their descendants) can be kept as such.

Aren't you basically saying that in a culture where A is normal, people will accept A while in a culture where A isn't normal, people won't accept A?

I'm saying only the latter part is true, assuming A is a brutalising thing. (The brutality may be enough to cause A not to be challenged even if it is normal.) But the larger point I'm making is that the economic changes in a post-industrialised part of the world will make them intolerant to slavery, which they will then enforce on the rest of the world.
 

Alkahest

Banned
In various societies political status was dependent on how much land something owned or the value of their wealth/income. It could thus be conceivable that owning a slave could "buy" someone political status. I can not see how it could arise in a pre-industrial society though as the slave would have to be bought and maintained and thus the factor determining political status could be construed to be in fact income.
As said, the fact that slaves can free up some of your time to spend on political matters would mean that proponents of the system I proposed could argue that owning slaves is not only convenient but necessary for meaningful political participation. I think the theory that slavery actually made the Athenian democracy possible is fairly mainstream. Add this to the Athenian snobbery and strong dislike of the idea of working for other people and we have a recipe for slavery being an integral and officially necessary part of society.
 

Alkahest

Banned
It seems to me that a large middle class consumer base is the hallmark of a developed nation. Smaller middle classes always mean a smaller economy, and a shrinking middle class is aways a sign of serious economic trouble.

Also, it seems that on the average, wlaves would be less motivated workers than workers in a hardcore communist state.

So to me it seems that a state which extracts any significant number of people and puts them in a slave state is going to do badly compared to an entirely free nation. And the greater the percentage of slaves, the worse it'll do. Even if there is an economic advantage to an individual in using slave labour, that may well be paid for on the society vs. society level.

Of course, that might not matter if all nations are slave states.
We don't really have any examples of a "developed" nation with widely used slave labor, so it might be hard to extrapolate from OTL. While I think that your theory holds in some areas, I'm not sure that it's always true. The lack of useful data makes speculation hard.
 

Alkahest

Banned
Almost certainly a collective effort. John Locke was probably the first big name to push the concept that we all had equal rights, and then Jefferson's Declaration of Independence gave it another huge rush of attention. The French Revolutionaries pushed it further and the rest is history.
The American Revolution saves the day! How wonderful.
The Old Testament allowed slavery of Israelites, and the New Testament orders slaves to follow their Masters "as to the Lord". I believe in the Koran, that free Muslims can not be enslaved, but Muslim slaves (and their descendants) can be kept as such.
I'm not used to defending religion, but to play the Devil's advocate (heh) I can say that one thing that has struck me about the Abrahamitic religions is that slavery seems to have been seen as a necessary evil and that the soul of a slave has the same worth as the soul of a free man. There's a certain difference between Abrahamitic acceptance of slavery and, for example, Greek ideas about slaves having slave-like natures making them unfit for freedom.
I'm saying only the latter part is true, assuming A is a brutalising thing. (The brutality may be enough to cause A not to be challenged even if it is normal.) But the larger point I'm making is that the economic changes in a post-industrialised part of the world will make them intolerant to slavery, which they will then enforce on the rest of the world.
Unless you put a negation too much between the parentheses, I'm not following your argument. But even assuming you're making the argument I can understand, I don't see why the fact that it's brutal would be enough for people to not accept it. We can compare it to meat-eating again. There's no economic or health-related reason to eat meat for the vast majority of people. Few are unaware of the brutality and suffering that factory farming involves. Yet very few people decide to not eat meat.

Also, even if you're correct about brutality leading to people reacting against slavery, the final result doesn't have to be abolitionism. I can easily see moral crusaders campaigning for laws against excessively cruel treatment of slaves but still accepting slavery as a concept, perhaps seeing a world with slavery as better than a world where poor people have to fend for themselves without a master taking care of them. Kind people doesn't have to share our sentiments about slavery.
 

Kaptin Kurk

Banned
Ever since reading a historian / philospher by the name of Charles Tilly, who ratiolanalized all of history in terms of warfare, I enjoy doing the same even if I don't completely buy his argument. I will, however, contribute this fact to the lack of profibility of slaves:

Until 1945, and the dropping of the first atom bombs, warfare mostly about economy, and was the deciding factor in which states became great and which states were left of the heap of history. The pure fact of the matter is that all slave states require something that free states do not, a represison apparatus. And when wartime emerges, as it did for all states, being slaveholders was a vulenerability because slaves tend to take war-opprotunityies as a chance to fight against their masters.

Therefore, arguments of economy set aside, when push comes to shove and the fate of the state hangs in the balance, your slaves not only tend not to support you (Viriginan history text-books not-withstanding) they tend to activly try to stab you in the back. And as mass warfare replaced elite warfare, this tends to become an increasing liability.

On a parellel note, there always has to be some arbitrary criteria that denotes one man as free as another as slave, whether it be race, language, ect. Because this criteria will necessarily be arbitrary, it will also necessarily never be free of subversion. (How do you know the man buying an Ak-47 isn't an Octoroon in the victorious CSA? How do you know the man speaking perfect Latin in Rome isnt a Greek slave, well educarted in youth?) Thus, repression will always remain highly expensive. As well as the psychological toll on slaveholders themselves.
 
On a parellel note, there always has to be some arbitrary criteria that denotes one man as free as another as slave, whether it be race, language, ect. Because this criteria will necessarily be arbitrary, it will also necessarily never be free of subversion.
If I remember correctly it was in Rome of early Empire, 1 century AD. The legislative proposal (draft law) was discussed. It was about to make the slaves to be dressed (or shaved or whatever) in a special way in order that everybody should see who is free and who is a slave.

And you know what? It was decided not to change anything. The Romans were afraid that this way slaves would see that there are more slaves than freemen in the city of Rome. :)

There was a peculiar law in Rome. When a slave owner died in the circumstances which were kind of suspicious (that it was not a natural death) - all the slaves which were within earshot at the moment of his death were put to death.
The point was that if it was a suspected murder of the slave-owner someone of the slaves was a supposed murderer or at least some of the slaves should know something about this criminal act. And if no one confessed or testified - they all better be dead.

Once when hundreds of slaves (young and old, little children, male and female) were about to get executed for this reason according to this law. And the Roman crowd (consisting of freemen) tried to prevent it out of compassion.
The emperor ordered to scatter the roman crowd and continue the execution. He said that it was the only way for a Roman to feel secure in his own house. (Of course he meant a rich Roman.)

* So if today there was some sort of slavery on a large scale a similar law would be an inevitable necessity.

(just for the record - I am against any slavery)

rome 1372541.jpg
 
Unless you put a negation too much between the parentheses, I'm not following your argument.

I did.

But even assuming you're making the argument I can understand, I don't see why the fact that it's brutal would be enough for people to not accept it. We can compare it to meat-eating again. There's no economic or health-related reason to eat meat for the vast majority of people. Few are unaware of the brutality and suffering that factory farming involves. Yet very few people decide to not eat meat.

Well, my point is that meat eating is something that happens in your own country. I'm pretty sure that if the dominant West had turned out vegetarian, it would have used its power to discourage meat-eating elsewhere in the world.

Also, animals can't describe the brutality they've been through. People can.

Also, even if you're correct about brutality leading to people reacting against slavery, the final result doesn't have to be abolitionism. I can easily see moral crusaders campaigning for laws against excessively cruel treatment of slaves but still accepting slavery as a concept, perhaps seeing a world with slavery as better than a world where poor people have to fend for themselves without a master taking care of them. Kind people doesn't have to share our sentiments about slavery.

I think that a gradualism situation is quite possible, so you'd go through a transition of chattel slaves becoming something like serfs. But remember serfdom also eventually outlawed. Slavery has died out everywhere when education has become widespread. I think we just need to accept that the evidence shows its not a sustainable institution.
 
Actually Rome 100BC-100AD - is a classical example of a state where slavery played a very important role in economy and at home. (I mean city of Rome, Italy and Sicily, of course).

And we have relatively a lot information about it. So if we try to imagine modern society with slavery we should look at Rome.
EThe pure fact of the matter is that all slave states require something that free states do not, a represison apparatus.
As a matter of fact Rome did have a repression apparatus. And everybody knows rebellion of Spartacus (there were some other slave mutinies in Sicily, but as it was further from Rome they were not so famous).

But it is not a common knowledge that besides repressions Romans had another thing to keep the slaves under control. That was very significant, the reason why slaves were not so eager to take part in uprisings.

There was a custom to set slaves free on a regular basis. And these freedmen became libertines. They were not full citizens of course, but they became the members of 'familia' of their former owner, got his family name, his protection in the court of law etc. And if their former master was from senatorial elite (which often was the case) it was not unusual that children of these libertines became full Roman citizens due to traditional Roman corruption.
Some of the libertines became fabulously rich.

Usually the biggest chances for a slave to get freedom was after the death of his owner - up to 10% of the slaves were set free as a rule. And there were some other circumstances when a slave expected to get freedom. For some big family holiday, for good long loyal service... well, just because it was a good day and the slave-owner was in good spirits.

It sounds incredible, even crazy, but due to this custom every slave hoped to become free and was not so easily provoked to rebel.


IMO if slavery was today this good old Roman custom would be a good thing to borrow.
But the other side of this custom is that calculating the birth rate of slaves and the rate of their becoming libertines - the number of slaves would diminish (go down) with every year. As it happened in Roman Italy.

So even looking at Rome you cannot speak of long-term economic feasibility of slavery...:)

rome Forum_Romanum_Vespasian.jpg
 
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It sounds incredible, even crazy, but due to this custom every slave hoped to become free and was not so easily provoked to rebel.

There's also the case that slavery in the Roman Empire was a lot less brutal than cotton and sugar plantations, particularly the latter, where slaves felt they didn't have anything to lose.
 
There's also the case that slavery in the Roman Empire was a lot less brutal than cotton and sugar plantations, particularly the latter, where slaves felt they didn't have anything to lose.
Well, if you ask me - any slavery is repulsive. But American plantations slavery is especially disgusting.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Free labor from Europe was not going to the south. In 1860, there were about 233,000 immigrants in all 11 states that would form the Confederacy. There were 259,000 immigrants in Massachusetts, 276,000 in Wisconsin, 324,000 immigrants in Illinois, 328,000 immigrants in Ohio, 430,000 in Pennsylvania, 997,000 in New York.

...

My understanding is that slavery depressed the wages of poorly educated free men who did not own land. Immigrants migrated to the north due to higher wages.
 
Slavery is independent of Economics.
Whe have Slavery in todays Industrial economies [Illegal Sweatshops - buying, selling, Trading of Sport Contracts]
Don't forget prison labor, which is prevalent in the U.S. & has been since the 1930s. De jure slavery ended; de facto slavery, not so much.
My understanding is that slavery depressed the wages of poorly educated free men who did not own land. Immigrants migrated to the north due to higher wages.
Correct, as I understand it. That's why Irish immigrants disliked blacks to much...
would slavery be useful for medical progress, with the hordes of available human test subjects?
I believe they would be, except for the cost of replacement. Slaves aren't a no-cost item.

Something else occurs to me: this would have substantial impacts on illegal immigration. If you have slaves for picking lettuce, you don't need illegals....
meat-eating being considered acceptable and normal despite the fact that it causes an immense amount of suffering
Forget ethics. Meat-eating is normal based on biology. Your teeth are designed for cutting & removing meat from bones. Saying otherwise is ignorant & deceptive.
 
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Some silly assertions here on "modern slavery".

Firstly, illegal sweatshops are generally illegal because they break safety laws, not because they are forcing people to work. Labourers continue to work there because, as grim as it is, it is a better option than the next best alternative. This is exploitative, but it's not forced labour, let alone slavery.

Buying, selling and trading of sports contracts is also not forced labour. A sports player is quite entitled to work in any other industry, or even in plying his sporting trade for another league. Generally they choose to stay in the sport and the league because they can earn fortunes doing so.

As for prison labour, the prisoners have to do this because its their sentenced punishment. Usually they're used for litter collection by highways, which isn't a particularly economic use of slaves, particularly when they're patrolled by a handful of pricey armed guards.
 
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