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Banning slavery won't make them wealthy - they'll still probably be starving. Make them wealthy and the slave markets probably go away. That argument requires

by tremon 6y ago

Banning slavery won't make them wealthy - they'll still probably be starving. Make them wealthy and the slave markets probably go away. That argument requires substantiation. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are arguably some of the wealthiest nations on the planet, yet slavery (or slave-like working conditions) are prevalent throughout society.

roenxi 6y ago
I can substantiate it with Libya - it had one of the highest GDP per capita in the world for a bit (same wiki page). But they couldn't sustain that because they have the sort of economy where slavery makes sense. The Saudis and Qatarians will be the same when the oil runs out. An economy with slaves does not, fundamentally, make sense. It isn't going to be the least bit competitive with a modern capitalist economy with wages without wealth literally bubbling up from the ground in the form of oil. Everyone in such an economy will be less wealthy than their peers in a free market.
- croon 6y ago
  Two points: 1) The capitalist formula for this is basically: Can i extract more value from this individual through "free" productivity minus wages, or from "slave" productivity minus enforcement cost. Your arguments don't convincingly prove the former. 2) Even if I were to accept your reasoning (which to be very clear I don't), I still don't understand what argument you're making. Because it naturally leads to: a) Capitalism solved slavery by it being unprofitable, so the regulation/ban was unnecessary. which leads to: b) If it was profitable, the ban would hamper economic growth. I'm much more interested in the second part. What would your stance be if we assume it would be profitable? Capitalism doesn't concern itself with morality, but humans do. Should we do nothing about it because all political intervention is bad?
  - throwaway201103 6y ago
    No, capitalism and freedom in general must operate within the confines of morality. But I think it is also true that slaves (at least as a source of agricultural labor) were becoming economically unviable regardless, due to advances in technology. Mechanized harvesting and other agricultural mechanization was just less expensive than using (and housing, and feeding) people to do the same work.
    - croon 6y ago
      > No, capitalism and freedom in general must operate within the confines of morality. Just to make sure, I assume this is your opinion of agreement with me? Which I appreciate, even if you weren't GP. It's just that the phrasing makes it sound like a disagreement in reasoning, which if that is the case I would like you to expand on. But as to your second point, labor hasn't (yet) disappeared due to industrial revolutions, only shifted. What has changed is simply the scale one unit of labor could perform. Slaves would very much still be valuable in the 1800s. If nothing else proven by the fact that still to this day farming jobs are very often imported low-income jobs. I can't reconcile that fact with your reasoning.

by tremon 6y ago

roenxi 6y ago

I can substantiate it with Libya - it had one of the highest GDP per capita in the world for a bit (same wiki page). But they couldn't sustain that because they have the sort of economy where slavery makes sense. The Saudis and Qatarians will be the same when the oil runs out. An economy with slaves does not, fundamentally, make sense. It isn't going to be the least bit competitive with a modern capitalist economy with wages without wealth literally bubbling up from the ground in the form of oil. Everyone in such an economy will be less wealthy than their peers in a free market.

croon 6y ago
Two points: 1) The capitalist formula for this is basically: Can i extract more value from this individual through "free" productivity minus wages, or from "slave" productivity minus enforcement cost. Your arguments don't convincingly prove the former. 2) Even if I were to accept your reasoning (which to be very clear I don't), I still don't understand what argument you're making. Because it naturally leads to: a) Capitalism solved slavery by it being unprofitable, so the regulation/ban was unnecessary. which leads to: b) If it was profitable, the ban would hamper economic growth. I'm much more interested in the second part. What would your stance be if we assume it would be profitable? Capitalism doesn't concern itself with morality, but humans do. Should we do nothing about it because all political intervention is bad?
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  No, capitalism and freedom in general must operate within the confines of morality. But I think it is also true that slaves (at least as a source of agricultural labor) were becoming economically unviable regardless, due to advances in technology. Mechanized harvesting and other agricultural mechanization was just less expensive than using (and housing, and feeding) people to do the same work.
  - croon 6y ago
    > No, capitalism and freedom in general must operate within the confines of morality. Just to make sure, I assume this is your opinion of agreement with me? Which I appreciate, even if you weren't GP. It's just that the phrasing makes it sound like a disagreement in reasoning, which if that is the case I would like you to expand on. But as to your second point, labor hasn't (yet) disappeared due to industrial revolutions, only shifted. What has changed is simply the scale one unit of labor could perform. Slaves would very much still be valuable in the 1800s. If nothing else proven by the fact that still to this day farming jobs are very often imported low-income jobs. I can't reconcile that fact with your reasoning.