very extensive but they varied wildly from state to state, from place to place and time to time. It is too expansive of a question to answer adequately, I'm afraid.
Was there a lot of slavery in ancient past? Why? Is it plausible for a state to disdain slavery?
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very extensive but they varied wildly from state to state, from place to place and time to time. It is too expansive of a question to answer adequately, I'm afraid.
The Achaemenid Empire was particularly disdainful of slavery. The Persians thought the Greeks barbaric for the practice.
Slavery was a relatively common feature in Achemenid mpire, especially in Mesopotamia : that Cyrus proclaimed a disdain for slavery (particularly slavery by endebtment, which tended to be the first form to decline everywhere in Greece or Rome) doesn't mean imperial society did, and imperial household or productive slavery didn't remained a thing until its end.
The idea that slavery was either suppressed or marginal in Achemenid period isn't really supported.
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Plus, there's some indication from just before and during the US Civil War that industrialized slavery working in factories worked well and was profitable. Modernization and additional labor saving items is not sufficient to remove slavery all by itself.
I would argue that slavery is economically feasible in any system where human labor is valuable and a monopoly of force can be maintained.
Partly or even mainly because it is a non monetised society, so everything is on a relative scale - currency is lumps or slithers of precious metal, trade is as much in barter as it is in currency (after all currency is simply the value system which you rate everything against) so slaves have intrinsic value in and of themselves.
What I mean is that a slave is rated on the value system, it's not a monetised economy so it's not MONEY per se, but value.
What I mean is that a slave is rated on the value system, it's not a monetised economy so it's not MONEY per se, but value.
It's also important to consider the differences between Old and New World slavery. Most people, considering slavery, think of New World slavery and the appalling conditions people were forced under in the Americas and Caribbean. Old World slavery was still unpleasant, but it varied from culture to culture - Roman slaves could earn enough money to eventually buy their way out of slavery, for example (please bear in mind that I'm remembering from stuff I've read, not quoting!). Norse thralls had a level of protection from the law and were not to be killed unlawfully and could become freedmen (most households only had one or two thralls, although there is evidence of up to thirty in wealthier households). I think other cultures demanded that owners had to look after their slaves, or, at the very least, you were judged on the way you treated them (poorly-dressed slave? Clearly they have less money than they claim, type of thing). On the other hand, some were forced into back-breaking work in mines and quarries, or may have been sacrificed to appease the gods.
Besides being forced into slavery for debt, I believe most slaves were born to slavery or taken in war/tribute, again depending on the culture. And of course feudalism, with the binding of serfs or villeins to particular areas of land controlled by their lords, had elements of slavery, in that you couldn't just up and leave if you were treated badly, and had to pay your lord for the privilege of inheriting the land your family's been working for centuries.
Also bear in mind that slaves had their own hierarchy - household slaves were treated better than those working in gardens or fields or mines, etc. Gladiators could become celebrities while being enslaved. And the better educated or skilled you were, the better your chances of survival in a more comfortable job (not to mention you were worth more for re-selling).
Fun fact though: slavery was not actually legal in Britain, even at the height of the slave trade. Once a slave set foot on British soil, they were free. Which is why there were horrific slave barges.
Another one: modern study suggests that the Egyptian pyramids were not built by slaves, as was commonly held (or at least not all of them), but by free labourers, usually farmers, during the rainy season when the Nile swelled and they needed something to do while it was wet. They were paid in garlic and radishes.
Depressing linguistic fact: the word slave comes from Slav. Guess which peoples were regularly preyed upon and forced into the state?
Besides being forced into slavery for debt, I believe most slaves were born to slavery or taken in war/tribute, again depending on the culture. And of course feudalism, with the binding of serfs or villeins to particular areas of land controlled by their lords, had elements of slavery, in that you couldn't just up and leave if you were treated badly, and had to pay your lord for the privilege of inheriting the land your family's been working for centuries.
Also bear in mind that slaves had their own hierarchy - household slaves were treated better than those working in gardens or fields or mines, etc. Gladiators could become celebrities while being enslaved. And the better educated or skilled you were, the better your chances of survival in a more comfortable job (not to mention you were worth more for re-selling).
Fun fact though: slavery was not actually legal in Britain, even at the height of the slave trade. Once a slave set foot on British soil, they were free. Which is why there were horrific slave barges.
Another one: modern study suggests that the Egyptian pyramids were not built by slaves, as was commonly held (or at least not all of them), but by free labourers, usually farmers, during the rainy season when the Nile swelled and they needed something to do while it was wet. They were paid in garlic and radishes.
Depressing linguistic fact: the word slave comes from Slav. Guess which peoples were regularly preyed upon and forced into the state?
Did ancient and Imperial China have a large servile class? I was under the impression that the bulk of the labor force was tenant farmers; were they bound to the land through i.e. debt to the great landowners? If China didn't have a large slave class, why not? What about india?
AFAIK slavery eventually got restricted to carceral servile work in China after the Zhou Dynasty, exception made of war captives that seems to have enjoyed a relative easiness to be integrated as clientelized workers, until Qing China.
I'd expect high agricultural yield, the stress put on partenalist/patronage approach and the quick emergence of a strong state apparatus that dominated public workforce to have limited the possibility of a large productive servile class.
Ancient India knew a form of semi-servile productive class, then Arabo-Islamic slavery structures. That said, the caste system would find, especially in lower castes, a partial alternative IMO
Slavery was historically present in China, as well as in India.
Labour was also used as a form of taxation in many places, or as part of feudal tenancy, sometimes at the same time as the existence of slavery.
Surely it is a form of? Saying "Build this road or we hang you' is forced labor which is a type of slavery.
Rather a form of taxation in the form of service : it's made clear that by the late XIth/XIIth century it was gradually abandoned with monetarisation of economy and taxes.
England, as usual, is a bit of an exception as it remained a thing much longer there, in no small part because the reduced nobility and local autonomies meant less capacities to "play the balance" between local lords.
Slavery isn't just compulsory work, but is tied to a definite social and/or judicial class owning work (even if compensated, which is not the same as being paid for) for the sole justification they are property.
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FillyofDelphi
Banned
I'd say you need at least the following two factors...
- A system in which the average person has quantifiable economic activity outside the household and taxes in kind to his local liege. Only when the average free citizen is noticeably more productive than the average slave and values exchangeable currency enough to sell that time at a more efficient cost-benefit analysis than a slave is there a real motivation to undermine the later system/reduce the willingness and extent of those who'd defend it. As a caveat to this, it's a lot easier to reach this point if slaves are 'expensive', so a society without easy access to mass markets (The African slave trade) or style of warfare that produces a lot of captives/overcome civilians (Which generally means a move to professionalized armies and smaller-scale states as well as a shift away from ravaging and siege-focused campaigns of years upon years that defined ancient warfare in many places to shorter campaigns with more decisive field battles) helps.
- Sufficient concentration of capital so that there's a critical mass of "patricians" for whom investment in labor-saving improvements (both in development and acquisition) is not going to ruin them if a project goes belly up and it's not just easier and lower risk to acquire the raw labor to get around the problem (IE improve agricultural yields via, say, developing better plows and acquiring draft animals vs. clearing more land, digging irrigation canals, and pumping in more serfs)
Without these, forced labor is simply more useful than exchangeable currency, full stop. Feudalistic/slave systems do have a lower productivity "ceiling" in general than a capitalist system, true, but for much of the space it's lower risk for the employer of labor
Then taxation is slavery, "pay your taxes or you go to jail"
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@FillyofDelphi
1. You have a lot of overlapping features between a Domestic Mode of Production and Palatial Mode of Production : Inca empire is a good example of how the second generally get supported by the first, and how productive slavery isn't a necessary step in the reinforcement of Great Men/Big Men societies towards chiefdom and early state. In fact, in many ancient societies, the servile productivity have little to do with their obtention or their use, which tends to be relatively limited to a domestic sphere (in the broader sense).
I'd point how captives turned ambactoi or magui as for Gallic warfare didn't led to a significant servile class or participation into the economy, let alone professional armies.
2. Concentration of (generally landed) value and rent (rather than capital, which involves a certain autonomy from source of value itself, which is hard to get in a Palatial or Domanial economy, although they're not incompatible with first forms of capitalism and/or speculation) while it generally predates the appearance of slavery as a large taskforce, really develloped the latifundar system in Roman Empire and the said concentration of land-value. Rather than an already important concentration of land-value, I'd say you need a differentiated land-owning and clientelizing class independent (or autonomous enough) from the state.
I'd point how the first decline of serfdom is less tied to grand estates making such clear economical choices, but a mix of political-ideological events (serfdom being seen as relatively unpalatable by some elites, and serves revendications and revolts as in late Xth Normandy) and economical opportunism (salvetats and free tenents growing lands, and attraction of serves in it).
A detail, but it's really hard to spot a "feudal" economy (a bit like trying to spot a "democratic" or "parlementarian" economy truth to be told, and servile work seems to be rather a method of production than an economy IMO) : in several aspects, classic Medieval era looks like the integration of an emerging capitalist economy (both in urban-periurban production and financial exchanges) with a domanial economy.
1. You have a lot of overlapping features between a Domestic Mode of Production and Palatial Mode of Production : Inca empire is a good example of how the second generally get supported by the first, and how productive slavery isn't a necessary step in the reinforcement of Great Men/Big Men societies towards chiefdom and early state. In fact, in many ancient societies, the servile productivity have little to do with their obtention or their use, which tends to be relatively limited to a domestic sphere (in the broader sense).
I'd point how captives turned ambactoi or magui as for Gallic warfare didn't led to a significant servile class or participation into the economy, let alone professional armies.
2. Concentration of (generally landed) value and rent (rather than capital, which involves a certain autonomy from source of value itself, which is hard to get in a Palatial or Domanial economy, although they're not incompatible with first forms of capitalism and/or speculation) while it generally predates the appearance of slavery as a large taskforce, really develloped the latifundar system in Roman Empire and the said concentration of land-value. Rather than an already important concentration of land-value, I'd say you need a differentiated land-owning and clientelizing class independent (or autonomous enough) from the state.
I'd point how the first decline of serfdom is less tied to grand estates making such clear economical choices, but a mix of political-ideological events (serfdom being seen as relatively unpalatable by some elites, and serves revendications and revolts as in late Xth Normandy) and economical opportunism (salvetats and free tenents growing lands, and attraction of serves in it).
A detail, but it's really hard to spot a "feudal" economy (a bit like trying to spot a "democratic" or "parlementarian" economy truth to be told, and servile work seems to be rather a method of production than an economy IMO) : in several aspects, classic Medieval era looks like the integration of an emerging capitalist economy (both in urban-periurban production and financial exchanges) with a domanial economy.
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Proto-Indo-European
Banned
Classical slavery was a natural outgrowth of the emergence of agriculture and wealth accumulation. As some men grew more powerful, they used that power to coerce others into bondage. Soon a man's wealth could be measured by the amount of slaves he owned. States and eventually empires are created for the purpose of maintaining slavery and acquiring new slaves.
Eventually these empires collapsed under their own weight and devolved into feudalism, where the central state lacked the capacity to maintain a slave economy. Slaves became peasants, who would be allowed to work a lord's land in exchange for getting to keep some of their own produce. Though as some have noted, in many cases peasants/serfs were hardly distinguishable from slaves.
In the West, slavery tended to be outright abolished though in other feudal economies it merely fell out of common practice. The key factor was that in feudal societies, land was the key source of power, not slaves.
Eventually these empires collapsed under their own weight and devolved into feudalism, where the central state lacked the capacity to maintain a slave economy. Slaves became peasants, who would be allowed to work a lord's land in exchange for getting to keep some of their own produce. Though as some have noted, in many cases peasants/serfs were hardly distinguishable from slaves.
In the West, slavery tended to be outright abolished though in other feudal economies it merely fell out of common practice. The key factor was that in feudal societies, land was the key source of power, not slaves.
I'm sorry, but that's far too economist and removed from historical and archeological reality to be true. If it was, you'd have a large use of slavery in Egypt, China (altough I grant you that China seems to have practiced use of productive slavery during Shang and Zhou dynasties), or pre-Roman Gaul (to mention ancient regions where agricultural surproduction played an important role into their development, or virtually anywhere where acephalic societies give birth to chiefdoms and early states.
Slavery as a main productive tool seems to appears relatively late in Greece and Phoenician worlds, possibly in relation with their greater commercial role and a growing differentiation (in social and political matters) between freemen and slaves, compared to the prevalance of household and domestic slavery (which doesn't remove their use as productive tools, but didn't went beyond them as prestigious and domestic service). Rome and Carthage played a great role expanding the use of large slavery and latifundar economy in their time. Long story short, slavery as a method of production is obviously following economical needs or opportunities, but are not the necessary result of state and societal sophistication.
Feudal economy makes approximately as much sense than "constitutional monarchic economy" or "republican economy". Feudalism is a social-institutional model based on relationship and mix of rent and nobility. While tied to land value and owning (and not systematically), it's not its motor but (if you will) its institutional expression that appeared in the VIIth.
It's to be noted that "feualism" is not a single reality, but a model that covers a lot of situation : while slavery is virtually (on an social-economical basis, it's more complicated judicially) disappearing in the Xh century in most regions north of the Alps, it never really ceased to exist in southern Europe but the feudalities of Italy, Spain and southern France integrated this reality.
This was entirely true of ancient societies : rural production was production, generally speaking and bases the power on landed value-rent. Large servile groups were used on that, not stockpiled as walking capital.
Using marxian/marxist terms, the idea of an Servile Production Mode is obsolete up to the very core of the idea (as most of marxian pre-capitalist production modes, actually). It worked approximately as long as nobody gave a serious social-economical look (which, granted, wouldn't have been easy without formulating the concept first) at it thanks to analyzing historical and archeological sources.
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Proto-Indo-European
Banned
I mean I would classify Egypt, pre-Han China, and pre-Roman Gaul as primitive slave economies. Massive latifunda are the product of late slavery, a state that didn't necessarily occur everywhere. In most of the classical world, smallholding and domestic slave ownership was more common, as you say.
I use the word feudal to describe many different societies. And as I said this didn't mean the abolition of slave-like conditions everywhere, just rule by the landed aristocracy instead of slave owners.
In ancient society wealth could be held in both the form of slaves and land, with the former being much more valuable than the latter. In feudal society typically of these two wealth was primarily measured in the form of land, with serfs being a lesser asset. It's not a clear and easy distinction between slave and feudal and certainly a late slave society and a primitive feudal society will have much in common.