12º. Where militarism largely prevails, and warriors are more wanted than labourers, slavery is not likely to exist. Yet in a few cases the same militarism leads to the keeping [[256]]of slaves, viz. when slaves are kept mainly for military purposes.
13º. Tribes forming a somewhat homogeneous group, and maintaining constant relations with each other, are more likely, ceteris paribus, to keep slaves, than an isolated tribe.
These conclusions, arrived at by an examination of hunting and fishing tribes, all, except the first, bear a general character. We may therefore suppose that they will equally apply to pastoral and agricultural tribes. Whether this really be the case, will appear from the ensuing chapters. It may, however, be convenient first to simplify and systematically arrange them.
As the principal factor we may regard the general economic state of society. Two distinctions are to be made here:
1º. Subsistence either is or is not dependent on capital.
2º. Subsistence is either easy or difficult to acquire.
These two distinctions are independent of each other. For where subsistence depends on capital, it may, with the aid of capital, be easily acquired or not. Similarly, where it does not depend on capital, it may be easy or difficult to procure. Accordingly we find the following forms of economic life:
1º. Subsistence depends on capital. Without capital a man cannot get on. Now, if labourers are wanted, there are likely to be people destitute of capital, who have no other resource left but to offer their labour to the capitalist. But there is a difference, according as subsistence is easily acquired or not.
a. Subsistence, even with the aid of capital, is difficult to procure. The procuring of subsistence requires a combination of capital and skilled labour. Thus among the Eskimos a man unacquainted with their ingenious hunting and fishing methods cannot get on any more than a man destitute of a boat, or of sledges and dogs. Here labourers are not much wanted. Helpless persons are kept as servants, but this is done for pity’s sake rather than because they are useful. Slavery does not exist.