Saturday, November 18, 2023

Why Slaves/Service are the Most Valuable Commodity in a Free World

Being free is the opposite of being a slave. Freedom and Slavery are two polar opposites. It is almost a paradox to say that they need and seek each other. 

However, like in a magnet that where each pole attracts its opposite and repeals the same polarity. Free world and slavery constantly seek each other and occasionally meet in many unusual ways.

Here I will explain how and why.

While world 'slave' often used in historical and fictional context. West often prides itself on eliminating slavery. A word 'service' however used in many modern contexts and pretty much always in positive meaning. 

However, slavery is involuntary servitude by definition. In a way it is even more guaranteed service then a voluntary servitude. If slaves provide acts of service, then why oppose it. There is of course reason for that as well.  


Definitions

To begin with definition.

Freedom is ability to do or not do anything based on personal wishes, desires decisions and so on. Freedom is absence of servitude or subordination to any higher entity or power.

In contrast slavery in absence of freedom. A situation where person cannot do as they please and someone else controls life for them and uses them for their own benefit, including in ways that benefit the solely the owner and are detrimental to the slave. Slavery is state of permanent involuntary servitude and subordination to someone else.

Thus, freedom is the opposite of slavery.


Why Freedom needs Slavery

However why freedom needs slavery? Are they not mortal enemies that bound to fight each other until someone prevails.

The answer will become clear once you reconstruct the formation process of a Free Society.


People want and value freedom because they do not want to do what someone else says. They want to do what they themselves want. To that end they want a system that will guarantee that no one will be able to tell them what to do.

If you make that as a foundational principle of society, then you will have a free state. You will want to establish boundaries and guarantees that ensure that everyone freedom is safeguarded, and no one is impinges on freedoms of their neighbors. 

Various principles such as human rights, 'treat others as you yourself wish to be treated' or even 'non-aggression pact' (NAP) that used in Anarcho-Capitalism, stems from that logic and reason. They all exist to safeguard freedom.

Geopolitically there were also non-aggression pacts between nations. Military alliances, such as NATO also stem from the same basic desire to safeguard one's freedom, on both individual and national level. Even ancient Greek City-States used to form protective alliances to that very same end. In fact, their societies were centered around this desire to safeguard freedom.


However, once you have a free society with all the necessary safeguards and ensure freedom for everyone, then an interesting dilemma happens. You are free to do what you want and not do what you do not want, but so it everyone around you. Just as you do not have to do anything so is them.

So, if you want them to do something for you, then what do you do?


The simplest and freedom loving answer will be commerce or trade. You promise them something in exchange for something else. We make it a foundational principle of interactions between free human beings. That way everyone will be able to exchange goods and services they want and need. To make it easy we will create money that can be a token of exchange between parties. 

The whole system of such exchanges is called free market. There are plenty of books out there that explain it in greater detail so I will not go into further details. However, core principle here if you want something from someone, you need to give them something they desire in exchange for what you desire.


However, the whole system solves it only partially. What if you have nothing to offer in exchange for goods and services you want. Even if we make money a medium of exchange, you might not have enough money to afford what you want. It could also be that no one will do it for you no matter how much you have to offer them. Then what. Besides the whole negotiation process and haggling over price can be too long and tedious.

Thus, your needs will still remain unfulfilled. 

While some might embrace some spiritual path of denying themselves their desires, others will instead seek another way to fulfill them. 

We have found this path; even ancient Greeks arrived at that answer. Every other iteration of Western Civilization of Freedom ended up going exactly the same way. There were variations and they were called various names, but in essence they all were the same thing: slavery.

The differences were only in who was condemned to this fate and why.

After all, one can only have complete freedom if he is surrounded by people who cannot deny them their wishes.


Thus, free people constantly seek out ways to obtain slaves for themselves. Often willing to way large sums of money to for such unfree people. Slaves were always needed and desired. They cost more than many other things in the world.


History of Slavery

Slavery of course was present in the very first truly western civilization, that of ancient Greeks. It was also present in Babylonia and Egypt (that is debated though).

Ancient Greeks

Ancient Greek City-States might have been more primitive when it comes to technology. However, their social organization had many complex concepts that our nation building considers rather contemporary.

Their nations were small and never extended beyond city walls. Neighboring cities were always a foreign nation with their own governments. They had interactions with each other, but they were similar to modern nation/states, rather than cities within the same country. That itself is an extension and reflection of their freedom loving nature. If not for that they could have all united into a single country under same ruler, like Babylonians or Egyptians. However no, each city was free to govern itself as they saw fit.

Every citizen in that city was free as well and even had a right to vote on all matters concerning governance of their city. Similar to modern Swiss Landsgemeinde, that currently practiced in only two of its cantons.

Greeks also had a concept of citizenship that is very similar to our contemporary one. Only those who were born to a citizen of the city or were naturalized via special decision (i. e. granted citizenship by the city's government), were allowed to participate in city governance.

There was also a distinction between slaves and free foreigners. That is slaves were a special category of people. Once again, a clear boundaries and idea who is what and what they are entitled to.

Most Greek City-States engaged heavily in slave trade. In late antiquity, most of the population of Athens consisted of slaves. Yet citizens could never get enough of them and were always willing to buy more slaves.

Rome

Roman economy and life in general were also heavily dependent on slaves. Romans even conquered most of their empire solely to obtain slaves. They did not want Gaul as a territory so much as they needed Gauls as slaves.

Romans too had clear distinction between citizen and not citizen as well as between free man and a slave. 

Romans would not turn their own citizens into slaves (with exception of unpaid debts reason, but there were few such cases). Forcing citizens into slavery would be socially unacceptable and destabilize their society.

However, there were no such problems for foreign people, so Roman army went to the furthest reaches of the world (as it was known to them) as well as discover some new previously unexplored areas in order to find any people they could enslave.

Rome prospered while there were still people they could enslave. It begun to stagnate when they run out of any potential new slaves. Eventually Roman Empire collapsed as slaves that sustained it, ran out.

In fact, act of granting Roman citizenship to everyone who lives on the territory of the vast empire and not just to the people within the city itself as it was previously, possibly spead up the dissolution and collapse of Rome.

Dark Ages

What followed were Dark Ages. Little known of these times as records are scarce. However, chaos and lawlessness that came from constant fighting between various barbarians, ensured that people who were caught in the mess could be enslaved, by these or that group, that was not Roman and did not have to follow Roman laws or respect rights of Roman citizens.

Vikings, who raided shores of modern England and Ireland, also seek out to capture locals and turn them into slaves. I would guess other various barbarian invaders seek much of the same. I might even wonder if there were even actual barbarians and not just Romans, disguised as barbarians.

Medieval Times

Feudal tenures of socage, serjeanty, corvee or even knighthood were all forms of slavery with an asterisk. In exchange for 'protection' from the above-mentioned Viking raiders, a peasant agreed to work their lord's fields, pay him lump sum of rent money or serve him in other capacity. Thus producing a system of subservient dependence on the lord, who in turn held obligations to their liege who too had obligations to his own liege.

A complete medieval slavery pyramid where no one is free and even King answers to God through Pope. A grim inversion of the formerly free society where desire to control others or be safe, prevailed over the desire to keep one's freedom.

Because of that people often look down on Middle Ages and praise Renaissance where feudal tenures came to an end and society attempted to restore former glory of the Roman and Greek ancient times.

Renaissance

However, slavery did not end in renaissance. It just that society found someone else to enslave. Discovery of the Americas as well as African West Coast with its Mali Empire allowed for a triangular slave trade.

Mansa Musa of the Mali Empire was willing to sell people of his country as slaves to Westerners. Westerners wanted these slaves and were willing to pay him a lot of money for them. Eventually Mansa Musa became the richest man on earth and probably in history of mankind. When he went for pilgrimage to Mekka, every city he visited along the way, got their economy completely destroyed by the overwhelming amount of money he had and just gave away as charity. What was mere spare change for him was more that these cities made in years. That how rich slave trade can make one.

People who associate slave trade with racism, do overlook the fact that Mansa Musa was black himself and literary sold his own countrymen to slavery for money. Why he had no objection to doing so is another issue.

As is an issue of why White people would prefer to buy their slaves from him of all places. Possibly they were more resilient for the Carribean climate. Possibly they were more obedient and did not oppose their exploitation.


19th and 20th Century

After the US Civil war, slavery was abolished in the USA. Other Western countries did so some time before. Southern states did oppose this vehemently. The abolition ruined their economies and society.

However, what came after was simply a slavery with an asterisk. Prison system in the US, Gulag in USSR, Nazi concentration camps. All of these were simply forms of slavery under new name.

The US has highest prison population in the world for that reason.

Soviet KGB plunged the country into a constant paranoia and terror in attempt to fill the quotas for the Siberian Gulag camps.

German Nazis decided to spare their own people and only subject foreigners to this fate. To that end they started WWII, once their run out of Jews and other ethnic non-Germans in their country.

So did Boers in South Afrika who created Apartheid Era Bantustans for the very same reasons.


Nowadays

Nazis were defeated, USSR collapsed, and Gulag prisoners were freed, Apartheid did end. So, is slavery finally over?

Of course, no.

US prison population is still high. Russia uses most of the ex-Soviet republics' nationals (particularly Central Asian ones) as de-facto slave laborers, called Gastarbeiter in Russia. Human trafficking reaches new and new heights. There are even innovative methods to enslave people, by making them dependent on addictive drug and force them to do some cruel work in exchange for new dozes of said drug.


Conclusion and Solutions

Western World still needs its slaves just as before and does not want to give up on it no matter what.

So how can we solve the problem?

One such solutions are robots. Robots do not have free will and will do as their programmers command them.

Another solution are women. Women seem to not value freedom as much as men do. Many eastern civilizations solve the very same problem by simply enslaving their women and subordinating them to men. They do not call it slavery because for them woman and slave are simply the same thing. the Chinese and Japanese character for slave is simply a combination of that for hand and for woman.

Asian women are often viewed as submissive, so western men do want to marry them instead of free Western women.



Extra Thoughts

Chinese and Japanese character that 'means' citizen looks like spear pointing to an eye, implying that it is a subordinated subservient status of a state fearing being. That is rather different meaning from Western idea of citizen.

In general, Asian societies function differently from Western ones in that regard. They seem not only much less free, but also much less aspiring freedom. 

Modern Western Fascination with Japan comes from that reason. That is probably the country that contrasts with the West most. People saw how subservient Japanese women are and wished to find out how Japan managed to achieve that. They We want to replicate that in our own women or at least import Japanese ones.

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