Meta: Abolitionists and Slaves

[telesilla.livejournal.com]

So, I have a bit of a meta question....

We've seen people like Jeff, Dylan and even the Catholic Church, argue that, given the state of things in the USNA, keeping slaves and treating them well is the right/humane thing to do.

Then there's the argument that keeping slaves at all is wrong, and that it's better to either pay the fines and remove yourself from society (Cate Blanchett is a good example) or to deliberately live poor so that you don't have to own slaves (although we haven't gone into this much yet, David Hewlett's mother and his sister Kate live like this).

I'm kind of curious as to what people here think: which way makes more sense in the context of the AKB verse and which way is more ethical in that same context?

PS: There may be other examples of both sides, I'm kind of behind on the more recent additions to the 'verse.

Comments

[epeeblade]

Maybe the only moral choice is to sit and wait for the first field hand or miner somewhere to say, hey, there's more of us than there are of them, and then give him a gun.

I'm waiting for this. If everything is dependent on slaves - to the food grown, to the factory work, it's only a matter of time before they all rise up, because ultimately, they control the quality of life for the rich.

[facetofcathy.livejournal.com]

It does seem inevitable in some light, and we have had successful workers revolutions in our own history.

But that was another country, and besides Che is dead.

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

Maybe the only moral choice is to sit and wait for the first field hand or miner somewhere to say, hey, there's more of us than there are of them, and then give him a gun.

I'm waiting for this. If everything is dependent on slaves - to the food grown, to the factory work, it's only a matter of time before they all rise up, because ultimately, they control the quality of life for the rich.

There are a couple of reasons why this is unlikely to happen yet. The big one is the level of surveillance. Nearly everything you do in public is monitored. Slaves are both branded and chipped--not foolproof, as angiepen has shown, but still difficult to get around.

Slaves who somehow manage to run discover that there's nowhere to go. Most countries, even those who've severed diplomatic ties with the Empire, still won't take refugee slaves. A few places will look the other way, like New Zealand--but you have to get there, and for most people, the consequences of getting caught greatly outweigh the risk.

For, say, the mining slaves, escape is even more difficult because they're in space. The orbital stations and mining platforms rely on contact with Earth; even if someone was able to mount a successful revolt, as soon as they allowed a shuttle to dock with supplies, they'd be overrun by government troops.

There's no legal path to freedom--and if there is a change, that's where it's going to come. Eventually, a tipping point will be reached where slaves dramatically outnumber free people, and the majority of them are in situations where they feel they have nothing to lose. The quickest way to create a safety valve is to make freedom a hard-to-reach but not impossible goal.

The Romans relied on slaves, but they did realize that the only way to have a stable society was to use the carrot along with the stick. After Spartacus, Roman law said that if a slave killed his master, all of the slaves in the household, without exception, would be executed--usually by crucifixion, a truly awful way to die. At the same time, though, slaves could be freed by their masters (often in their wills), or they could buy their freedom using money from extra jobs that they were allowed to keep. It wasn't easy, no--but there were visible freedmen all over Rome. The choice between violent revolt resulting in agonizing death--not just for you, but for ever other slave in the household--and hanging onto the hope that someday you'll be able to get out, who's going to choose the former? That's the main reason Dylan is in favor of the gradualist approach, because it's an argument that appeals to the self-interest of the ruling classes (including him).

[epeeblade]

See, I wasn't aware of the miners being in space. (Just how powerful is this empire? How much of the rest of the world is against them?)

I think the numbers issue is what will eventually get them, when there are more slaves then free.

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

See, I wasn't aware of the miners being in space. (Just how powerful is this empire? How much of the rest of the world is against them?

PT's been deliberately vague on that. I should add that the miners being in space is my assumption based on the "orbital station" references--she may have something completely different in mind.

I think the numbers issue is what will eventually get them, when there are more slaves then free.

Yes. If there's no safety valve on the system and the current trends of more people being enslaved and the concentration of wealth continuing, then eventually, they'll reach a point where the slaves are the overwhelming majority--and they have nothing to lose by rebelling.

[epeeblade]

The hopelessness of this universe is just starting to get to me a bit:) Once a slave, you can never, ever be free, and the society is so tightly bound, that even dreaming of revolution is impossible. And then you have slaves like Jensen who wouldn't know what to do with freedom if they were given it.

Just a wee bit depressing!

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

The hopelessness of this universe is just starting to get to me a bit:) Once a slave, you can never, ever be free, and the society is so tightly bound, that even dreaming of revolution is impossible.

The thing that makes it work, for me, is focusing on how individuals negotiate their place in the system, and find a way to live with and under it. But it is grim, no question.

And then you have slaves like Jensen who wouldn't know what to do with freedom if they were given it.

I'm not sure Joe would either, to be honest. He's spent almost his entire life taking care of someone. If emancipation happened tomorrow, I think he'd probably want to stay with Jason and David--he'd just be a lot more open about how clueless he thinks they are. And then he'd jump them.

Just a wee bit depressing!

Yeah, I hear ya. Even the stuff like the Rachel/Kavan has a bittersweet undertone, because no matter how much they love each other, in the end, he's still her slave.

[facetofcathy.livejournal.com]

What I was really saying - before coffee, gotta stop doing that- is that the moral question may be the wrong question.

The revolution is not around the corner. Sexualizing ownership of people is a brilliant way to get everybody who owns to want to keep the system the way it is. Talk about self-interest baby, that's it.

The owner who abhors ownership has to decide what has an actual effect beyond the stains on his own soul. Jeff's dilemma is so compelling because his own guilt is really just not the point, and he needs to learn that.

[zillah975]

Eventually, a tipping point will be reached where slaves dramatically outnumber free people

Chiming in late. This speaks to something I've been thinking about for a few days, which is that it seems like the existence of corporate slaves would make this a self-perpetuating system. If slave labor weren't cheaper, corporations wouldn't use it; since it's cheaper, they'll prefer it to the exclusion of non-slave labor. It seems like this would create greater and greater unemployment and thus a larger and larger pool of people dropping into poverty and eventually slavery. So what we'll finally have is a system of the very rich and their slaves...except, then, who buys the products that keep the rich rich and the corporations producing?

This may just be a failure of imagination on my part, but it seems like our consumer culture relies on a large middle class with enough disposable income to perpetuate our consumer culture.

Erm.

It's possible that I should go to bed, I'm not sure I'm thinking clearly.