TEST ON THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY
 

Go . I give you ten days . The best piece on the subject of slavery wins a bottle of top class rum from Martinique .

Slavery fuckin' sucks.


There, where's my rum?

Are you writing a paper?

My take: it is much better to be the slave OWNER than be the slave.

From Music Trivia
 

I like being The Lady Keryxe's slave.:notworthy :whip:

define "slave". Some type are more fun than others...

hand-rolled on the thighs of virginal slaves from Martinique, no doubt....


But, actually, slavery existed at least as far back as the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. Back in those days, you made slaves of your defeated enemies and possibly even those of your own nation who couldn't afford the price of bread. It took modern western civilisation to come up with the idea of a 'slave race' who weren't quite human. This belief system, though palpably ridiculous and legistlatavely banned in the 19th Century, actually persisted well into the 21st Century, and is still quite common in many areas of the USA. The irony, of course, is that that particular nation has now succumbed to the yoke of the corporates and its citizens are now slave to the dollar.

"It cannot in the opinion of His Majesty's Government be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude." ~ Winston Churchill

What I am when Chastity is my dominatrix mistress.

Wow, tw.

Just plain wow.

Slavery was/is stoopid. Not on the owner's part but the dumbass slaves'. I know people now who are slaves to a history of slavery. They just keep dragging it around with the other chips on their pitiful shoulders. BOOHOO. It was bad. The key word being was. Fuggetabattit.

I don't think slavery is a term that should be used in the past tense. In many areas of the world there are slaves still. If you don't see that you're blind.

I could use a couple. Do you have a good price on any? I'd prefer old enough to work, but still young enough to train, with good teeth and strong backs.

The yes men made a good case for "remote slavery" much more cost effective than keeping them locally.

the economics of american negro slavery
 

I took a course in collge from a world renound economist, Stanley Engerman. the results of the research he conducted with his associate Robert Fogel eaned Fogel the nobel prize in economics. their work concluded:

1. Slavery was not a system irrationally kept in existence by owners who failed to perceive or were indifferent to their best economic interests. The purchase of a slave was generally a highly profitable investment which yielded rates of return that compared favorably with the most outstanding investment opportunities in manufacturing.

2. The slave system was not economically moribund on the eve of the Civil War. There is no evidence that economic forces alone would have soon brought slavery to an end without the necessity of a war or other form of political intervention. Quite the contrary; as the Civil War approached, slavery as an economic system was never stronger and the trend was toward even further entrenchment.

3. Slaveowners were not becoming pessimistic about the future of their system during the decade that preceded the Civil War. The rise of the secessionist movement coincided with a wave of optimism. On the eve of the Civil War, slaveholders anticipated an era of unprecedented prosperity.

4. Slave agriculture was not inefficient compared with free agriculture. Economies of large-scale operation, effective management, and intensive utilization of labor and capital made southern slave agriculture 35 percent more efficient than the northern system of family farming.

5. The typical slave field hand was not lazy, inept, and unproductive. On average he was harder-working and more efficient than his white counterpart.

6. The course of slavery in the cities does not prove that slavery was incompatible with an industrial system or that slaves were unable to cope with an industrial regimen. Slaves employed in industry compared favorably with free workers in diligence and efficiency. Far from declining, the demand for slaves was actually increasing more rapidly in urban areas than in the countryside.

7. The belief that slave-breeding, sexual exploitation, and promiscuity destroyed the black family is a myth. The family was the basic unit of social organization under slavery. It was to the economic interest of planters to encourage the stability of slave families and most of them did so. Most slave sales were either of whole families or of individuals who were at an age when it would have been normal for them to have left the family.

8. The material (not psychological) conditions of the lives of slaves compared favorably with those of free industrial workers. This is not to say that they were good by modern standards. It merely emphasizes the hard lot of all workers, free or slave, during the first half of the nineteenth century.

9. Slaves were exploited in the sense that part of the income which they produced was expropriated by their owners. However, the rate of expropriation was much lower than has generally been presumed. Over the course of his lifetime, the typical slave field hand received about 90 percent of the income he produced.

10. Far from stagnating, the economy of the antebellum South grew quite rapidly. Between 1840 and 1860, per capita income increased more rapidly in the south than in the rest of the nation. By 1860 the south attained a level of per capita income which was high by the standards of the time. Indeed, a country as advanced as Italy did not achieve the same level of per capita income until the eve of World War II.

I bet you get the rum BobT. ;)

maybe six years in college studying economcs will finaly pay off.

you're pretty cheap if it's only a bottle of rum you want. lol

BobT

Thank you for your rigour in economic terms .


Some pressure groups have wished to have slavery defined as genocide . Not possible . Why ? As you say yourself , the master's interest was not to kill the slave , but to have the most work out of him possible . We agree on that . As with animals , the slave had to be fed and strawed as cheaply as possible , but fed and strawed just the same . So no genocide .

I beg to differ with what you say about family grouping , however . That may have come later . The concept of the family and therefore the linguistic group was destroyed from the outset . The slaves of the Americas came from many different linguistic and ethnological backgrounds . There was no common language , hence the creole of the Caribbean and the English dialects of the deep South .

But you do not refer to the Caribbean anyway . It may interest you to know , as one who has followed a course in slave economics , that the Black slaves of the Caribbean died faster , and therefore had to be imported faster .

They tended to have more babies in America , so there was less demand for new slaves .

You also know that there is more to this subject than economics . Please tell us how the economist deals with the problem of ethics once he has analysed a given point .

SIX DAYS TO GO ( ideally one should refer to Ancient Greece and 1960s Saudi Arabia too , as well as present day slavery )

the first day in class the professor had one important point to make clear: our study was to be carefully limited to a clinical study of the SYSTEM of slavery. we were to maintain a detachement from the morals and emotions that attach to slavery. if we were to be successful as scientists we had to remain dispassionate.

the ethics we conserned ourselves with was to maintain the accuracy of our work. the subject being studied was best done justice to when our work was accurate.

those that would follow us would be able to use the facts that we were able to reveal in their pursuit of the truth...thereby our works were good and moral. i believe if the fruits of one's labor are pure, the ethics of one's life is manifest

AHHH, but is this an ideal world? i think not.

I was , and am , quite clear about academic detachment , BobT . I am an academic myself . I thanked you for the academic rigour you copied from your professor's lectures .

You have been unable to form a conclusion in the humanist tradition . You are an example of one who does not know how to analyse information . You are as bad as those people who think that an advertisement is about telling women they should not worry about their looks .

The ethics of your life are NOT manifest , BobT . You copy , and you do not think . You thought that that economic analysis of slavery was a justification for it .

You THICK BASTARD .

Does that include, shall we say, "room and board"?

I have tried to concern myself with maintaining a good moral compass of my own. I have been content to concentrate on making myself a person who harms no others. I have said previously that my own judgment of the ethics of the institution of slavery was not an area of discussion. I am the first to admit my personal shortcoming as a philosopher. I am unqualified as an ethicist.

I have provided information from area of study in a wide variety of aspects of slavery.

I would certainly like to maintain further discourse in this area, but we MUST remain civilized and work in a realm of mutual respect. Personally I do not thrive in an atmosphere of animosity.

'fed and strawed' .

Bob T , how many other people on your course thought that the economic analysis behind slavery was its own justification ?

And you are the guys in COLLEGE ?

BobT, just to make sure you know, Buddug is a troll and no one likes her. Actively ignoring her posts is pretty much your only option.

That said, I for one found your stats on the economics of slavery to be interesting. Were those from memory or do you have links to the citations (like the field hand receiving 90% of the income he generated, for example?)

I would think that the 10% of the benefits of their labor could be considered the "profit" derived from their efforts. If the profit of one's labor is kept from him, then that would infer to me that he is a slave.

So the 90% that the slave received includes the "services" that the owner provides for maintenance.

Were those from memory or do you have links to the citations (like the field hand receiving 90% of the income he generated, for example?)

Thanks for your words of encouragement. I would love to say that 40 years after taking the course that I could have such a thorough recall of the course material. Unfortunately, I am not so wonderfully blessed. I did a quick research of the course material and shared it with all. Since I was not being graded on the topic, I fear I may not have worried about a little plagiarism.

Absolutely, the maintenance of the bear necessities of life was included in that 90%. It also included some benefits to the slave beyond bare subsistence. The spirits of a man can not be totally ignored, or his work suffers. It was therefore, in the best interest of the slave owner to allow some personal benefit to accrue to the slave. It was also in the best interest of the slave owner to allow the slave to maintain his family unit for similar reasons.

BoB T . What else did you learn in college ? I think we are unfair to insist on the slavery . What was your main subject ? You said six years in college , so I presume we are talking about from the age of 18 to 24 .

SHARE !!!!!! ( cookie fun)

If you want to know more about ME, I will gladly share a little of myself with you.
I started college directly out of high school. I did not appreciate the educational opportunity. I partied and paid little attention to my studies. I flunked out and from there was drafted into military service and went to Vietnam. While there I was wounded in action, and lost both legs. After spending almost a year and a half in the hospital I returned to school. I majored in economics at the University of Rochester. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in economics I went on to post graduate studies in economics at UCLA. While in Los Angeles I married and as a result, have a wonderful daughter, son-in-law and GRANDAUGHTER....oh yes, and a wife of 31 years. I worked in banks for years as a commercial loan officer, and since 1989 have owned a mortgage company in Florida, where we make loans in the state of Florida and Tennessee.

But I digress....we were talking about slavery. It was a course that truly interested me. It was a fascinating field of study. A very emotional topic that was difficult to study without entertaining one's own personal demons and prejudices. It was very closely limited to the study of "the economics of AMERICAN NEGRO SLAVERY" (as the course was titled in 1971) I took it at the U of R. When I went to UCLA, a requirement was the taking of the SAME course. When I told them that I had already taken it they didn't seem to care, and still wanted me to take it again, but when from Stanley Engerman they immediately dropped the requirement. He was a fascinating gentlemen and professor, and lit a fire of enthusiasm in his students.
........so......do I get the rum?

'fraid not......

you didn't pick up on

'5. The typical slave field hand was not lazy, inept, and unproductive. On average he was harder-working and more efficient than his white counterpart.'

Slavery is not about race. Challenge your college on this issue.

i believe that the point of that observation should more accurately have said: "than their NON SLAVE counterpart.".....as i am sure you are aware, there were no "white" slaves at that time. slavery in america WAS a racial thing at the time....there were only "negro" slaves....as the work was titled: "the economics of american negro slavery"
in any event, if there were "white" slaves, this study was only concerned with the "negro" slave.

There were white slaves. One was called indentured, and it wasn't usually for life. The other were called wives which usually were for life.

Thanks BobT, we appreciate the info and I personally apologize for your ill treatment by the troll.
PM me and I'll send you a bottle of Rum. :notworthy

you are right. as soon as i had posted that last entry, i realized i had overlooked the indentured servant. paying back a debt back then was a bitch.

Thank you for that point JayMc Gee .

xoxoxoBruce , your attempts to put Negro slavery 'into context' nauseate me , particularly since I know that the sort of people who try to do this are the LEAST concerned by present-day slavery ( see your grotesque comments about the Mexicans who are 'bleeding the U.S. dry' for example ) You do not seem particularly concerned by human issues to do with women either . You do not seem to be concerned with the concept of our common humanity at all , in fact .

BobT , thank you for putting your access to higher education into the context of your own particular drama . You will know from your studies that the runaway slave had his calves chopped off as punishment . So that he would never run again . I am sure that you have empathy for those men . Those men did not have access to higher education .

You are a Vietnam War Veteran . Proportionally , there were far more Negroes in Vietnam than in American society as a whole . The Vietnamese knew this , and floated propaganda down to tell the Negroes to stop fighting a war for people who did not care for them anyway , and who only used them as canon-fodder .

Don't you think that those Vietnamese were right ?

I also know that the white American soldiers felt used too , and they came home into an atmosphere of shame , and not one of glory . This is the subject of a great many Hollywood films .

BobT , I think you should use your suffering to denounce and acknowledge the suffering of the past , instead of allowing yourself to be soft-soaped by the likes of xoxoxoBruce , who is the sort of person who sends the boy that you once were to places like Iraq in the name of America .

There will always be people like xoxoxoBruce to justify horror , and put injustice 'into context' .

For me , America should not be about that .

Show me one person on this forum who is worthy of reading your GREAT writer ( and you have so many ) William Faulkener .

Why does America produce so many truly great writers , and so many run-of-the-mill ordinary people who can't even understand the idea behind Thanksgiving ?

Are the Europeans the only ones who understand your fine literature ?

When I served we didn't have negroes, caucasians, latino, etc. We were all a group of Americans. We all served well. To defend honor is not of color or creed, but a matter of heart and conviction.

All bleed red.

You knew that , Capnhowdy . Maybe you learnt it there .

Did the big bosses behind their desks who sent you there know that ?

The Vietnamese bleed red too . We all do .

So what's your point, you stuck-up europig?

People like you are why americans are so naturally disliking of europeans, you give your continent a bad name.

Why do the Americans talk more about Vietnam than about the subject of slavery ? Or in fact about ANYTHING .
You start talking about history ( it could even be the War of Roses in Elizabethan England) , and there will always be a Yank who moans about Vietnam .
More recent , and yet localized ? OK . Spanish Civil War . It will always come back to Vietnam .
First World War ? Stuff all those European boys who were slaughtered in millions ( and whom the Americans did not help ) Lads of sixteen mown down in millions ? The flower of our European manhood . Nothing compared to an AMERICAN veteran who is worried by bad dreams . And hey , let's all weep around a Dolly Parton song .

Darfour ?

Same old song .

And you start again , because you have not learnt . You weep selfishly .

Europe wants you to be better .

Please fuckin' stop with the double and triple posts. Theyre very, very annoying, though something tells me that may be the point.

BTW : It is too late for the rum prize . To show that I meant it , I shall ask Undertoad to send me an address in private . The bottle of rum ( which is a bottle of fine old rum from the Habitation Clément in Martinique , where Bush senior met Mitterand at a summit meeting a few years back ) shall be sent forthwith . I hope it will be a symbol of being able to talk even if we get on each others' tits .

Undertoad may choose to refuse this advance of course .

I simply wish to show that I keep my word , in spite of a certain form of disappointment .

I still say I deserve it, even if I cant drink it.

Slaver fuckin' sucks, nothing more needs to be said.

Ibram
You are right . You are the only person who has said that slavery is JUST WRONG with no BUTS , and you are the youngest person here .

I salute you .

You get the rum . I shall have to send two bottles now . Send me your address

You are a clever boy , and you shall go far .

Nah, send it to....


hm....


well, if youre already sending UT one, send Bruce the other. No wait, send it to ZippyT. No, hold on, LJ. Er, how about... DAMMIT I CAN'T DECIDE.


Okay. First person to tell me... the name of the new company dedicated to remaking those old wild 60s and 70s guitar designs (like Mosrites, Valcos, Supros...etc.) gets it.

Aaaand... GO!

( Just carry on wondering why people say what they do for the rest of your life . Never accept an opinion , not even your own )

Hmm , I always like to give examples to my pupils . Let's take someone like xoxoxoBruce for example . He seems to be some sort of frequent poster , and I THINK he has some sort of important people vote on this forum ( I shall have to check up tomorrow)
I tend to see him as being strikingly lacking in nuance , but then again I only see him in relation to what I write . Perhaps he is lyrical when it comes to lavatorial plumbing .

I am perhaps overly polite when I refer to xoxoxxoBruce as being 'lacking in nuance' , and not sufficiently polite when I say that I detect a lack of any formal education in him .

What has this to do with slavery ?

EVERYTHING


The subject of slavery is hidden behind veils . The veils come out as soon as you start talking about it .

The above proves my point .

And NOT ONE AMERICAN ON THIS FORUM HAS MENTIONED TONI MORRISSON .

She talks about white veils too .

She talks about blue eyes too

and blonde hair

Yes , Toni Morrisson is super .

Super like ordinary people are . She gives the voice to ordinary people . That is how she won the Nobel Prize .