5 ms·

> slavery has a negative impact on both slaves and slaveholders. What's the negative as a slaveholder again?

mafribe 10y ago
Not the OP, but one might argue that slavery disincentivises the slave-holder from innovating the labour process. The (Nietzschean?) counterargument here is that slave-labour enables division of labour and frees enough from non-specialised labour (e.g. individuals being responsible for all of producing food, building dwellings, providing security, raising children, caring for the elderly etc, and thus not being particularly good at any of them) to allow the emergence of a 'caste' of full-time scientists, engineers. Such a 'caste', such division of labour is required to drive technological progress to a level where slavery becomes unnecessary. My historically uninformed and naive suggestion would be that ancient Greece was an example of the latter while most other societies with substantial slavery (such as South America and Africa) were examples of the former. Aside: Any serious discussion of slavery must begin with the question: what do you mean by "slavery", for the term is used in wildly different ways.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  Then it's a negative to society but only if all of society was run by slave owners. In any other case the slave owner would have a benefit over the non slave owner when it came to cost of production.
  - xyzzy123 10y ago
    It's both hilarious and excellent to watch both of you try to justify the utility of human labour.
    - mafribe 10y ago
      I'm not sure what you mean. Human labour has utility, that why we work.
      - xyzzy123 10y ago
        From a certain perspective human labour is the most perfect waste of time. But keep going. As long as you keep it up I'll pretend I want to keep working.
        mafribe 10y ago
        Is that "certain perspective" interesting? Nobody wants to work that's a given that doesn't need to be argued, whence work needs incentives (in a generalised sense) from salary to force. Most human labour has historically related to food production, production and maintainance of dwellings, sanitation, health, care of the young & elderly, and security (from animals, natural forces, other humans). Since division of labour became possible additional forms of labour emerged, such as science, engineering, and organisation of labour whose raison d'être is to lighten humanity's workload. One can and should certainly ask if work could be organised better, but there is a base load of things that need to be done to perpetuate humanity.
        Qworg 10y ago
        I disagree that no one wants to work - in many ways, working (being of use), is enobeling. What will replace it culturally when we don't have any work?
        aleksei 10y ago
        Hobbies, ie. work you you enjoy and are not forced to do.
        mafribe 10y ago
        I'm not denying that some work has enobling aspects (e.g. social recognition (in various forms)), but much work doesn't. Speaking from years worth of bitter experience ... Moreover there is probably quite a bit of rationalisation going on: since I can't avoid work I might as well pretend I like it, for that makes life more bearable. More importantly, there is a virtue-signalling aspect to finding work enobling: since human emotions are contagious and human behaviour involves a lot of mimesis (= copying others), my public display of taking pleasure in my own work increases the probability that others find their work enobling, which in turn increases the amount/quality of their work, and that leads a better / more productive society which in turn is in my own selfish interest. Aside: Max Weber uses a somewhat similar (but more elaborate) argument when he seeks to explain the emergence of modern society out of the protestant spirit. The issue of whether we do good because doing good is intrinsically good or because we crave the social recognition of good works, has been discussed since antiquity, see for example Plato's Republic. What will replace it culturally when we don't have any work? Why not look at the facts? Society has always had some members who did not have to work, for example children, pensioners, the sick, the offspring of the very rich, wives of middle/upperclass husbands (until recently), women who divorce a rich husband (under current US alimony laws), the Saudi/Qatari/Bahreini/Kuwaity royal families. Etc. Most of them don't have a major problem spending their time. Typically they engage in a variety of play, fornication, sleep, sport, shopping, eating, hunting, socialising, playing music, drawing and the like. Moreover, even those who work have leisure time (e.g. weekends, evenings, holidays) and generally have no problem filling that time. There is no reason to believe that this will change when all work has been automated away.
    - ThomPete 10y ago
      Not sure what you mean? I am not trying to justify anything I am simply saying that the claim about slave labour being a negative for the slave owner is wrong. I am quite certain ai will take over most jobs.
WalterBright 10y ago
When you force people to work, they're apt to poison you, sabotage the work, do as little as possible, be as unhelpful as possible, etc. Defending against that is costly.
- idiot_stick 10y ago
  >Defending against that is costly. Costly, yes. But do those costs out-weigh the immediate benefits of slave ownership? Probably not. I have a hard time thinking slave-owners were hurt by slavery; they made out like bandits, but their gains don't counter all the harm done to those enslaved.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    That's a more difficult question to answer. Slaves are only good for the lowest menial labor, such as picking cotton. Up until the introduction of the cotton gin, slavery was dying out in the US because it was unprofitable. The cotton gin made slavery profitable again, but it was again dying out by the time of the Civil War. One of the causes of the Civil War was the southern states trying to erect trade barriers to protect the economics of the slave plantations. Businesses run on slave labor just could not compete with those run with free labor. (For example, it was illegal in the slave states to teach slaves to read, and any slave who could read would do well to conceal the skill. The southerners were fearful of an educated slave, because that made them more dangerous. But an illiterate slave was also less useful as a worker.)
    - DowsingSpoon 10y ago
      I thought that all sorts of skilled labor was done by slaves in Ancient Rome?
      - WalterBright 10y ago
        The Roman economy didn't have to compete with free labor ones. Ancient Sparta had to militarize all their free men in order to keep their slaves in check.
tonyedgecombe 10y ago
They become fat and lazy.
geebee 10y ago
Can I recommend you read the life and times of Frederick Douglass, or perhaps some of his assorted essays and sermons? He addresses this in considerable depth.
nanistheonlyist 10y ago
The negative is the legacy of obsolete farm equipment clogging up the social welfare system.
jcranmer 10y ago
As a slaveholder, you're forced to provide all the needs of your slaves. This prevents you from being able to externalize costs to others (e.g., the cost of schooling), and from being able to capitalize on "economies" of scale. There is also a large hidden cost in that maintaining a plantation slave society required virtually the entire free male class to participate in martial civil defense against slave uprisings.
gozur88 10y ago
It's not so much the slaveholder as an individual, but the slaveholding society. You end up with large numbers of free men who aren't invested in the society because their labor is effectively worthless. They may revolt, or it may just be when there's a threat to the society (invasion, most commonly, or a big natural disaster) they aren't willing to make any sacrifices to save it. And you certainly can't rely on your slaves to fight off an invader.
CuriouslyC 10y ago
Slavery normalizes subjugation and stratification. The slaveholder with 10 slaves is just another kind of nigger to the aristocrat with 10,000.

Not the OP, but one might argue that slavery disincentivises the slave-holder from innovating the labour process. The (Nietzschean?) counterargument here is that slave-labour enables division of labour and frees enough from non-specialised labour (e.g. individuals being responsible for all of producing food, building dwellings, providing security, raising children, caring for the elderly etc, and thus not being particularly good at any of them) to allow the emergence of a 'caste' of full-time scientists, engineers. Such a 'caste', such division of labour is required to drive technological progress to a level where slavery becomes unnecessary. My historically uninformed and naive suggestion would be that ancient Greece was an example of the latter while most other societies with substantial slavery (such as South America and Africa) were examples of the former. Aside: Any serious discussion of slavery must begin with the question: what do you mean by "slavery", for the term is used in wildly different ways.

ThomPete 10y ago
Then it's a negative to society but only if all of society was run by slave owners. In any other case the slave owner would have a benefit over the non slave owner when it came to cost of production.
- xyzzy123 10y ago
  It's both hilarious and excellent to watch both of you try to justify the utility of human labour.
  - mafribe 10y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean. Human labour has utility, that why we work.
    - xyzzy123 10y ago
      From a certain perspective human labour is the most perfect waste of time. But keep going. As long as you keep it up I'll pretend I want to keep working.
      - mafribe 10y ago
        Is that "certain perspective" interesting? Nobody wants to work that's a given that doesn't need to be argued, whence work needs incentives (in a generalised sense) from salary to force. Most human labour has historically related to food production, production and maintainance of dwellings, sanitation, health, care of the young & elderly, and security (from animals, natural forces, other humans). Since division of labour became possible additional forms of labour emerged, such as science, engineering, and organisation of labour whose raison d'être is to lighten humanity's workload. One can and should certainly ask if work could be organised better, but there is a base load of things that need to be done to perpetuate humanity.
        Qworg 10y ago
        I disagree that no one wants to work - in many ways, working (being of use), is enobeling. What will replace it culturally when we don't have any work?
        aleksei 10y ago
        Hobbies, ie. work you you enjoy and are not forced to do.
        mafribe 10y ago
        I'm not denying that some work has enobling aspects (e.g. social recognition (in various forms)), but much work doesn't. Speaking from years worth of bitter experience ... Moreover there is probably quite a bit of rationalisation going on: since I can't avoid work I might as well pretend I like it, for that makes life more bearable. More importantly, there is a virtue-signalling aspect to finding work enobling: since human emotions are contagious and human behaviour involves a lot of mimesis (= copying others), my public display of taking pleasure in my own work increases the probability that others find their work enobling, which in turn increases the amount/quality of their work, and that leads a better / more productive society which in turn is in my own selfish interest. Aside: Max Weber uses a somewhat similar (but more elaborate) argument when he seeks to explain the emergence of modern society out of the protestant spirit. The issue of whether we do good because doing good is intrinsically good or because we crave the social recognition of good works, has been discussed since antiquity, see for example Plato's Republic. What will replace it culturally when we don't have any work? Why not look at the facts? Society has always had some members who did not have to work, for example children, pensioners, the sick, the offspring of the very rich, wives of middle/upperclass husbands (until recently), women who divorce a rich husband (under current US alimony laws), the Saudi/Qatari/Bahreini/Kuwaity royal families. Etc. Most of them don't have a major problem spending their time. Typically they engage in a variety of play, fornication, sleep, sport, shopping, eating, hunting, socialising, playing music, drawing and the like. Moreover, even those who work have leisure time (e.g. weekends, evenings, holidays) and generally have no problem filling that time. There is no reason to believe that this will change when all work has been automated away.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    Not sure what you mean? I am not trying to justify anything I am simply saying that the claim about slave labour being a negative for the slave owner is wrong. I am quite certain ai will take over most jobs.

WalterBright 10y ago

When you force people to work, they're apt to poison you, sabotage the work, do as little as possible, be as unhelpful as possible, etc. Defending against that is costly.

idiot_stick 10y ago
>Defending against that is costly. Costly, yes. But do those costs out-weigh the immediate benefits of slave ownership? Probably not. I have a hard time thinking slave-owners were hurt by slavery; they made out like bandits, but their gains don't counter all the harm done to those enslaved.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  That's a more difficult question to answer. Slaves are only good for the lowest menial labor, such as picking cotton. Up until the introduction of the cotton gin, slavery was dying out in the US because it was unprofitable. The cotton gin made slavery profitable again, but it was again dying out by the time of the Civil War. One of the causes of the Civil War was the southern states trying to erect trade barriers to protect the economics of the slave plantations. Businesses run on slave labor just could not compete with those run with free labor. (For example, it was illegal in the slave states to teach slaves to read, and any slave who could read would do well to conceal the skill. The southerners were fearful of an educated slave, because that made them more dangerous. But an illiterate slave was also less useful as a worker.)
  - DowsingSpoon 10y ago
    I thought that all sorts of skilled labor was done by slaves in Ancient Rome?
    - WalterBright 10y ago
      The Roman economy didn't have to compete with free labor ones. Ancient Sparta had to militarize all their free men in order to keep their slaves in check.

tonyedgecombe 10y ago

They become fat and lazy.

geebee 10y ago

Can I recommend you read the life and times of Frederick Douglass, or perhaps some of his assorted essays and sermons? He addresses this in considerable depth.

nanistheonlyist 10y ago

The negative is the legacy of obsolete farm equipment clogging up the social welfare system.

jcranmer 10y ago

As a slaveholder, you're forced to provide all the needs of your slaves. This prevents you from being able to externalize costs to others (e.g., the cost of schooling), and from being able to capitalize on "economies" of scale. There is also a large hidden cost in that maintaining a plantation slave society required virtually the entire free male class to participate in martial civil defense against slave uprisings.

gozur88 10y ago

It's not so much the slaveholder as an individual, but the slaveholding society. You end up with large numbers of free men who aren't invested in the society because their labor is effectively worthless. They may revolt, or it may just be when there's a threat to the society (invasion, most commonly, or a big natural disaster) they aren't willing to make any sacrifices to save it. And you certainly can't rely on your slaves to fight off an invader.

CuriouslyC 10y ago

Slavery normalizes subjugation and stratification. The slaveholder with 10 slaves is just another kind of nigger to the aristocrat with 10,000.