But though, where motives for keeping slaves fail, no external causes will give rise to slavery,—even when there are such motives, slavery will not exist, if there are no external causes rendering it possible, i.e. if there is no opportunity of procuring and retaining slaves. Where neither capture [[418]]or purchase of aliens, nor enslavement of members of the tribe is practicable, or where the slaves can very easily escape, slaves cannot be kept, though there might be much use for them[2].
The principal internal cause which prevents the rise of slavery, or where slavery exists, tends to make it disappear, is the dependence of subsistence upon closed resources. The most important result of our investigation seems to us the division, not only of all savage tribes, but of all peoples of the earth, into peoples with open, and with closed resources. Among the former labour is the principal factor of production, and a man who does not possess anything but his own strength and skill, is able to provide for himself independently of any capitalist or landlord. There may be capital which enhances the productiveness of labour, and particularly fertile or favourably situated grounds the ownership of which gives great advantage; but a man can do without these advantages. Among peoples with closed resources it is otherwise. Here subsistence is dependent upon material resources of which there is only a limited supply, and which accordingly have all been appropriated. These resources can consist in capital, the supply of which is always limited; then those who own no capital are dependent on the capitalists. They can also consist in land. Such is the case when all land has been appropriated; then people destitute of land are dependent on the landowners.
Where subsistence depends on closed resources, slaves may occasionally be kept, but slavery as an industrial system is not likely to exist. There are generally poor people who voluntarily offer themselves as labourers; therefore slavery, i.e. a system of compulsory labour, is not wanted. And even where there are no poor men, because all share in the closed resources, the use of slaves cannot be great. Where there are practically unlimited resources, a man can, by increasing the number of his slaves, increase his income to any extent; but a man who owns a limited capital, or a limited quantity of land, can only employ a limited number of labourers. Moreover, as soon as in a country with closed resources slaves are kept, they form a class destitute of capital, or land, as the case may be; [[419]]therefore, even when they are set free, they will remain in the service of the rich, as they are unable to provide for themselves[3]. The rich have no interest to keep the labourers in a slave-like state. It may even be their interest to set them free, either in order to deprive them of such rights over the land as they may have acquired in the course of time, or to bring about a determination of the wages of labour by the law of supply and demand, instead of by custom. They will thus, without any compulsion except that exercized by the automatic working of the social system, secure a larger share in the produce of labour than they got before by compulsion.
Among peoples with open resources everybody is able to provide for himself; therefore free labourers do not offer themselves, at least not for employment in the common drudgery, the rudest and most despised work. There may be, and indeed there often are, skilled labourers whose work is highly valued and well paid; such people think it more profitable to earn their livelihood by means of their peculiar talents, than in the common way. A striking instance of this is the priest, whom we may call a skilled labourer performing non-economic labour; his remuneration, both in material goods and in influence and consideration, is greater than the income of a common agriculturist. But there are no labourers in the modern sense of proletarians, destitute of everything and obliged to seek employment in whatever work they can find. If therefore a man wants others to perform the necessary drudgery for him, and cannot impose it upon his wife, or wives, or other female dependents (either because women hold a high position, or because there is more mean work to be done than the women can possibly manage), he must compel other men to serve him; and this compulsion will often assume the form of slavery.
In the first Part we have said that a slave is a man who is the property of another. We can now see the practical meaning of this definition. In slave countries labourers are held as property, and valued as such. If an employer loses a labourer, his income is lessened by it; if his labourer runs away, he eagerly tries to recover him. In countries with closed resources it is [[420]]quite the reverse[4]. The labourers are not held as property, because they are not valued. If a labourer leaves his service, the employer knows that there are many others ready to take his place. Here it is not the employer who prevents his labourers from escaping, but the employed who try to prevent the employer from dismissing his workmen. We are, of course, aware that labour is always an indispensable factor of production; yet in many countries, e.g. in modern Western Europe, an employer does not care to keep a particular labourer in his service[5]. We must, however, bear in mind that this rule, in its strictest sense, applies only to unskilled labour. Qualified labourers are often highly valued and able to secure great advantage, because their number is limited. It is therefore that the helpless state of people destitute of material resources appears more clearly in agricultural than in manufacturing countries.
This difference between countries with open and with closed resources goes far to explain why slavery (and serfdom, which is also a form of compulsory labour) has gradually disappeared in civilized Europe, whereas in thinly peopled countries it maintained itself much longer, and even now is sometimes introduced under some disguise (“labour trade”, convict labour and similar expedients used in the tropics). In Western Europe unskilled labourers can always be had without compulsion, whereas the qualities required in skilled labourers cannot develop under a compulsory régime.
Always and everywhere have men been inclined to burden their fellow-men with heavy and disagreeable work rather than [[421]]perform it themselves; and the strong have succeeded in imposing this work on the weak. Among some savage tribes it is the weaker sex who perform the drudgery; but in the course of progress the work that has to be done soon becomes too much for the women to manage. Then subjection of males arises, which presents itself in various forms, as subjugation of conquered tribes, or of the common people by the king and nobility, but often also as slavery or serfdom. Finally, when indispensable resources have been appropriated, the meanest labour is imposed upon those who are destitute of land and capital. There is now no longer a personal, but an impersonal compulsion. Lange remarks: “In former times the marauding minority of mankind, by means of physical violence, compelled the working majority to render feudal services, or reduced them to a state of slavery or serfdom, or at least made them pay a tribute. Nowadays the dependence of the working classes is secured in a less direct but equally efficacious manner, viz. by means of the superior power of capital; the labourer being forced, in order to get his subsistence, to place his labour power entirely at the disposal of the capitalist. So there is a semblance of liberty; but in reality the labourer is exploited and subjected, because, all the land having been appropriated, he cannot procure his subsistence directly from nature, and, goods being produced for the market and not for the producer’s own use, he cannot subsist without capital. Wages will rise above what is wanted for the necessaries of life, where the labourer is able to earn his subsistence on free land, which has not yet become private property. But wherever, in an old and totally occupied country, a body of labouring poor is employed in manufactures, the same law, which we see at work in the struggle for life throughout the organized world, will keep wages at the absolute minimum”[6].
Little credit is given at present to the opinion expressed in the last sentence, all economists being aware that the wages, not only of the skilled, but even of the unskilled workmen are in many cases above the bare minimum. But this much seems true, that in countries, where all the land is held as private [[422]]property, labour is at a discount. We may even say, though it sounds strange, that generally labour is much more at a disadvantage in countries where slavery does not exist, than in slave countries. In slave countries labourers are naturally independent; therefore he who wants to make another work for him, must enslave him and resort to all possible means of retaining him in his service. Hence the strange compound of severity and indulgence that has so often been observed among slave-owners. In countries with closed resources the landlord or capitalist has a natural advantage over his labourers; he need neither use severity nor indulgence to maintain his position.
The condition of the working classes in modern Europe in many respects certainly is not better than that of the slaves in countries of lower civilization. We cannot deny the truth of the remark made by the intelligent chief of the Fulbe, whom Hecquard met on his travels in West Africa. “We often” says Hecquard “talked about our mode of government and the relation of the different classes in European society. He did not attach any value to the legal equality of the citizens and asked me how my countrymen got on without slaves. His conclusion was that with us the domestics and the poor classes in general were the slaves of the rich, because the latter could, by refusing to give them work, reduce them to starvation in a country, where nothing is given gratuitously”[7].