It makes me ponder, do large civilizations always end up with some form of slavery?
Edit: spelling
Early civilizations generally do. A mixture of reasons, but two of the big ones are the ability to retain labor consistently and the ability to absorb defeated enemies.
In societies which are generally operating on a subsistence level, it is important that labor, especially agricultural labor, be constrained in some way or form to ensure that the harvest is sown and reaped. Slavery is not the only way to do this - but regulation of contractual obligations in early civilizations can be sparse, especially when the central state itself is not particularly expansive. Serfdom, or corvee, or other forms of forced labor, are also common for this reason. As methods and laws for regulating labor become stronger, and the central state becomes more established, the need for slavery or serfdom in this sense tends to die off bit by bit.
The other part is that early civilizations are often based around comparatively small ethnicities commanding much, much more vast populations of unlike peoples. When these ‘unlike’ peoples are cooperative, everything is fine - and such ‘cooperative’ peoples often end up, over the centuries, being absorbed into the core ethnicity. When these ‘unlike’ peoples are uncooperative, methods are devised to ensure that they don’t up and turn on the early civilization - and one of those methods is depopulation of the effective economically and militarily productive population (through slavery).
Slavery and other forms of forced labor are not a ‘mandatory’ stage of civilization or anything, but they provide a ‘simple’ and easily thought of solution to common problems faced by early civilizations.
No. Fortunately slavery is outlawed in every single country on earth now. There’s still quite a bit of forced labor and exploitation left, but even that usually does not stoop to the level where people are treated as tradable property, so calling it slavery is a stretch. Humanity has come a long way in that regard.
Its explicitly allowed in the US if you’re a prisoner, by the constitution. We have literal bakery-prisons to this day :) isn’t it great
Then take a look at comparative incarceration rates around the world, and ask yourself who these numbers are made up by.
It’s pretty clear who is picking the cotton even today.
I like how one of the five places that has a higher per capita rate than the US (El Salvador, Cuba, Rwanda, Turkmenistan, American Samoa) is an American territory.
isn’t it great
I know. But that still doesn’t compare to actual slavery. You can’t sell people or subject them to summary execution (yet). It’s important to acknowledge how much better than the past today is. Because that shows us how much better than today the future can be if we don’t fuck it up.
Sure, except there’s estimated 50 million people worldwide currently enslaved. So outlawing this shit hasn’t really done that much sadly considering there’s now more people enslaved than ever.
Yeah, that is utter nonsense. If you use that definition you had about as many slaves in Europe alone a few centuries ago because almost the entire population would have been slaves.
“Modern slavery” is like an “honorary degree”. It has similarities to the real thing, but it isn’t the same thing by a long shot. Look at the article: forced marriage, state imposed labor, exploitative employment. That was pretty much just normal if you look at human history. What do you think peasants were?
If we really have reduce the affected population to fifty million, then we have solved 98% of the problem.
More people, but a MUCH smaller percentage.
Not even more people. By the definition used above most of the world’s would have consisted of slaves until recently. Sure, most people in history actually were not free by modern standards, but “slaves” means a class of people that was even more deprived of rights.
Is there a source? I won’t consent to their 291 partner data sharing, but I’m interested in the topic/finding.
Can’t speak as to this specific find, but it was common for slaves to be condemned to work in the mills or bakeries as a punishment. We don’t think of such things as gruesome today, but, well…
When the day was mostly past, and I was weary, they un-harnessed me, removed my collar, and tied me to the manger. Though I was utterly exhausted, urgently in need of restoring my strength, and almost dead from hunger, still my usual sense of curiosity kept me upright with its nagging: I neglected the pile of fodder, and was pleased to watch the life of that detestable mill.
You blessed gods, what a pack of dwarves those workers were, their skins striped with livid welts, their seamed backs half-visible through the ragged shirts they wore; some with loin-cloths but all revealing their bodies under their clothes; foreheads branded, heads half-shaved, and feet chained together. They were wretchedly sallow too, their eyes so bleary from the scorching heat of that smoke-filled darkness, they could barely see, and like wrestlers sprinkled with dust before a fight, they were coarsely whitened with floury ash.
While the description here is from a satirical work, it is contemporary (The Golden Ass, 2nd century AD) and can be judged to be accurate in broad strokes, even written with dramatic flair in a fictional adventure.
All the links in the article just point to other articles on the same site unfortunately.
Here’s a Reuters article about the same subject if it helps:
https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/bakery-prison-uncovered-ancient-romes-pompeii-2023-12-08/
Also reader mode in most browsers bypasses these stupid cookies and agreement panels to read the article. So theoretically you’re not agreeing to anything.
Cheap workforce, wow… we don’t have progressed much!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The finding aligns with the harrowing accounts of second-century AD writer Apuleius, whose Metamorphoses IX 11-13 describes the backbreaking labour endured by men, women, and animals in ancient mills and bakeries.
Archaeologists working on the ongoing excavations in Region IX, Insula 10, near the slopes of the ancient city of Pompeii, have uncovered a disturbing site - a bakery-prison where enslaved workers and blind-folded donkeys were confined and exploited to produce bread.
However, the discovery of three victims in one of the bakery’s rooms in recent months suggests that the property still housed individuals at the time of the eruption.
He adds: “It is the most shocking side of ancient slavery, the one devoid of both trusting relationships and promises of manumission, where we were reduced to brute violence, an impression that is entirely confirmed by the securing of the few windows with iron bars.”
Adjacent to the stable, the milling area displayed semicircular indentations in volcanic basalt paving slabs, possibly deliberate carvings to coordinate the movement of the animals and to prevent them from slipping and forming a “circular furrow,” as described by second-century AD writer Apuleius.
The exhibition sheds light on the forgotten individuals, such as slaves, who, though often overlooked by historical sources, constituted the majority of the population, significantly contributing to the economy, culture, and social fabric of Roman civilisation.
The original article contains 410 words, the summary contains 218 words. Saved 47%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
