Slavery

It seems to me that the most egregious condition that humans live under is slavery. Other egregious conditions such as poverty and ill-health are generally not directly visited by humans on humans. Making them subjective bads. They are only objective in that we who live under better conditions are offended that others are impoverished, and sick. People do not intentionally impoverish or sicken others, sometimes it is a byproduct of rapine but not as a direct means to an end.

Slavery however is the direct, intentional, and conscious ruining of the human condition of another individual human being as an means to some selfish end. Slavery is objective as well as subjective. To the person enslaved slavery is very subjective. To the person enslaving another, slavery is objective and subjective to himself. Objective in that he is not visited by the evil he visits on others. Subjective in that he is involved intricately in the operation.

In the Twenty First Century that there should be human slavery is obnoxious to all human hearted people. Societies that allow the traffic in human beings as chattel prove their unworthiness. Worthy societies have at least minimum protections on the rights of the individual.

Societies that allow the marketing of people in their midst prove their corruption as well. Machiavelli said that a “corrupt society can never be free.” Watching other human beings being enslaved and sold in your presence sows the seeds of your own enslavement by the State. Thus Saint Augustine’s adage that people get the government they deserve, is proven. Societies that allow slavery are, or soon will be, under the jack boot of a tyrant.

The opposite is also true. Societies that do not allow slavery tend to be less corrupt as a people. They are less likely to be under a dictator. As a society becomes less decadent and more virtuous it naturally finds the shackles of tyranny more and more suffocating. Society grows but the bindings don’t. Pressure builds until the chain is sundered and society finds itself free. When society shrinks in decadence the bonds of tyranny are ever more binding, and don‘t seem to suffocate.

Slavery is a pretty good predictor of the economic outcome of a society. History supplies plenty of examples of this. Rome practiced slavery. While Rome was a Republic there were few slaves and many plebeians. The people had work. When Rome became decadent under the emperors and slavery increased due to the conquering of other peoples, the plebeians had less and less work. More and more was done by slaves. The plebeians were made dependant on the State. Slaves did all the work. The people refused to fight in war as well. If they didn’t have to work, why fight? The mercenaries would do the fighting for the Romans. Attila the Hun was the logical outcome of this reasoning.

Another example is the USA. When Slavery was legal here the GDP growth was fairly flat. Expansion into the territories was the primary engine of economic growth. After the Civil War slavery was abolished. And shortly after territorial expansion ground to a halt. The primary engine of economic growth was slowed dramatically and the catastrophe of war needed to be cleaned up. Yet the American economy continued to grow at a brisk pace. There were brief recession’s but real GDP continued to grow. With the demise of slavery the former slaves had to be paid for their production. That pay, little as it was, triggered more economic growth. Keynesian economics at work. To argue that the industrial revolution was the primary driver is to ignore that places that still had slavery didn’t participate in the economic expansion of the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century.

Places like the Barbary Coast at the time had real GDP’s that were the equal of the USA at the time. In some cases higher per capita GDP. They had and have slavery to this day and the lot of the people has declined in proportion as the lot in America has grown.

If a society wants real economic growth to raise the lot of it’s people it must be virtuous. Slavery is the antithesis of virtue in a society. It inevitably leads the society to tyranny, crime, poverty and sickness. Perhaps this is the result of God’s being displeased. I think that God’s intervention is not required. The natural dynamics at work, (rules as set down by God), inevitably lead to this outcome.