The Benefits of Slavery.

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

I have been studying history recently, and among other common threads, I’ve noticed a vein of slavery running through most if not all the major empires and nation states.

The more commonly known examples of Egypt, the ancient Greeks and Romans as well as the Mayas, Incas, Aztecs, and Chinese. These examples differ from the Americas only in being a private and domestic institution, whilst in the 16th century when Europeans began importing slaves from Africa to the New World, a more public and “racially” based type of slavery was established.

However, effectively slavery continued, raising its head in all but name during the early period of Stalinist Russia - Where ‘slaves’ were created from political offenders to rebuild the infrastructure of the new gold communist dream in the work camps - The Gulag.

The Gulag consisted of hundreds of camps, under the control of the secret police, where prisoners felled timber, worked in the mines, or laboured on construction projects. At least 10% died each year from harsh working conditions, inadequate food, and summary executions. The Gulag reached its height in the years of collectivization of Soviet agriculture (1929 – 32), during Joseph Stalin’s purges (1936 – 38), and immediately after World War II, shrinking only after Stalin’s death in 1953. An estimated 15 – 30 million Russians died in the camps.

I would argue perhaps that simular situations exists still today: effective slavery in countries without welfare systems, and even, frankly, in those too, where an exploited/imported underclass can be found.

To return to the theory of slavery - the thread which runs through every continent on Earth - which would suggest that slavery is a natural occurrence, arising spontaneously during the evolution of (all) successful societies.

Band - This is the primeval state, a nomadic group of people, effectively leaderless, hunter gatherers. They have very little surplus food to spare, and do not cultivate crops.

Tribe - A later state, still nomadic but within a semi-stable territory looping as the season and the game animals dictate. These begin to employ sporadic cultivation, by clearing and tending ‘gardens’ as they pass, to harvest upon their return leg. These people exist upon the cusp of a sedentary, more permanent lifestyle. Still however, food surpluses are small, and the ‘ruling’ class consists of a ‘headman’ of varying authority.

Chiefdom —> State- Later still, and larger populaced. This is a ‘true’ social state of farming, and denser living. Due to the ‘invention’ of crop cultivation, and perhaps animal domestication, depending on the available species, populations have grown over the thresholds of natural policing, and greater food surpluses ‘allow’ the creation and maintainance of a specialized ruling class, a cheif with the power to requisition and re-distribute surplus food and his henchmen - it also begins to support a class of artificers - potters, metal-workers, a standing army for example.

A chiefdom/fledgling state, in the pre-machine world, now reaches an important point in its evolution. Whether or not it will, or has the opportunity, to enslave others.

Those that succeeded, and went on to dominate, were those whose societies adopted slavery.

Prior to a sufficient surplus stock of food, enslaving others is impossible. You cannot feed them. So, should you conquer another tribe, you kill the men, kill the children, and take the women as your own. But, when food is more abundant, and you have a growing class of specialist workers, slavery becomes social rocket fuel.

Imagine if Einstein had had to take long breaks during his calculations to go out and plough his fields. Imagine if Bill Gates had had to pause in his software programming to milk his cow and tend his goats. Would we have windows™ and the theory of Relativity…?

Maybe, but maybe not. Now, how about we give old Einstein a slave…? Problem solved.

Slavery arises when the cost to a society of aquiring and keeping a slave alive and working becomes less than the gain of having a specialist worker - a potter or a jewelery smith - being able to devote longer hours to his craft.

Simply: (Arbitrary units).

A Smith makes 70 value units per hour worked.
A Slave costs 15 units to keep alive and supervised/controlled per hour worked.
A Slave must take over the smith’s share of food production, as well as his own, an hour for each say.

70-(2x15)= 40 unit gain for the extra hour of smithing.

There is also the one-time cost of purchasing/capturing and transporting a slave to be offset against the effective gain, but like any labour-saving device, a slave soon pays for himself.

A society with an underclass of slaves, frees it’s specialised classes from less-productive work, dramatically improving its ‘economy’ for want of a better word to describe something achieved in some cases without money, and speed of development in technology. This gives it such an advantage over neighboring tribes/lesser chiefdoms that it soon comes to overshadow, then completely dominate or envelop them.

It is no coincidence that in the histories of nearly all successful, modern societies, there is slavery.

Questions:

*Why didn’t the Americans enslave the Indians…? Instead of importing Blacks…?
*In what way is the exploitation of illegal immigrants close to the borders of Mexico, any different from outright slavery…? Or sweat-shopping anywhere for that matter…?
*What benefit, in the short and long term, does slavery and exploitation win the victim race or minority…?
*Is an underclass necessary for any society to maintain itself…?
*What is robotics and automation except a modern effort to recreate the social benefits of slavery to the host nation…?

2

*Interesting question. I think the fact that the Indians had such a strong sense of honour may have something to do with it.
*A rhetorical question, no doubt.
*A purpose to their lives.
*Not to maintain itself, but to flourish, yes.
*Again, a rhetorical question, I take it.

3

I would have thought Blacks would have equal thresholds of honour. And even if it were less, importing slaves across the pacific seems overly expensive.

Even rhetorical questions sometimes like to be answered, do they not…?

“A purpose to their lives.” A little glibness, I take it…?

4

“*Why didn’t the Americans enslave the Indians…? Instead of importing Blacks…?”

My guess is that American Indians were naturally more independent and socially cohesive. It is extremely difficult to enslave a people on their own land, remember. Importing blacks was easier in many senses, because their mentalities had already been dominated by colonization and its effects. Aside from that, removing the black slaves from their lands, made them complete slaves to their masters. They had nowhere to run after being far-removed from their natural social groups. This forced a dehumanizing and ignorant mentality into the black slaves.

“*In what way is the exploitation of illegal immigrants close to the borders of Mexico, any different from outright slavery…? Or sweat-shopping anywhere for that matter…?”

Immigrant labor is akin to American wage-labor. We are all slaves to the system. The difference is degree.

Hispanics are put into a lower level of slavery than white people are.

“*What benefit, in the short and long term, does slavery and exploitation win the victim race or minority…?”

Slavery benefits the victims and minorities by supplying them purpose and the promise for prosperity. Without either of these, then the slave revolts from his or her masters. Slavery allows human beings to live as animals as opposed to becoming free-thinking citizens of a republic. They lose their access to social responsibility. The slaves make no real decisions of their own.

“*Is an underclass necessary for any society to maintain itself…?”

It depends on the society and the ideologies that drive it.

Lower classes are needed when some human beings are not sufficed with hoarding mounds upon mounds of gold. It is the nature of greed.

“*What is robotics and automation except a modern effort to recreate the social benefits of slavery to the host nation…?”

Machines are humanity’s slaves, but so are many people too. Slaves have a habit to revolt when certain conditions are not met.

When those conditions are surpassed, you see riots and the mob-mentality striking back at the host.

5

Not at all. The purpose is in the higher tasks to which their masters can devote themselves thanks to their service.

I don’t think Blacks had equal thresholds of honour. As Nietzsche says, “a master race is either on top or it is destroyed.” [The Will to Power, section 145.]

6

A good answer. Perhaps also the marked difference in skin color would instantly mark and escapee a slave. Culture-shock would have contributed to their domination, whereas Indians would have had a slower and longer adaptation to western culture and technology, lessening its ‘shock and awe’ potential. Is there any record of attempts at Indian enslavement in American history…?

This is not such a good answer. A slave, at least in the first generation, new to a culture, would not share enough common social ground to accept the concept of ‘purpose’ as defined in the exploiting culture’s terms. Similarly their definitions of prosperity would be different.

The second part of the paragraphs assumes humans are happy in some sort of animal state, and that intuitively, we find responsibility a yoke around our necks. Would you imply then that those enslaved are in fact ‘free’, and those enslaving them are the unwitting dupes of an unnatural state of being, perpetuated by emergent social perversity…?

7

I doubt very much if the slave-masters took the time to explain to Kunta Kinte the rammifications of the concurrent economic situation, and the noble sacrifice he was making by chopping cotton for Whitey.

So, Nietzche went to Africa, I’ve never heard that before. But yes, essentially those that could be enslaved were enslaved I suppose, though that seems a little post-hoc. How would such a corollary be disproven…? And if it cannot be disproven, what is the worth of saying it…?

8

Anvil-

Yes, of course there are (successful) attempts at Indian enslavement throughout American history. However, the Americans failed to enslave American Indians en mass, because of the reasons I stated on top of many other reasons. Early English colonists and Indians often warred with one another. Each took slaves from the other or killed captured people outright. I believe that the largest problem for Indian slavery was that it was unprofitable and highly strenuous compared to black slavery, which was also a task that required much effort.

You are right. First-generation slavery would not accept common social grounds, so the first slaves had to be curtailed through force. The whip reigned supreme. After many generations, from very early on in the American colonies, the socialized blacks would serve as an ideological medium for new blacks arriving from over-seas. The slaves who had already been culled, helped transition new black slaves into a commonality where black slavery was tolerated and philosophically warranted. They justified it out of necessity, both the blacks and the whites.

Slavery as we know it conceptually is natural. Social groups or individuals with heightened sensibilities and intellects naturally control large groups of people, cultures, or societies when the men abstract methods to enslave them. This is a constant in history. There have always been slaves. There have always been masters. Who the yoke is assigned to comes naturally. It exchanges hands and somebody always dons it. I believe that is a difference between physical toil in life versus mental or spiritual toil. The master is a slave to his own work and his own family. It is just a different set of responsibilities and classically seen as the higher set. In the end, they are just different responsibilities and the exchange for security and freedom comes with a cost of those differing responsibilities. If you live by the sword, then you die by the sword.

9

I don’t see much of a distinction between black slaves in America versus native Americans. Slavery was known on both continents long before Europeans got into the act. Honor and social cohesiveness sounds good as an explanation, but doesn’t fit the facts. It also doesn’t jibe with the creation of a specialty class in either situation. The cultures in Africa may have had more leisure, but it certainly didn’t result in a cultural explosion. The same for American Indians.

The idea of slaves creating the space for specialty people seems to have come from some place else, because neither Africans or Americans utilized slaves to “jumpstart” their cultures.

10

because Africa was already selling blacks into slavery for cheap and there was no true organization among native americans for selling slaves which was comparable, considering that most native americans were highly dangerous and warlike, just easier?

haha good point about them not jump starting their cultures with slavery, though they probably faced other issues. No one is claiming that slavery/raiding isn’t good for the economy of tribes/hunter-gatherers. It certainly is. or can be.

11

See: Bartolome de las Casas . . .

12

This is miserable supporting evidence. Did you really comprehend what was being asked. The question in terms of selection of slaves was, “Why Blacks over Indians?”

Your response relied on support of a quote on the destruction of the weaker. As it turns out, neither “race” has been destroyed. So your quote is completely irrelevant.

In sum, your “I don’t think” sorely lacks for any support.

13

Tentative

It did indeed come from someplace else. Before slavery becomes profitable socially, one must develop such a society beyond the hunter-gatherer, punctuated cultivator stage - The Red Indians and the Africans below the Sahara and the Sahel never did. They had poor plant diversity, particularly of the wheat/barley types we depend on today, as well as - in the Americas, abundant wildlife to hunt. The Indians didn’t really need to cultivate with so many bison around, the Africans simply couldn’t. Geographic isolation also meant they were left alone whilst Eurasia progressed up the social ladder.

Slavery in the Americas only became beneficial after colonists came, and imported agriculture, ready made, onto the continent. The Red Indians hadn’t even domesticated the horse, prior to colonization.

Slavery as a route to jumpstarting culture only works if you have sufficient culture to jumpstart. You can’t jumpstart a steam-engine with an electric battery.

Other African tribes were so eager to deliver their ethnic brethren into the hands of whites, simply because they had nothing else valued by the foreign traders to bargain with. If nothing else, the slave trade brought southern Africa finally into the world.

14

Thankyou Xunzian.

This seems to be more based around South American Indians. Preceding the ‘Wild West’.

15

Cyrene

Perhaps this is also true. Systematic slavery requires enough social stability to have large farms, on arrable land. Grazing land that would have been initially in the hands, or at least on the ranges, of the native Indian tribes. To make inter-tribe slaving an option would have required those same tribes to first have politely turned over their lands to the colonists, and left them in peace long enough for the whites to establish enough wealth to afford slaves.

So no, it was never going to happen that way. The Indian population first would have had to have been reduced and domesticated to the point where simply numerically perhaps, there were not enough left to do the work…?

16

Abhorrent

The Indians took no slaves, how would they have used them…? They took women and scalps. The first English colonists, their foothold still precarious, also took no prisoners, save perhaps as isolated specimens for transport to England.

I think, as I said to Cyrene above, the timing was wrong for red indian slavery. By the time the indians were passive enough for colonial culture to grow to the level where the systematic use of slaves became profitable, the indians had been destroyed.

Yes, Stockholm syndrome. Blacks become encultrated, having known directly no other value system than that of their conquerers. Just as feminism has largely accepted the doctrines of male behaviour and success criteria as benchmarks of their own progress perhaps…? ıs that not what you have said before…?

The spontaneous arisal of slaving culture need not require ‘heightened sensibilities and intellects’ these are things that end slave cultures, rather than begin them. It is a poor thing to enslave another after all.

I agree. Would you agree then that the focus of slavery in the west has switched from a direct threatening of individual life, a holding of the sword at the throat of one in physical chains, to the holding of the sword at the throats of an individual’s children, real or potential, of the one in metaphysic chains…? This is the situation of exploitative culture I believe.

17

You don’t think the Indian race has been destroyed? I think Imp would disagree with you!

According to your logic, the Holocaust was no case of genocide, as there are still Jews left…

18

Anvil,

Then what you seem to be suggesting is that, depending on the fortunes of geographical location and availability of resources, social evolution makes slavery an inevitable step in human progress? It would follow then, that any group of lesser advantage were simply “slaves-in-waiting”. Such groups would simply become a convenient resource to exploit along with the other available resources giving rise to agrarian and finally, city-states with all the specialty occupations of greater social complexity. Slavery was a logical necessity.

19

Slavery was beneficial to the native americans before europeans came over. They wouldn’t have stole so many women and butchered their families otherwise. Whether they were force-raped again and again, or it was just obvious that they had to submit after their families/villages were burned; it was still slavery.

20

no… thats not true. Its common in tribes/chiefdoms for the vanquished family (if not slaughtered right away) to become slaves to the winning tribe; if for some reason you think this didn’t happen in hunter-gatherers; you’re wrong.

Theres no reason to believe they didn’t, upon circumstance, use slaves for benefit. They used a lot of woman slaves hands down, and the children/young males that they didn’t butcher, became slaves in a sense.

The fact that they had massive amounts of ‘raided females’ implies slavery. it does

Threat of death and having your family butchered in front of you. It at least starts off as slavery, and for many women, probably remained that way.