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> Being able to lounge around while others toil for your gain is absolutely economic. And being comfortable doing it via slave labor is cultural. > if you exc

> Being able to lounge around while others toil for your gain is absolutely economic. And being comfortable doing it via slave labor is cultural. > if you exclude the enslaved, the south had a higher GDP per capita If you exclude the murders, Ted Bundy was a really nice guy.

Forgeties79 9mo ago
Like trying to assess the economy of the Third Reich while omitting that whole pesky war thing
- QuercusMax 9mo ago
  They used slave labor too, don't forget!
  - inglor_cz 9mo ago
    Slave labor is most efficient when it comes to non-skilled, hard work. Mining, agriculture, sex (where it still survives even in the Western world), where the output is easily checked and counted. When it comes to anything sophisticated done by qualified people, like "making advanced tools for the Führer", the options for subtle sabotage are there and pissed-off people will use them. In general, German occupation authorities had better results when they actually paid the workers and gave them vacation vouchers. But of course the racial theories got in the way, as it was unthinkable to treat, say, Jews as normal employees.
    - 05 9mo ago
      Counterpoint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharashka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharashka
      - inglor_cz 9mo ago
        Sure you can stuff smart people into penal colonies, but what is their productivity? I am not aware of anyone like Kapica or Kolmogorov producing their best results in a penal camp. OTOH we have a notorious railway tunnel in Prague from the 1950s, designed by imprisoned engineers. Guess what, it is half a foot too narrow to put two tracks into. Someone got the last laugh.
        deleted 9mo ago
        [deleted]
        embedding-shape 9mo ago
        Does it matter what their productivity is as long as it's above 0 of whatever? Leon Theremin invented the "Buran eavesdropping system" while "working" at the sharashka, used to spy on embassies in Moscow via their windows. Another fun anecdote related to Theremin: > Theremin invented another listening device called The Thing, hidden in a replica of the Great Seal of the United States carved in wood. In 1945, Soviet school children presented the concealed bug to the U.S. Ambassador as a "gesture of friendship" to the USSR's World War II ally. It hung in the ambassador’s residential office in Moscow and intercepted confidential conversations there during the first seven years of the Cold War, until it was accidentally discovered in 1952. Interesting life in general: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Theremin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Theremin
        parineum 9mo ago
        > Does it matter what their productivity is as long as it's above 0 Slaves cost money. You have to feed and house them. Plus, they require security to keep them inline. They have to be more productive per dollar than a free individual.
    - ceejayoz 9mo ago
      > Slave labor is most efficient when it comes to non-skilled, hard work. And yet, we invent things like the cotton gin, "enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation", patented in 1794.
      - aaronbrethorst 9mo ago
        I’m not entirely sure what point you’re trying to make. The invention of the cotton gin increased the use of slaves; it didn’t decrease it. https://freedomcenter.org/voice/eli-whitney-cotton-gin/ https://freedomcenter.org/voice/eli-whitney-cotton-gin/
        ceejayoz 9mo ago
        > The invention of the cotton gin increased the use of slaves; it didn’t decrease it. Because the efficiency increase in that part of the process meant we could grow so much more cotton to be processed. It wasn't very profitable before that, because slave labor wasn't very efficient at the process. (This led, eventually, to more automation of the planting/harvesting process.)
        aaronbrethorst 9mo ago
        Clearly, you are much more clever than I am because I still have no idea what your thesis is supposed to be.
        ceejayoz 9mo ago
        Thesis: Slavery is a morally unacceptable crutch that leads to stagnation over innovation in the long run.
inglor_cz 9mo ago
Prior to the steam engine, what sources of energy you have? The wind and the water, both rather limited to specific activities (milling, sailing). And the power of human and animal muscle. Where the animals are stronger, but also much dumber, so most of the actual hard work has to be done by human hands. Basically all the settled civilizations used some sort of non-free or at best semi-free labour. Villeiny, serfdom, prisoners of war, slavery of all sorts, or having low castes do the worst work. And given that humans are very good at rationalizing away their conditions, the cultures adapted to being comfortable with it, even considering the societal inequality as something ordained by the gods or karma.
- ceejayoz 9mo ago
  > Prior to the steam engine, what sources of energy you have? Oxen? Paid laborers? It's not like the American South was unique in needing farm workers. > Basically all the settled civilizations used some sort of non-free or at best semi-free labour. The South was notable in clinging to slavery long after it had been abolished elsewhere. > And given that humans are very good at rationalizing away their conditions, the cultures adapted to being comfortable with it, even considering the societal inequality as something ordained by the gods or karma. Good, then we agree; it was at least in part cultural.
  - inglor_cz 9mo ago
    "Oxen? Paid laborers? " In other words, animal and human muscle, we agree on that. I didn't claim that all human labour was non-free, far from that. Every classical civilization had paid artisans and employees as well. But the paid professions tended to be the skilled ones, and the non-free ones tended to be the arduous, backbreaking ones. "The South was notable in clinging to slavery long after it had been abolished elsewhere." Elsewhere where? If I look at the timeline of slavery abolition on Wikipedia, it seems that the South was not even the last holdout in the Americas, much less worldwide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slave... They were about as delayed as Russia. (Serfdom in Russia was not quite slavery, but brutal and backward nonetheless.) And the timeline of slavery abolition seems to dovetail with the expansion of the Industrial Revolution across the globe quite tightly, or not? "it was at least in part cultural." Chicken, egg. This is a system stretching over millennia with endless feedback loops. Runaway slaves may become the masters (such as the Aztecs) and vice versa, developing their own justifications why it happened.

Forgeties79 9mo ago

Like trying to assess the economy of the Third Reich while omitting that whole pesky war thing

QuercusMax 9mo ago
They used slave labor too, don't forget!
- inglor_cz 9mo ago
  Slave labor is most efficient when it comes to non-skilled, hard work. Mining, agriculture, sex (where it still survives even in the Western world), where the output is easily checked and counted. When it comes to anything sophisticated done by qualified people, like "making advanced tools for the Führer", the options for subtle sabotage are there and pissed-off people will use them. In general, German occupation authorities had better results when they actually paid the workers and gave them vacation vouchers. But of course the racial theories got in the way, as it was unthinkable to treat, say, Jews as normal employees.
  - 05 9mo ago
    Counterpoint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharashka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharashka
    - inglor_cz 9mo ago
      Sure you can stuff smart people into penal colonies, but what is their productivity? I am not aware of anyone like Kapica or Kolmogorov producing their best results in a penal camp. OTOH we have a notorious railway tunnel in Prague from the 1950s, designed by imprisoned engineers. Guess what, it is half a foot too narrow to put two tracks into. Someone got the last laugh.
      - deleted 9mo ago
        [deleted]
      - embedding-shape 9mo ago
        Does it matter what their productivity is as long as it's above 0 of whatever? Leon Theremin invented the "Buran eavesdropping system" while "working" at the sharashka, used to spy on embassies in Moscow via their windows. Another fun anecdote related to Theremin: > Theremin invented another listening device called The Thing, hidden in a replica of the Great Seal of the United States carved in wood. In 1945, Soviet school children presented the concealed bug to the U.S. Ambassador as a "gesture of friendship" to the USSR's World War II ally. It hung in the ambassador’s residential office in Moscow and intercepted confidential conversations there during the first seven years of the Cold War, until it was accidentally discovered in 1952. Interesting life in general: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Theremin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Theremin
        parineum 9mo ago
        > Does it matter what their productivity is as long as it's above 0 Slaves cost money. You have to feed and house them. Plus, they require security to keep them inline. They have to be more productive per dollar than a free individual.
  - ceejayoz 9mo ago
    > Slave labor is most efficient when it comes to non-skilled, hard work. And yet, we invent things like the cotton gin, "enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation", patented in 1794.
    - aaronbrethorst 9mo ago
      I’m not entirely sure what point you’re trying to make. The invention of the cotton gin increased the use of slaves; it didn’t decrease it. https://freedomcenter.org/voice/eli-whitney-cotton-gin/ https://freedomcenter.org/voice/eli-whitney-cotton-gin/
      - ceejayoz 9mo ago
        > The invention of the cotton gin increased the use of slaves; it didn’t decrease it. Because the efficiency increase in that part of the process meant we could grow so much more cotton to be processed. It wasn't very profitable before that, because slave labor wasn't very efficient at the process. (This led, eventually, to more automation of the planting/harvesting process.)
        aaronbrethorst 9mo ago
        Clearly, you are much more clever than I am because I still have no idea what your thesis is supposed to be.
        ceejayoz 9mo ago
        Thesis: Slavery is a morally unacceptable crutch that leads to stagnation over innovation in the long run.

inglor_cz 9mo ago

Prior to the steam engine, what sources of energy you have? The wind and the water, both rather limited to specific activities (milling, sailing). And the power of human and animal muscle. Where the animals are stronger, but also much dumber, so most of the actual hard work has to be done by human hands. Basically all the settled civilizations used some sort of non-free or at best semi-free labour. Villeiny, serfdom, prisoners of war, slavery of all sorts, or having low castes do the worst work. And given that humans are very good at rationalizing away their conditions, the cultures adapted to being comfortable with it, even considering the societal inequality as something ordained by the gods or karma.

ceejayoz 9mo ago
> Prior to the steam engine, what sources of energy you have? Oxen? Paid laborers? It's not like the American South was unique in needing farm workers. > Basically all the settled civilizations used some sort of non-free or at best semi-free labour. The South was notable in clinging to slavery long after it had been abolished elsewhere. > And given that humans are very good at rationalizing away their conditions, the cultures adapted to being comfortable with it, even considering the societal inequality as something ordained by the gods or karma. Good, then we agree; it was at least in part cultural.
- inglor_cz 9mo ago
  "Oxen? Paid laborers? " In other words, animal and human muscle, we agree on that. I didn't claim that all human labour was non-free, far from that. Every classical civilization had paid artisans and employees as well. But the paid professions tended to be the skilled ones, and the non-free ones tended to be the arduous, backbreaking ones. "The South was notable in clinging to slavery long after it had been abolished elsewhere." Elsewhere where? If I look at the timeline of slavery abolition on Wikipedia, it seems that the South was not even the last holdout in the Americas, much less worldwide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slave... They were about as delayed as Russia. (Serfdom in Russia was not quite slavery, but brutal and backward nonetheless.) And the timeline of slavery abolition seems to dovetail with the expansion of the Industrial Revolution across the globe quite tightly, or not? "it was at least in part cultural." Chicken, egg. This is a system stretching over millennia with endless feedback loops. Runaway slaves may become the masters (such as the Aztecs) and vice versa, developing their own justifications why it happened.