Slavery Can’t Last in an Otherwise Free Market
My latest at Mises Canada. To entice you, I’ll just quote the concluding paragraphs:
The above story is just to get the logic across. I am trying to show why, IF we agree with Mises that slavery is unproductive relative to free labor, that it could not last in an otherwise free market economy. Over time, incremental moves such as the above would transform the slaves into self-owners, because that would be the most efficient outcome, setting aside moral considerations.
Think of it like this: Imagine if, during the night, gnomes took all of the cartons of cigarettes from the homes of smokers, and deposited them in the homes of non-smokers. The legal system now said that the non-smokers were the owners. Wouldn’t market forces soon move the cigarettes back into the possession of the smokers?
By the same token, under a free market economy, if for some reason the property titles to particular human beings initially started out in the hands of other people, market forces would soon return everyone to a state of self-ownership.
This is assuming that slaves are only valued as a producer’s good, and not as a consumption good, right?
Do we have to assume?
Murphy, I don’t think you can claim what a free market process would and would not do, property title-wise, to slavery. A free market is incompatible with slavery. Sure, confused people like Ken B might believe they’re imagining a non-contradictory world of a “free market in slavery”, but in my opinion, if we assume a free market, then there is no room for slavery in the first place.
Given that there is slavery, we are not talking about a free market. We’re talking about naked violence.
Sure, you might be able to reduce or abolish slavery by offering enough money to the slave owners to release their slaves, but this requires the short term selflessness of the money offerers to outweigh the self-interest of the slave owners.
Are you offering your life savings right now to an actual slave owner in Africa, say, to release their slave?
It is morally justified to use force to stop a slave owner from being a slave owner. Whether it is possible to end it via money for freedom, depends on the preferences of the people.
I guess what I am saying is that I just can’t wrap my head around the first paragraph in your article.
No, that’s why it lasted. It started to end when the north started employing machines. Only afterwards did it start approaching the situation Bob is talking about. By then northerners started feeling a moral superiority and resentment because their industrial bifurcation allowed them to free their smaller number of slaves a few years earlier than the south.
IF we agree with Mises?
You’re making a circular argument.
Let’s assume that nothing bad can exist in a free market.
Slavery is bad.
Therefore slavery can’t exist in a free market.
Fact of the matter is that the paleo conservative movement longs for a time when slavery was legal.
Nothing bad? No, nothing involuntary can exist in a free market. Slavery is involuntary. Therefore, slavery can’t exist in a free market.
Rubbish. No one “volunteered” to let people own land except the people claiming ownership of it.
And that’s all that is required if those people claiming ownership also have the ability to defend it.
Now I think of it, in historic context you are wrong at any rate. Lots of neighbouring states will write treaties to mutually recognise borders and property rights. It has happened ever since there were states, even tiny Feudal Bergs and Duchies would be making such agreements.
We are looking at this situation in the Ukraine right now with the national borders being guaranteed by treaty with the United Kingdom, the United States and Russia as well.
The value of these voluntary treaties depends on parties keeping their word, as with any contract. I guess a treaty is a treaty until it isn’t, but since Vlad has the upper hand right now, we shall see whether he honours his agreements. I think probably, yes he will, in his own way, guarantee the borders of the Ukraine remain stable.
And if you claim that I can’t own that land, are you making an implicit claim to ownership of that land?
If the land is unowned, then the act of bringing that land into original ownership isn’t voluntary or involuntary.
I said that nothing involuntary can exist in a free market. I didn’t say all actions had to be voluntary, ie. original appropriation.
Gene, other people doing things to previously unowned land, without asking you for permission, does not mean they are engaging in “involuntary” behavior against you.
Yes yes, I know, it’s crazy to think that you don’t own the world.
The article says, “IF we agree with Mises that slavery is unproductive relative to free labor…” It doesn’t say that you have to agree with Mises across the board, and definitely doesn’t say “assume that nothing bad can exist in a free market.” It actually could be rewritten to say “IF we agree that slavery is unproductive relative to free labor…”
Correct.
“Fact of the matter is that the paleo conservative movement longs for a time when slavery was legal.”
No, they long for a time in the future where slavery and taxation are illegal.
You know this is false. We have discussed it. Blocktopia and Rothbardtopia allow slavery, that is ownership of other people.
Blocktopia would permit contractual slavery, Rothbardtopia would not on inalienable self-ownership grounds.
No, Rothbard and Block held that the concept of slavery you are talking about when you say “when slavery was legal”, is an involuntary slavery and hence unjust.
You’re equivocating.
Yes, the same word “slavery” is being used, but Block and Rothbard were against the kind of slavery that was “legal” in the past, but for the kind of slavery of the future where the individual is allowed to sell his body to another on his own recognizance.
You do know the difference, right?
No. Slavery and involuntary enslavement are different. They object only to the latter. They have no objection to one man owning another. That is slavery.
If you realize the difference between voluntary and involuntary slavery, then we’re done.
They can’t want to legalize slavery that is not currently legal, because voluntary slavery is already legal now. You can agree with your wife to have you tied up, she beats the shit out of you, and if you try to escape, she’ll beat you more. You can agree to that right now if you want and it wouldn’t be against the law. We call it S&M. S&M is legal.
When you wrote that they want to legalize slavery, to me that meant you believe they want to legalize involuntary slavery, because the only kind of slavery currently illegal is involuntary slavery.
If you want to describe what they believe, then you can’t just use “slavery” without the predicate of “voluntary”. It makes it look like you believe they want to legalize involuntary slavery. .
BTW, s&m is not alas legal. Remember when that sports caster was in a scandal? He was convicted because the sexual act was called an assault and at least in that state you cannot consent to an assault. So her consent did not matter.
Not a single gay rights group objected to that from what I saw.
He was not convicted because his partner fully agreed to what he did and the state disagreed.
You can consent to an assault. UFC for example.
“Marv Albert pleads
guilty
ARLINGTON, Va. – Cutting short a trial that bared
his lurid sex life, sportscaster Marv Albert pleaded
guilty Thursday to assault and battery after
prosecutors agreed to drop a charge of forcible
sodomy”
As for consent, as I said, it varies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault
This is a distraction of course from your absurd misattribution that I noted.
It isn’t a misattribution.
Pleading guilty obviously implies that he either forced her to do something she didn’t do, or he plead guilty at the advisory of his lawyer, to minimize the costs to himself.
The case of Marv Albert does not prove that S&M is illegal. At the most it proves that you can’t forcibly sodomize someone.
“voluntary slavery is already legal now. You can agree with your wife to have you tied up, she beats the shit out of you, and if you try to escape, she’ll beat you more.”
I believe that legally you are able to change your mind. If you tell your wife to stop and she continues, I don’t think she could say that you had previously agreed to it as a defence. She may be able to claim that she believed your protests were not genuine, but if she admitted that she believed you had withdrawn your consent, then she would be guilty I think. I may be wrong.
Even if this were true, surely it differs from slavery (voluntary or otherwise) because you are allowed to change your mind tomorrow. If you were a slave your wife would have the right to continue whilst the slavery persisited. Or are you saying that you agree to be a slave for the next 30 minutes?
By saying “Paleo Conservatives long for a time when slavery was legal” you are clearly suggesting that they want to bring back involuntary slavery.
Longing for a time when slavery WAS legal?
Stop equivocating why don’t you.
You talkin’ to me?
Yes, I’m talking to you.
Then you’re even more off base than usual. You attribute to me someone else’s quote, which I never endorsed. I did point out your false claim, that R and B long for a time when slavery is illegal, when they do not.
Sorry, not talking to you. Talking to joe. I thought we were continuing the S&M debate here…
Even voluntary slavery cannot work if there is no one out there willing to defend such a contract. That is, a slave can easily just walk away from his/her master unless many other people are willing to capture runaway slaves and drag them back.
As soon as the majority of people are no longer willing to persecute runaways, you no longer have slavery. Well, of course there will be isolated cases as there is today, but it can’t operate as a general institution.
Yes, a point I raised over at Landsburg.
Don’t forget that Ken’tardia finds slavery permissible and wold not even try to stop it if 51% of Kentardians wanted the enslave others within their borders. Ti seems to slip his mind quite often, especially while riding his high horse.
Kinda like how they endure murder that doesn’t kill anyone and theft that doesn’t involve change in possession?
Bob, what do you think is the reason that slaves in the South weren’t bought out by people who wanted to employ free labor? What distortion of the free market prevented such transactions? Also, what about people who used slaves as house servants? How would that kind of slavery be ended by what you’re talking about?
1. States enforced a very strict quota on the number of slaves that could be freed by their master.
2. Costs associated with slave patrols and catching runaways were externalized to the majority which were non-slave owners.
3. Constitutional slave fugitive clause which required slaves that made it to free states to be returned.
Slavery is a political institution from start to finish.
“States enforced a very strict quota on the number of slaves that could be freed by their master.” I wasn’t aware of that. Can you give me a reference?
“Constitutional slave fugitive clause which required slaves that made it to free states to be returned.” What does that have to do with Bob’s argument? Bob’s argument isn’t that slavery would end by all the slaves running away to the North. It’s that if society as a whole recognizes the legitimacy of slavery, slavery will naturally go away.
Technically he has a point on the fugitive slave act passing costs of retrieval, part of the total cost of ownership, to others. Pretty minor I think.
Until about the time of the war I believe two states did basically prohibit manumission, SC and Miss. However that would be little impediment as slaves could be purchased and moved out of those states. Some more states did enact more laws just before the war.
Interesting. In La the slave had to be 30 and well behaved http://undergroundtofreedom.wordpress.com/state-laws-that-govern-slavery-1824/
I did not know that. It’s not quite whar DD5 claimed, but it’s in the ball park.
No, it’s a very major point. If the slave crosses into land owned by someone who does not recognize the property right in another human being, but who is willing to defend his own land, then the slave owner must choose to either go to war or forget about that slave.
The potential cost of going to war is huge (especially when you lose, as the South discovered). No work the slave could do would possibly replay the cost.
It gets worse when the people protecting that slave also put a gun into the slave’s hands and say, “Fight for your freedom and defend our land.” The slave owner must now fight a determined opposition with very little to lose.
That’s the real reason why slavery came to an end… rifles and gunpowder.
No, I meant the effect identified, lowering the cost of ownership, would have been a small effect. So his argument while logically correct is unimportant in its real effect. Like every time MF stamps his foot the earth jiggles a little. But not much.
“what do you think is the reason that slaves in the South weren’t bought out by people who wanted to employ free labor?”
First, they were. Those people were called “slaves” and they bought their own freedom.
Second, tariffs, lack of immigration, and any number of distortions that would cause inefficiencies in the labor market.
Third, technological shocks such that “After invention of the cotton gin in 1793, which enabled the development of extensive new areas for new types of cotton cultivation, manumissions decreased due to increased demand for slave labor. ” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manumission#United_States
It might take an awfully long time to reach “equilibrium.”
Why do we still talk about slavery as if it were yesterday? Seriously. I don’t own a slave, never have, never will. I don’t care. I am not guilty, not 1 iota.
Is this because the are trying to prove the Constitution is bad? Founding fathers were bad?
Go ahead, have the damn thing. Burn it. Its just a gd piece of paper.
Tell you what, I want not part of what ever system you try and replace it with, period. Count me out. I pledge allegiance to the free market. Nothing else.
The productivity of slaves relative to free men depends on the production technology, which helps to explain why it existed on a large scale in some places and not others.
A nation that was specialized in production that was well suited to slavery, trading to get the rest, would be a natural slave nation.
“If we agree with Mises that slavery is unproductive relative to free labor…”
Doesn’t free labor actually have to be not only more productive but also most cost-effective ?
If a free worker produces twice as much as a slave but the market-clearing wage rate is three-times as much , you are better off hiring a slave.
In fact wouldn’t you likely end up with an equilibrium position where the productivity-adjusted cost of slave = current wage rate for for any given task ?
The third sentence was meant to say:
if a free worker produces twice as much as a slave but the market-clearing wage rate is three-times as much as the cost of USING A SLAVE , you are better off USING a slave.
It seems you don’t understand what is meant with “productivity” here: “yield per unit of cost”
I’m not totally convinced that is how economists define “productivity” but OK,
If that is the definition Mises had in mind then what he is saying (with Bob’s additional example) is something like:
“If capitalists are better off employing free men rather than slaves then they will employ free men rather than slaves even if they have to turn slaves into free men to do so ”
which is a bit question begging in my opinion. Its an empirical question really but I can think of scenarios where the cheapness of slavery might trump the additional quality/physical productivity of free labor. (Dangerous but low skilled job like cleaning out lions cages for example?).
Nice sentiment though.
“I’m not totally convinced that is how economists define “productivity” but OK,”
Right: I have never seen that definition.
If you read the Mises Canada article then you will see that Mises himself doesn’t use the word “productivity etc” in there. Only Bob uses it above to paraphrase Mises. Mises uses the phrase “yield per unit of cost” and says here that slave labor is even inferior to cattle in that regard.
“If one treats men like cattle, one cannot squeeze out of them more than cattle-like performances. But it then becomes significant that man is physically weaker than oxen and horses and that feeding and guarding a slave is, in proportion to the performance to be reaped, more expensive than feeding and guarding cattle. When treated as a chattel, man renders a smaller yield per unit of cost expended for current sustenance and guarding than domestic animals.”
I have no opinion if economists use it only in your sense, but to a business owner it certainly makes more sense to view it as “yield above costs”. Someone who secures a positive return is productive to him, someone who doesn’t isn’t. And obviously if Bob paraphrased Mises and uses the word „unproductive“ to do that then he has to take this definition of „yield above costs“ else it wouldn’t make any sense.
And that is also why Bob specifically emphasized the „IF“, and why his cigarette analogy even works. You are not disputing there that cigarettes in the hands of actual smokers are more “productive” (I guess here it is rather a greater psychic profit per unit of cost) than in the hands of non-smokers who even got them for free. The case may be not so clear for the actual issue, though history seems to be on Mises side.
“which is a bit question begging in my opinion. Its an empirical question really but I can think of scenarios where the cheapness of slavery might trump the additional quality/physical productivity of free labor. (Dangerous but low skilled job like cleaning out lions cages for example?). ”
Or maybe like clearing areas from radioactive materials like in Chernobyl. I just think that in a society which is build upon free labor, it wouldn’t be socially/culturally acceptable to use slaves even if in very rare cases it theoretically is more productive (costs above yield definition) to use slaves.
“Nice sentiment though. ” I am not 100% sure what you mean with that, but I want to apologize if you think I was rude. Sorry, it wasn’t meant to come across like that. I should have said misunderstood instead of don’t understand.
“(costs above yield definition)”
I mean *yield above costs* of course…
Thanks for clarifying. I agree its ““yield per unit of cost” that is relevant here.
By “Nice sentiment though” I just meant it would be cool if Bob’s (and Mises’s) argument were valid.
You guys are right that Mises was talking about “yield per unit cost,” but my point is correct also. If a factor of production can produce more physical output in arrangement X versus Y, why would we expect in a free market that millions of units of that factor would be permanently stuck in arrangement Y?
If gnomes rearranged property titles and for some reason, a bunch of electric drills were being used as doorstops and paperweights in office buildings on Monday, do you think it would take a war and hundreds of thousands of deaths to get the electric drills back into use in carpentry?
” If a factor of production can produce more physical output in arrangement X versus Y, why would we expect in a free market that millions of units of that factor would be permanently stuck in arrangement Y”
I don’t think you can eliminate cost consideration.
Say you are a capitalists and you have a choice between hiring a hour of labor from a slave-labor supplier or from a free-worker.
Market forces will tend to equalize the costs but I can’t see how you could tell without more assumptions which option (free-labor or slaves) would be chosen in any given situation.
Wages are the generally accepted unit cost of labour… if you include overheads such as housing, food, employment regulations, etc.
No, see the north was good guys. By definition.
The south forgot the first purpose of a union is national defense against invasion. So to remind them of its importance the north invaded them. To believe otherwise is racist.
And its not as though it required a different race that could be viewed as lesser to make slavery last as long as it did. Everyone knew they were equal, they were racist for fun and profit.
(1) ” In the production of articles of superior quality an enterprise employing the apparently cheap labor of unfree workers can never stand the competition of enterprises employing free labor. It is this fact that has made all systems of compulsory labor disappear.”
What rubbish. First, what is Mises’s evidence for this? He needs empirical evidence not blind faith.
Many slave owning societies had free labour in competition with slaves: e.g., ancient Rome. But slave ownership and free competition never eliminated slavery. The same can be said for many other societies.
But I suppose the libertarian response will be: there has been no society in human history that “with strict property rights”. In that case, you have no empirical evidence on which to prove your idea. It becomes a thought experiment where things become true by definition.
(2) “Yet this means that all of the slaves who actually were “above average” would have no reason to excel. They would have the incentive to do the bare minimum to avoid punishment.”
Of course they would: the incentive to become slave “foreman”, or to have better food than others, or the possibility of being liberated after a certain number of years service.
If you were rummaging around to look for a society fairly close to the libertarian ideal… maybe the Roman Empire wouldn’t be the first thing to jump at.
How about Feudal Germany? Before unification they had a sort of competitive con-federate system happening, and as Lutheranism became popular they had a strong respect for property rights. Slavery in the Middle Ages was possible, but rare. Serfdom (in various forms) existed as a type of contractual equivalent to slavery, but generally serfs had more rights than slaves. This pretty much demonstrates that purely on economic merit a mutually supportive agreement works better than slavery.
“Slavery in the Middle Ages was possible, but rare.”
False:
Although it is often presumed that slavery disappeared outside the former territories of the Roman Empire, in fact it continued in German lands throughout the ninth and tenth centuries. Most slaves came from the eastern borders—Slavs captured in raids and sold at markets in Prague and throughout Bohemia. There was an important slave trade in southern Germany as well, …
John M. Jeep, Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia, p. 724
It died out by the 12th century only because the supply of slaves dried up, not because of some “economic merit” of “a mutually supportive agreement”.
“supply slaves dried up”
You mean costs to actually “produce” slaves went up. That means the economic merit of mutually supportive agreement works better than slavery. You can’t have slavery without the effort of actually enslaving people. Slaves don’t just grow on trees in the backyard…
“That means the economic merit of mutually supportive agreement works better than slavery”
No, why did costs of production rise?
Answer: religion and social customs.
Once you have a widespread moral/social idea — in this case with a religious basis — that it is immoral to enslave fellow Christians, then you will need to enslave foreigners, which is increasingly difficult as the societies around you become Christian.
A different society with different moral ideas (e.g., Rome) had no such problems.
So it wasn’t economic efficiency with free workers outcompeting slaves that caused the decline in slaves, but social/religious ideas and scarce supply.
I don’t dispute that social and religious ideas play their part of course they do, I am glad they do!
But by mentioning the issue of scarce supply of slaves you are just confirming my position. Cheap slaves coming in from conquests and wars will stop as you run out of (easy) territory to conquest, even without those other territories becoming christian. That is what the Romans needed to learn too. So despite them having no moral quibbles with slavery, it didn’t work out too well for them:
http://www.roman-empire.net/articles/article-018.html
Also false when you look to the Islamic world.
“Slave ownership and free competition never eliminated slavery”
You can’t forget that slaves will have two uses (production and consumption). So even if free labor outcompetes slaves in production, that doesn’t mean that the demand for slaves will disappear; some people might gain psychic revenue from simply owning another human being. You would need to look at the specific types of slave use and not just whether or not slaves exist .
“The possibility of being liberated after a certain number of years service”
Where is that possibility in public slavery (social democracy)? I could sure use some liberation; I’ve been slaving for years. I’m kidding, I know I’m a voluntary slave.
“The incentive to become slave foreman”
Politicians are very incentivized in this regard.
The historic evidence is that economic forces never completely eliminated slavery, just reduced it and replaced it with other systems where the workers had some rights and some freedom (not great, but better than slaves).
I might point out that our modern laws have also failed to eliminate slavery.
“What rubbish. First, what is Mises’s evidence for this? He needs empirical evidence not blind faith.”
Wait, is it rubbish because you know it’s false, or is it rubbish because you don’t like it, and neither you nor Mises had empirical evidence, and that you’re claiming it’s false until proven true?
“Many slave owning societies had free labour in competition with slaves: e.g., ancient Rome. But slave ownership and free competition never eliminated slavery. The same can be said for many other societies.”
Was there free market competition in everything EXCEPT labor? No, so your example of ancient Rome is not evidence against Murphy’s argument.
“But I suppose the libertarian response will be: there has been no society in human history that “with strict property rights”. In that case, you have no empirical evidence on which to prove your idea. It becomes a thought experiment where things become true by definition.”
Murphy didn’t say this took place at some point in the past. He’s making an argument about what WOULD happen if certain things are true.
“Of course they would: the incentive to become slave “foreman”, or to have better food than others, or the possibility of being liberated after a certain number of years service.”
Assuming a slave is able to gain more by working more.
That is genius, Bob. Couple things: what if a slavemaster can set individual minimum standards. There aren’t enough slavemasters but there might be enough slaved to set up a managerial hierarchy. Maybe this is why a great hatred was reserved for the “sergeants” of the plantation (think Sam Jackson in Django).
Hey everyone, just star ignoring those guys.
To paraphrase Walter Williams, if you aren’t allowed to sell something do you really own it?
Some if the same people who don’t understand debates around voluntary indenture will support a healthcare mandate without pause.
Why could we possibly learn from those people?
Thanks for all of the feedback everyone. I am going to write a follow-up post. In the meantime, I was want to draw everyone’s attention to one of Lord Keynes’ responses. He first quoted me, then answered, like so:
RPM: “Yet this means that all of the slaves who actually were “above average” would have no reason to excel. They would have the incentive to do the bare minimum to avoid punishment.”
Lord Keynes: Of course they would: the incentive to become slave “foreman”, or to have better food than others, or the possibility of being liberated after a certain number of years service.
So look at that part I put in bold. I didn’t “go there” in my original post, because I thought it would be too obvious; I wanted to just get people thinking about how clearly inefficient arrangements wouldn’t last in an otherwise free market.
But, LK has gone straight for the jugular, and shown that at any given time, we would expect the most productive x% of slaves to cut a deal with their legal owners, to produce more and thus buy their own freedom.
Ken B., can I get a ruling on this? That means slavery in the US would asymptotically approach zero, once the slave trade had been banned and assuming x% is higher than the natural reproduction rate of slaves?
LK do you want to amend your statement, since it looks now as if it helps my case?
“assuming x% is higher than the natural reproduction rate of slaves?
Even if the global slave trade had been banned wouldn’t there always be an incentive to produce more slaves via breeding programs if there were some jobs where slaves had higher ““yield per unit of cost”. The “natural” rate would be irrelevant.
OK take out “natural.”
My point was also that the supply of slaves (and their “quality”) would be optimized to meet market demand – like the production of any capital good is under capitalism.
Imagine slavery plus genetic engineering combined – you could potentially produce highly productive low-maintenance slaves that could out compete free labor.
Well something like what LK says did seem to happen with house slaves in the Roman Empire. But that was a small fraction. There wasn’t the racial element either. I don’t know of many cases in the South, does anyone?
(Plus it excluded the slaves in salt mines etc.)
I expect the negotiation costs –the effrontery would get you whipped, success would get you ostracized, race would make trust unlikely– means LK’s ratchet would have no effect. There would be social enforcement from whites too.
But if there were such an efect yes that would bolster Bob,s argument, obviously, being a mechanism to realize his prediction.
Ken B., right, I’m not asking you, “Wouldn’t slavery have evaporated on its own because of this?” I’m asking, “Do you agree with me that LK thought he was blowing me up, but he actually gave away the game with his retort?”
Gave away the game? No, the game was never in his hands, his point being too minor to matter. But I quibble.
Actually made an argument for you while claiming to make one against you? Yes, for sure.
“That means slavery in the US would asymptotically approach zero, once the slave trade had been banned and assuming x% is higher than the natural reproduction rate of slaves?”
Unlikely.
Why? Because (1) manumission rates may not be high enough and (2) virtually everything I said about ancient Rome applies to the US south: American slaveholders – once they faced supply problems from the ban on the international slave trade – increasingly bred their own slaves:
“Gradually, however, American slaveholders realized that they could acquire slaves more easily through breeding than buying. …. etc,
Some masters even promised slave women freedom if they bore a certain number of babies. Women slaves thus did double duty, laboring in the fields and creating new capital for their masters in the form of babies”
That is exactly what the Romans did. See my comment below.
“Well something like what LK says did seem to happen with house slaves in the Roman Empire. But that was a small fraction”
No, Ken B, it WASN’T a “small fraction”: all the empirical evidence shows “home born” slaves were very significant in the Roman world:
“The preponderance of the slaves born in the country in which they were in servitude over the imported slaves is capable of proof in Egypt. There the number of the cases of home-born slaves and of the children picked up as foundlings shortly after birth greatly exceeds the number of slaves imported
William Linn Westermann, The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity, p. 98.
Since the subject is manumission rates the natural, and in this case correct, reading of my assertion is that the number freed this way is small compared to the total number enslaved.
Few agricultural or mining slaves, slaves employed as sources of wattage, were manumitted. Only a fraction of those employed in personal service or household oversight etc.
You’re saying you think manumission rates were relatively small?
And how does that support Murphy’s argument?
It contradicts it.
No, read it again. Have you gone MF today? Bob’s postulate is about rates. My claim is the rates never approach the threshold he needs. Your statement did not discuss relative sizes. You merely asserted a mechanism exists. You did not limit its strength. Were that mechanism strong, as I deny, it would bolster what Bob said. That’s why Bob asked if you want to amend. You do. You want to amend to “Ken B is right, the effect would be small.”
“Have you gone MF today?”
You mean LK has become more logical and informed than you?
Geez you have gone MF today. Of course it contradicts Murphy’s claim about slavery fading away. That is why I said so repeatedly!
He has? I don’t see anything he said that shows your errors.
LK,
Have you got any research that shows that the price of slaves in the Roman Empire was cost+markup. Or was the slave market flex-price ?
Doesn’t this passage suggest I am right, that manumission was not extensive enough to hobble the production of new slaves? That the mechanism you and Bob are discussing does not actually lead to the disappearance of slavery because the numbers are too small?
Rome had manumission and slavery together for over a millenium if you count as you should the Eastern empire.
Yes, right: that is what I am saying.
Bob is arguing that US slavery would disappear given:
(1) that there was a fall in new supply from overseas
(2) that there was the need to free slaves to encourage productivity that would match free labour
(3) the high manumission rates from (2)
(4) the fact that slave numbers would fall (assuming that natural breeding could not make up for it).
———————–
He is wrong on (4): slave owning societies often just breed their “house born” slaves: both the Romans and US slaver owners did it.
(2) might be true but (3) does not follow from it since the mere promise (unhonored) or possibility can motivate slaves, and there are plenty of other inducements to harder work:
(1) better food
(2) special privileges
(3) “promotion” to slave foreman
(4) the right to have sex
On (4) alone it is likely you can motivate men to work hard without freeing them – and you get new supply to boot.
Here is the source of the squabbling. LK “Of course they would: the incentive to become slave “foreman”, or to have better food than others, or the possibility of being liberated after a certain number of years service.”
That is a mechanism that could effect Bob’s change, right? If it were big enough.
You did not say anything about big enough (I did). You just cited the mechanism. So Bob has a fair cop. The argument on the anti Mises side has to be that mechanism is too small or does not exist. Saying it exists does not hurt the mises side! Hence Bob’s remark about rates.
Agreed?
Agreed.
And:
“That is a mechanism that could effect Bob’s change, right?”
Sure, but only if
(1) it were big enough and
(2) external supply was cut off and
(3) slave breeding could not replace “stock” lost to manumission, old age and death etc.
A slave owner can certainly not honor his promises to liberate slaves in return for harder work, but this will create resentment among the slaves as well as it will reduce the value (if not eliminating it completely) of future promises of manumission; and then it will no longer be an incentive.
Or he can liberate the odd slave here and there, especially when they are old and too feeble (thus cutting costs), making manumission rates actually quite low, but also incentivizing harder work.
Not too mention:
(1) better food or alcohol
(2) special privileges
(3) “promotion” to slave foreman
(4) the right to have sex
If you told me I was going to be liberated when I was old, this might actually induce me to work less. The older I get, the less physical ability I will have to be productive. I certainly don’t want to be released into free society without any physical ability; therefore, I might want to try and eliminate the wear and tear on my body. But of course, you won’t free me if I don’t work hard.
(1) Even though certain individual slaves might be freed through hard work, it does not follow
(i) that all or the majority would,
(ii) that there would be a tendency for slavery to be reduced or eliminated.
—————–
Even the promise (never honoured) or hope of freedom would inspire many slaves to work hard, without actual freedom being granted. What is the slave going to do? Sue their master for breach of contract?!
Moreover, are you even familiar with some basic history?
In ancient Rome, liberating slaves happened often, but since your own slaves were often allowed to have children and the children were automatically slaves of the master of the parents, the supply of slaves was replenished as old slaves died or were freed. Slavery never — as far as we can see — declined to any significant degree.
In fact, the Roman slave owning aristocrats wrote whole treatises on how to manage slaves and get new ones.
E.g., the Roman Columella rewarded female slaves who breed new slaves for him:
“To women [sc. slaves], too, who are unusually prolific, and who ought to be rewarded for the bearing of a certain number of offspring, I have granted exemption from work and sometimes even freedom after they had reared many children. For to a mother of three sons exemption from work was granted; to a mother of more her freedom as well. “
De Re Rustica, Book 1.18.19
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Columella/de_Re_Rustica/1*.html
In fact, the Romans point out again and again that “home born” slaves are best ones,because they were born into the condition and never knew any other life.
(2) But at this point was your thought experiment even concerned with the real world at all, or merely with a purely hypothetical free market world where all your assumptions necessary for the argument to work are lazily assumed to be true?
If so, it is of no concern to anyone interested in the real world and slavery of the real world, as opposed to merely hypothetical thought experiments immune to any refutation by empirical evidence.
LK,
Have you read the link I provided?
“The slave-based economy seemingly worked well but only as long as there was a large supply of slaves. The slavery institution declined significantly as a result of the “Augustan Peace”. Although Gibbon sees the decline in war and piracy in this so-called “golden-age” as an entirely positive thing for the empire he does not see the other side of the story which is that these two activities were the main source of slaves. The days of the great Delian Slave market were over and there was now a severely diminished workforce. Growing humanitarian sentiments within the empire also facilitated this problem as many of the remaining slaves were freed. ”
“There remained no choice after the collapse of the slave market other than to try to compensate for this loss. What we see here is the increasing exploitation of free men by a highly exploitative ruling class. This group was really an aristocratic clique whose wealth was derived primarily from the land so it was very much in their interest to maintain their own superiority at the expense of what was beneficial to the empire. They were against any form of economic improvement which threatened their power and so their actions tended to maintain senatorial authority but at the huge price of economic retardation. In the absence of a slave class which they could exploit, they increasingly tightened the screw on the lower classes so that their legal, political and constitutional privileges could be diminished. In this way they would have little power to defend themselves against exploitation. This whittling away of the rights of the poor took place mainly during the ‘good’ Antonine period and by the Severan period the poor had virtually no rights whatsoever. Citizenship therefore came to mean almost nothing for the vast majority and therefore the onset of universal citizenship was really a fairly unremarkable development.”
http://www.roman-empire.net/articles/article-018.html
No, the author of your webpage is using outdated sources and views.
The assumption that slavery was mainly based on warfare, prisoners of war or foreign trade is untrue.
A lot of the slave population was sustained and increased just through breeding:
Scheidel, Walter. 2011. “The Roman Slave Supply,” in Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge (eds.). The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1. The Ancient Mediterranean World. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 287–310.
Bradley, K. R. 1987. “On the Roman Slave Supply and Slavebreeding,” in M. I. Finley (ed.), Classical Slavery. F. Cass, London and Totowa, N.J. 42–64.
Scheidel, Walter. 1997. “Quantifying the Sources of Slaves in the Early Roman Empire,” The Journal of Roman Studies 87: 156–169.
Scheidel, Walter. 2005. “Human Mobility in Roman Italy, II: The Slave Population,” The Journal of Roman Studies 95: 64–79.
See:
http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2014/03/slavery-cant-last-in-an-otherwise-free-market.html#comment-278985
You have a point there. I underestimated the degree of slave breeding definitely. I’ll read up on that.
Overheard
“MF says a lot of deranged things.”
“MF says the moon is made of suet. That is deranged. Thus are you refuted.”
“????”
You’re just mad because I got you to be too afraid of answering a simple question about whether you support me being shot for wanting to hire a different protector than the state.
You have MF on the brain because the chaos in your mind has my name associated with it.
Give it time.
I think talking about past slavery that happened way before I was born, is a cheap parlor trick used to distract modern conversation from addressing the slavery of today. Taxation is slavery.
If our CEO masters gave real raises, raises that exceed real inflation, things would not be so bad. Instead we face a gradual erosion of personal liberty.
So the Fedreserve jokers step in and implement yet another bogus solution, read below.
http://news.yahoo.com/fed-officials-downplay-worries-over-u-growth-155420595–business.htmlc
It is a shame we do not have a money that stores value, if we did, workers could save and then leverage. Instead we are mere serfs.
If our CEO masters gave real raises, raises that exceed real inflation, things would not be so bad. Instead we face a gradual erosion of personal liberty.
So the Fed reserve jokers step in and implement yet another bogus solution, read below.
http://news.yahoo.com/fed-officials-downplay-worries-over-u-growth-155420595–business.html
It is a shame we do not have a money that stores value, if we did, workers could save and then leverage. Instead we are mere serfs.
“If our CEO masters gave real raises, raises that exceed real inflation, things would not be so bad. Instead we face a gradual erosion of personal liberty.”
Wages are sticky so we need inflation to reduce real wages by the government.
Let’s see Krugman spell out that design to his followers.
Here’s a glimpse into the mentality of southern US slave-owning cultivator in 1858 right here:
“I own a woman who cost me $400 when a girl, in 1827. Admit she made me nothing — only worth her victuals and clothing. She now has three children, worth over $3000 and have been field hands say three years; in that time making enough to pay their expenses before they were half hands, and then I have the profit of all half hands. She has only three boys and a girl out of a dozen; yet, with all her bad management, she has paid me ten per cent. interest, for their work was to be an average good, and I would not this night touch $700 for her. Her oldest boy is worth $1250 cash, and I can get it. “
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/experience/gender/docs5.html
That is, slave reproduction and new slaves are an important part of your investment.
And given that the slave population of the southern US grew by an average rate of 2.4% per annum from 1810 to 1860 even after slave imports were outlawed after 1807, it is clear most of the growth came from slave breeding.
It’s just as strange that you call business a mentality as a slaveowner thinks of slavery as a business. Well, even more so.
What Bob is saying is we should hope they think of slavery as a business. It is funny how many people are repulsed by basic economic thinking.
Have you ever met a child? No one wants any part of kids until they are 5 and only then when they get tax money.
That said, parents are an example of an exception I refer to above with a slave hierarchy.
Assume the value of a slave equals the discounted value of his future earnings. If he would be ,more productive as a free man then it would make sense for the owner to free the slave in exchange for a binding commitment to a payment stream greater than the profit he would have made hiring him out as (or using him as) a slave.
This supports Bob’s point.
But there would likely be situations where this would not apply. Suppose a low skilled slave could be hired out for medical research for $20 and hour or $9 for unskilled labor. The slave, if freed ,would not agree to work in medical research for only $20 an hour even if he would be more productive than as a slave. Its not clear to me how the free ,market would prevent unskilled slaves being used for unskilled and dangerous work in preference to free workers even if they would be more productive.
“future earnings” = future earnings accruing to the slave owner, obviously
Bob, what you describe also explains why we patience with respect to global communism was the right course. We could have launched invasions of liberation into communist countries. Know what I mean?
Slaves may (or may not) be less productive than free men, but the argument Mises makes is not sound.
“If one treats men like cattle, one cannot squeeze out of them more than cattle-like performances.” Why not then use cattle to pick cotton and cook the meals? The term “cattle like” is not very useful.
“When treated as a chattel, man renders a smaller yield per unit of cost expended for current sustenance and guarding than domestic animals. ” On what is this based? Apparently that man is physically weaker than cattle. Since strength is not the main source of the slaves value, this is irrelevant. The blacksmith slave could add far more value than a cow.
“If one asks from an unfree laborer human performances, one must provide him with specifically human inducements.” Many possible inducements have been listed by LK.
“he must reward diligence, skill, and eagerness.” Which he can do with rewards that have very little cost.
It may be that slaves are less productive than free men, but it takes far more than this to prove it. It seems that Mises is less than expert at constructing arguments.
Apparently, “at the time the South seceded from the Union, the purchase of a single slave represented as much as $130,000 and more in today’s prices. This was twice the average of 14 years earlier, indicating a sustained growth in the demand for slaves.” I think the figure of $130,000 is subject to large errors, but it is clear that the investment was substantial and that it had been growing up to the war.
http://www.measuringworth.com/slavery.php
If Mises is right, the slave owners considered it worth spending a fortune on a slave that would be less productive than a paid worker. If the profitability of slavery had been reducing through mechanisation, why was the price rising? We seem to have two options. Either slaves were more productive than paid workers and this was reflected in the price. Or the price of slaves was unrelated to the productivity -i.e. was not determined by a free market. If the latter, then to suggest that slavery would disappear in a free market may be true, but not relevant to the situation.
Bob, in addition to what Mises argues, isn’t there also an argument from transaction cost economics/incomplete contracts for the economics inefficiency of slavery? I’m thinking a la Grossman, Hart, and Moore, that residual control rights are most efficiently assigned to the party who’s level of effort has the greatest impact on the output/capitalized value of an asset. I.e. slavery is always economically inefficient because it always separates residual control rights (ownership) from the person whose effort (the slave’s) always determines the greatest share of the slave’s output/capitalized value.