The Essential Conditions Of Slavery

Historically, there have been many types of situations recognized as slavery:

  • Peonage
  • Plantation
  • Serfdom
  • Prison, especially prison laborers
  • Wage (non-peonage) due to general poverty
  • State (e.g. janissaries)

and the specific conditions of such, legal protections of the slaves, their autonomy, etc. varied. In that regard, the practical use of the word slavery has a large scope, perhaps approaching even the word “inferior” in its generality. Such general statements (re: sexual assault) do not facilitate the comprehension of magnitude (and sometimes principle) at a level that clearly distinguishes responsive actions (e.g. to imprison for 1 year vs. 10).

The critical need remains: to distinguish the situation in which the following approach is correct:

  • Flee your situation if you can
  • Otherwise, kill the most powerful of your masters, likely at the cost of your own life

The “average” case of slavery, where e.g. a slave is perpetual, never owns property, can be raped at will, etc. is the canonical situation where this approach is indicated. For context: this class of situations is better than direct shackling or other gross restraint/torture (“hopeless prisoner”) (where you have no practical choices but to try to survive), but worse than generalized class inferiority, but where you have a relatively large number of human rights, so that one could consider living in that situation as close enough to what you might do as a free person and/or beneficial to humankind, and then you launch your suicide attack at the end (“inferior citizen”).

Consequently, we require the identification of a word that abstracts/classifies/collects the specific situations which indicate that approach. Since “slavery” already is used this way, already is general, and already is the “average” or reference situation, I think it is appropriate to use it.

However, “slavery” being a general term, yet we wish to use it in a situation where there are more or less well defined boundaries where you switch from one approach to another; this means we must impose a series of tests/essential qualities, that establish those boundaries, yet attempt to encompass/have fidelity to the typical usage of “slavery”. To that end:

Slavery commonly features:

  • Poverty / the inability to accumulate, or meaningfully use, wealth
  • Long labor hours (sometimes in consequence e.g. of no wealth / hand to mouth)
  • No individual ability to change the situation, whether by fleeing/moving, changing jobs, or making different choices
  • Additional gross restrictions of one’s freedom, particularly in regards to freedom of speech/religion, association, and freedom from personal harms e.g. from dangerous work, beatings, rape

Particularly to the point: of these, only long labor hours, voluntarily could be accepted; the others are the loss of fundamental individual capability. Consider some of the related choices, that we do not recognize as slavery:

  • You could accept a period of military service, if you recognize that it is a requirement to have freedom and prosperity in the long run (though in the short-run, every one of these items applies)
  • You could accept being a CEO, taking the long hours and effective loss of free speech, if you could obtain a large amount of wealth, with enough time/ends to which to employ it
  • You could accept a dangerous job like mining, if all economically feasible mitigations were implemented, and the pay / insurance were high, relative to alternatives
  • You could accept a low-paying job from the government or private industry, but on the condition that you have side gigs, you get a lot of time off, you have the ability to run for office or similar high levels of activism, etc.

and in all these cases, we recognize that there are elements of choice and time limitation, as well as incentives according to the sacrifice, specifically to make these choices, vs. the status quo.

We also should note some of the freedoms or indulgences allowed to people who are classified as slaves:

  • Some plantation slaves in the American South could get Sundays off
  • House slaves / personal servants can have nice clothes, work in the mansion, etc.
  • Some slaves learn trades like blacksmithing
  • Serfs, peons, and wage slaves, could have families
  • Slaves could be emancipated, possibly as a result of “earning” it through savings of work (although it is alien to some concepts of the slave as property)

so although some plantation or prison slaves (e.g. Holocaust prisoners) had no freedom or money, we do not consider that a complete loss of freedom, particularly, is required to be termed a slave, or to be in the situation where you flee or kill your masters. We also could not consider that every poor person is a slave, despite the limitations of poverty.

Hence, the essential conditions of slavery are that, without your effective choice, you are denied:

  • The ability to stop working / meaningfully change situation
  • One or more grossly harmful compulsions, such as:
  • The ability to avoid wasteful or guaranteed maiming, routine rape, death, etc., which no free person rationally could accept, OR
  • Loss of e.g. freedom of religion and speech, inability to decide whether and how many children you will have, so that your life effectively is dictated by others and approaches totalitarian loss of control (which could be e.g. caused by the gross poverty of your masters’ robberies)

and hence we should consider e.g. the following situations as that of slavery:

  • Being the average poor citizen in unfree territories like the 22 provinces, East Turkestan, European Russia, where you do not have the ability to emigrate
  • The plight of the average African child laborer, mine worker, etc. where you could not safely afford to flee your situation, and in which you work in grossly dangerous, low-wage positions
  • Almost any person in a state where general terror prevails, e.g. North Korea, Stalin’s Soviet Union
  • Most people in a kleptocracy or other situation of social confiscation e.g. Chavista Venezuela
  • Most people who can’t emigrate from the poor theocracies, e.g. Afghanistan, Iran
  • People effectively imprisoned by massive debts, particularly those incurred by relatives, or who suffer corruption of blood and/or guilt by association as a result of punishments
  • People in poverty whose reproductive choices are extremely socially restricted or punished, e.g. the average rural Pakistani woman, American men receiving massive divorce/alimony/child support financial assessments (e.g. totaling an average person’s lifetime earnings, instead of tied to actual support costs)
  • People who suffer massive robberies that practically reduce them to working stiffs, especially when the theft or other crime leaves them with major debts, health and/or caregiving expenses, etc.