Slavery in Traveller ( need not be OTU)
- Thread starter BwapTED
- Start date
What do mean I am a slaver? those are dog, I can own them and have them pull my sleigh!
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
People trafficking, sex slavery and slave workers still exist today in western Europe and the US.
A 'remote central government' such as the Imperium is going to have a hard time enforcing its anti-slavery laws in the frontier sectors, and there are probably incidents in the core worlds too.
A 'remote central government' such as the Imperium is going to have a hard time enforcing its anti-slavery laws in the frontier sectors, and there are probably incidents in the core worlds too.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
One of my player's characters wrote in a back story of being shipped off in a prejump sleepship involuntarily to an Australian colony. He's back, and pissed.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Such an environment should go total hardcore- noble children able to order around liegemen and slaves, people desperate to go up a social level or two, only being 'freemen' around 7 or so, align law level weapon rights to social standing, etc.
Under those circumstances pirates could easily recruit the low social orders, for the relative freedom if nothing else.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Firefly clearly has slavery/indentured servitude and local nobility, but I get the impression it's more tolerated then central to core worlds' functionality (other then getting cheap goods and raw material from cheaper labor).
One could certainly say the Imperium is loose enough and involved with larger issues that slavery could occur between the cracks and ignored, but where the concept gets in trouble is trade law and what I'll call the Dred Scott problem.
If a slave escapes from a master into a territory/planet/sector that does not recognized the contractural or legal obligations of slavery, would it be enforced by Imperial trade law?
So you have to decide what your sophont rights vs. economic utility of slaves/indentured are at a very basic level.
One could certainly say the Imperium is loose enough and involved with larger issues that slavery could occur between the cracks and ignored, but where the concept gets in trouble is trade law and what I'll call the Dred Scott problem.
If a slave escapes from a master into a territory/planet/sector that does not recognized the contractural or legal obligations of slavery, would it be enforced by Imperial trade law?
So you have to decide what your sophont rights vs. economic utility of slaves/indentured are at a very basic level.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
If you manage to remain within a Free City for a year and a day, or fulfill some other residency requirement.
Yes, but isn't that what the Imperial Nobility are for: to act in the name of the Imperium in the local area of jurisdiction? (I understand, of course, that there are corrupt nobles and/or nobles who have more "important" matters to attend to . . .)
Drakon
SOC-14 1K
I think context would be important. There are different kinds of slaves and different reasons for enslavement. Some we consider valid, such as punishment for the commission of a crime. Others, such as simply identifed as a particular group that one has no choice joining, not so much. And then there are voluntary slaves.
Should the owner's rationale be considered justifiable, the slave gets returned. If the owner's rationale is not, the slave is set free, if that is the slave's desire.
In practice that is the whole point of having slaves, people with people skills that can be talked to like people, but don't have to be treated like people. Regardless of what the law says, owners will not grant their slaves rights, voluntarily.
As for economic utility, a major problem with slave labor is that it is not that efficient nor effective. The work force is not invested in the outcome. Slave will tend to do the minimum required, to keep from being punished. Slavery has a corrosive effect on the work ethic of the owners as well. Also, in order to prevent slave revolts, governments end up becoming more oppressive. Many states in the pre Civil War south had laws against teaching slaves to read, despite the added economic utility a reading slave possessed.
aristotle called slaves "res", things.
few things are more addictive than free money and free labor.
now this is false. you presume reluctant or even resisting slaves, but many slaves throughout history were quite passive about their slavery, and some fully accepted it and were thoroughly efficient. that of women everywhere is the most obvious, that of the christian janissaries is the most celebrated, and even many american ante-bellum blacks living in the south were somewhat skeptical of that "freedom thang". recall that the kidnapping of landsmen to crew sailing ships was considered fully acceptable for many centuries - try THAT one in your traveller games!
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
That would be nuanced.
Spartacus, were he here, might disagree. Or his impostors.
Besides the psychological power trip, automating production from just having wage slaves who are only expected to fulfill their contracts and are on their own when they are no longer productive, to robotized factories, would seem the natural trend once the economic rational is removed.
Spartacus, were he here, might disagree. Or his impostors.
Besides the psychological power trip, automating production from just having wage slaves who are only expected to fulfill their contracts and are on their own when they are no longer productive, to robotized factories, would seem the natural trend once the economic rational is removed.
The Romans had working Steam Engines equal to 2nd generation industrial age steam engines, but they where coincided toys because the empire had Slave power.
America did not adopt more efficient plows and harvesters that where in use in other parts of the world because of Slave Labor, up until the 1960's Share Croppers and Dirt Farmers relying on animal power where using developments on the inefficient American Patten farm equipment, some of these pattern equipment is still in use in the mechanized age.
Slavery prevents technological development, it retards the development of logistical modeling and other important parts economic evolution
America did not adopt more efficient plows and harvesters that where in use in other parts of the world because of Slave Labor, up until the 1960's Share Croppers and Dirt Farmers relying on animal power where using developments on the inefficient American Patten farm equipment, some of these pattern equipment is still in use in the mechanized age.
Slavery prevents technological development, it retards the development of logistical modeling and other important parts economic evolution
given our chemically and radiologically contaminated environment, for which we look down on our short-sighted fathers, and the breakneck pace at which we are creating experimental lifeforms with aggressive contamination behaviors, for which short-sightedness our children will curse us, I'm not sure that's a detraction to slavery ....
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Fine as far as that goes, but you have to decide in your verse where the lines are drawn.
That depends- does Imperial law prevail? Planetary law, especially if they get off planet?
But ultimately owners need at least the passive complicity of government to allow them to enforce their ownership. That's what refs have to decide about their interstellar governments, or even balkanized planets some slave nations some not.
This IS a high tech environment- likely there are enticements or punishments or psych techniques not available to the slave holders of the past.
Respectfully, I suggest reading Time on the Cross and more recent works about American slavery. A very substantial body of scholarship has argued with great effect that slavery was an efficient , productive system. It contributed in major ways to colonization, market expansion, and the Industrial Revolution. You might not agree with the conclusions, but reading the works could give you a different perspective.
The Antebellum South was not backward. It was developing quickly.
This is all drawn from what I have studied in university and read on my own.
Like you, I used to favor the old arguments that slave labor had some inherent deficiency and was simply inferior to wage labor. But reading and study convinced me otherwise. At some times and places, types of slavery have been developed into a very efficient and productive part of a larger system.
YMMV, game on, and have a great day!
RE slaves and literacy. The Romans used literate Greek slaves as tutors. Literate slaves have been part of other systems, as well.
I would not generalize from the rather unusual case of some states in the US barring people from teaching slaves to read. That was done in reaction to Abolitionist propaganda tracts and fears of conspiracies.
It was also ignored by a number of people. If you are concerned about your slaves' souls and you are a Protestant, you may wish to teach them to read the Bible.
I would not generalize from the rather unusual case of some states in the US barring people from teaching slaves to read. That was done in reaction to Abolitionist propaganda tracts and fears of conspiracies.
It was also ignored by a number of people. If you are concerned about your slaves' souls and you are a Protestant, you may wish to teach them to read the Bible.
@ combatmedic, I'm stating that in the US due to the effects of slavery less efficient Agricultural equipment was used because most of the farmers in the south where not doing the work themselves or paying a wage that they would have sort the most return on their outlay so they did not adopt more efficient technologies and practices, the legacy of this continues in to the 21st century.
I wont go in to the economics of the American failure to adopt the Stump-jump plow, but to say a lot more land could have bean brought under cultivation sooner if they had used the stump-jump after the initial clearing and came back in to off seasons to de-stump the fellow fields
I wont go in to the economics of the American failure to adopt the Stump-jump plow, but to say a lot more land could have bean brought under cultivation sooner if they had used the stump-jump after the initial clearing and came back in to off seasons to de-stump the fellow fields