Plausibility Check - US Slavery

I recently watched the mockumentary film CSA and was very interested in what i saw. I easily recognise that the events in the film are totally ASB and even with a southern victory in the American Civil War, the idea of the entire USA falling under their jurisdiction, as well as slavery surviving through the evolution of society and liberalization of ideas is just as implausible.

So my question would be, is there a specific POD which could see a society in which slavery is accepted as a part of modern day life? This does not necessarily have to be slavery in which slaves are brought from Africa (say slavery with Africans ruling over Europeans could be a fun way to go in the TL too), but is there a way it could be deemed acceptable in society in North America.

My ideas on the matter included slavery being of importance to the north as well as the south of the US. I would also prefer a POD after the declaration of Independence.

Is there any way people can see this happening, or is it totally ASB?
 
What you need is a More Greek/Roman style of Slavery, where Slavery is just another employment option.

Other possibility would be Slavery as a Sentence for Crimes against property, to allow the Criminal to repay His debt.

Third would be Voluntary Slavery, where a Person is allowed to Sell Himself.
 

Deleted member 5719

What you need is a More Greek/Roman style of Slavery, where Slavery is just another employment option.

You wouldn't be a supporter of Dr Ron Paul by any chance would you?

Greco-Roman slavery was not an "employment option", it was a hereditary system of oppression and denial of full humanity to a whole strata of society. It was the rotten core of the horror that was Rome.
 
It would be very unlikely that slavery would be ever be considered acceptible within the US. Societies evolve for years and they change and adapt and will throw off those systems that are no longer necessary. It would be hard for a slave driven nation like the US to exist between two non-slave nations like Canada and Mexico.

I would refer you to Ambrose Bierce's definition of Marriage, an institution in which there are two masters and two slaves (or something to that effect). The system won't be acceptable since not everyone can be a slaveholder, it being expensive in itself, nor can the slaveholder maintain their position without unduly affecting the position of the freeman, by providing cheap labor. Thats looking at it strictly thru a economic POV.
 
So maybe a lack of the thirteen amendment, get rid of that somehow?

I'm not saying the nation has to be accepted by the rest of the world. It can be seen as Apartheid South Africa was in OTL?
 
A scenario that prevents the Civil War would be one that allows slavery to persist the longest, in my opinion longer than if the CSA won. I think there are other threads that have addressed this issue. At some point slavery would become unworkable from social and technological pressures, probably during the recession of the 1880's.
 
Depending on your definition of slavery then Saudi Arabia and the UAE still practice it today. Most of the workers building the vast towers of Dubai were illegally smuggled into the country, had their passports taken so they couldn't return home, had their papers confiscated so they had to work for one firm and were barely paid enough to afford room and board from the company store.

Perhaps more indentured servitude than slavery, though I doubt the distinction meant much to the people involved.
 
I don't think it's possible. As I remember American slavery was profitable on the basis of few guards and generally keeping the slaves inline through ignorance and terror. Being unaware of having the power to overthrow your masters means you generally don't try. Keeping people ignorent forever is not a stable long term system.

Salves were just going to continue to get more violent about and become less ignorant about their condition. This would lead to more and more spent on guards and putting down revolts. You can only have so many uprising before people decide it's not worth the expense.
 
Technology helped defeat slavery, and the confrontations would have been more severe if it had persisted into the late 19th century. In fact, communication, technology and transportation help defeat oppressive practices everywhere. That includes the US civil rights movement and the demise of the Soviet Union.
 
Mark E.
Let's turn that around. What effect might the continuation of U.S. slavery have on the progression of technology? Considering the opinion that slavery (cheap labour) and a lack of a middle class (who would need the alternative to said labour force) in the ancient world slowed or discouraged technological innovation, or at least made it seem impractical compared to free labour, wouldn't its continuation have had a similar effect?

Ben
 

Nikephoros

Banned
Compared to the horror that was the CSA, at least Roman slaves were citizens with some (however limited) rights and their children were born as free citizens.

That's not even close to being true. Roman slaves were little more than livestock to the Romans. Slaves were only worthy of a decent life if they were "cultured."
 
That's not even close to being true. Roman slaves were little more than livestock to the Romans. Slaves were only worthy of a decent life if they were "cultured."
That's not entirely true either. It depends what era you're talking about, but they did have some legal protections under the Empire.
 
According to the International Labour Organisation there are around 12 million people living under what the UN defines as slavery and this is an underestimate. However a large number are in debt bondage which wasn't regarded as slavery in the nineteenth century for example Britain used coolie labour in East Africa long after slavery was abolished in the British Empire. Forced Labour is used on a large scale in Burma and allegedly in Zimbabwe in the mines, chattel slavery survives in a few parts of Africa and there are the victims of people traffickers in the Western World. However it is not accepted in most societies excluding Burma. On the Indian sub-continent it is outlawed but the law is often not enforced so it is arguably accepted.

Slavery would have disappeared in the CSA apart from debt bondage largely because it is inefficient. The POD that would have brought back slavery would have been an Axis victory in World War 11 as both Nazi Germany and Japan used forced labour on a large scale using labour from occupied countries, political prisoners and prisoners of war . The Geneva convention permits putting non officer prisoners to work under certain conditions on non war work. Japan never signed it and Nazi Germany largely exempted officers from work but broke all the rules regarding other ranks
 
If by "modern day life" you mean that we made it all the way into the 21st century without people coming to regard slavery as evil, then I think the only way to do that would be to go all the way back and prevent the Age of Enlightenment. Once it entered the Western mind that there were such things as basic human rights, it was an inevitable march (however slow it may have been at times) toward the emancipation of slaves, as well as of women and other downtrodden groups. In order to still find slavery acceptable today, we would have had to have gone without the liberating principles of the Enlightenment.

Of course, without the Enlightenment, there wouldn't be a United States as such, either. The colonists would not have fought so hard for their natural-born rights if it hadn't occurred to them that they had natural-born rights in the first place.
 
That's not entirely true either. It depends what era you're talking about, but they did have some legal protections under the Empire.

The protections accorded to a slave under the black codes of the Old South were far more extensive than those enjoyed even under the Antonines. The advantage of Roman slavery was the relativ e absence of a racial component - a freedman suffered minimal restrictions compared to those of a free black, and the prospect of freedom was a real one for many slaes, so there was a career structure involved.

Personally, I'd still rather have been a Roman slave than an American one, but that's like choosing between MRTB and HIV.

Edit: On the original question, CSA isn't supposed to be plausible alternate history, it's satire. It's not significantly worse than a lot of what gets published in the genre as plausibility goes, but that's not saying much. A plausible AH would have required a) way too much focus on events and b) the creation of far more material from scratch than the budget would likely have allowed.
 
Top