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Slavery - Renting Vs. Owning labour (self.badeconomics)

CaptainBloodloss が 投稿

A long time ago I heard someone recite to me what I thought was a powerful argument for slavery (if there every was one). I don't remember what the source of this thesis is, but I believe it came from a slave owner somewhere in southern US.

The slave owner basically argues this: You Northerners... you simply rent your labour (through wages); you therefore have little incentive to care for your workers. Where-as we Southerners... we own our labour, and because we own them we take better care for our workers. As a result, our workers are better off.

Thoughts?

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[–]alexhoyerhoard plywood now for our ANCAP overlords 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

Couple of things, first you'll need an R1 soon to pass the Great Wall of Wumbo. Second, this isn't really the right place to post this question, I would try the stickied post at the the top of the sub. Lastly, wrt to your question, the empirical evidence of the horrific conditions that accompanied slavery in the US are well documented. While more frequently practiced in South America, it was still common to work a slave to death and replace him/her, as replacement costs were lower than upkeep. As it turns out, owning labor eliminates the competive labor market forces that actually lead to improvements in the quality of life for workers. The argument here depends on the idea that worker productivity can only be maximized if laborers are treated well. Turns out the threat of punishment/death also works to extract productivity, to the detriment of slaves. That threat isn't present in competitive labor markets.

[–]CaptainBloodloss[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Thanks for the RI heads up. And you're right, this would have been better in the stickied post. And thank you for your response to my question.

[–]venuswasaflytrap 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Historical evidence doesn't lend credence to this theory. Slaves were treated terribly - much worse than comparable paid labourers at the time. So we know the argument is not true - but that's just badhistory rather than bad economics

Relevant thread:

http://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/3886v6/slaves_werent_treated_that_bad_guys/

I'm sure you could contrive an economic argument for why this isn't true, but the evidence is pretty clear that it's not.

[–]aquaknox 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

I mean, the main difference between slavery and working for a wage is voluntaryism. Maybe if the slaves had sold themselves into slavery there could be comparison, but slavery is generally exploitative, i.e. people are coerced into becoming slaves therefore they can be attained at a discount from their captor compared to what they would maybe be willing to sell themselves for.

[–]CaptainBloodloss[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

RI: I've posted this in badeconomics because the argument, at least to me, seemed interesting, but silly. I wanted to see if there is any economic empirical evidence to support the claim that by owning slaves there could be instances where-by this is beneficial to labour.