Mohammad Rayyan
April 1, 2015
SLAVERY-
A CALL TO MISBEHAVIOR OR TO ECONOMIC PROFITS?
The Debate on whether
slavery was actually intended towards
making high economic profits, for the
masters and the colonies; or simply towards
enlarging social-inequalities by misconduct and
misbehavior for the “lesser” humans is
a heated one. It is not difficult to
imagine what the world would have
been like for the slaves. It was
probably as if the pastel of dream sequences was spun around the sturdy
grey of everyday lives, and hung out to dry!
Given the discriminatory mindsets of that time,
it does not come as a surprise that,
often, even the courts ruled in favor
of the masters, rather than the
slaves, and upheld the principle of
racial distinctions. For example, In 1759, the
parliament of Paris, France, ruled on
the case of ‘Francisque’, supporting the ‘Freedom
Principle’, while lending credibility to
the notion of the racial inferiority
of the blacks [1].
The Negros and
Negresses often connoted slave status in
the 18th century, and not
just color. The reasons for the origin
of Negro Slavery were purely economic, not racial[2] ; it had nothing to
do with the color of the laborer,
but with the cheapness of
laborer. This was because the cost of
labor, affected the profitability from
production. Now, the question that arises is
that: If the sole purpose of the
colonial masters was to make economic profits, why
were slaves hired were mostly blacks, and why
was there, if at all, a need for
oppression? Justice Marshall [3] said
in a speech before the San Francisco Patent and
Trademark Law Association: "That the
constitution as originally written was
profoundly
racist". He said this on the
following grounds: Firstly, Article I, Section 2,
Clause 3 apportioned direct or capitation
taxes and membership in the House of Representatives
in accordance with the population, but
counted a slave as only three-fifths
of a person. However, later it was
believed that this simply meant that
the slaves earned a lesser income
than the others. Secondly, Article I, Section 9,
Clause I forbade the Congress to limit the
importation of slaves until 1808, a
period of 20 years. Thirdly, Article IV,
Section 2, Clause 3 said that the fugitive slaves
who escaped into another state would be returned
to their owners. To this Joy Hakim
said: " Slavery in the land of
the free ? Now that is something to
question."
Although slavery was found to be a
questionable moral practice in itself; some slaveholders
also questioned the economic benefits of slavery.
In the book: "Heart of Darkness" by
Joseph Conrad[4], it was seen that the
slaves were used to dig the ground to simply keep
them busy,and there was no other
productive work to assign to
them, that would significantly lead
to any economic profits. This enforces the idea put
forward by Eugene D. Genovese: "Slavery requires
all hands to be occupied at all times” [5]. All that the slaveholders were interested in,
were the natural resources of the region, and indigo, and the
oppression of the slaves. The Brick maker for instance,
kept waiting for the raw-materials that weren’t
delivered to him. The book by Conrad introduced
the various forms of humility and dehumanization
faced by the slaves, at the hands of their
masters. How could such a system have
come up, and then eliminated, if not
through a global social reform? [6]
If the sole
purpose of slavery was economic profits,
then the policy of ruthless oppression makes
no sense. This is because the oppressed
slaves had lesser working capacity, efficiency
and stamina, which implies reduced marginal
productivity, and thereby, lower out-put, that
when sold would yield lower profits.
This can also be proven by the
Ford's Efficiency Wages Argument, according to
which the General Motors paid higher
wages to its workers, ($5 per hour
hour), than what they would receive
elsewhere; in order to encourage worker's
productivity, efficiency and health. It
also reduced worker turnover-rate, which is
the probability that the worker would
leave the master to work elsewhere. Since, a worker getting a
higher rate, would be less likely to shift jobs, he/she would be working at
the same place for longer. This
experience would boost the worker’s
interest at work and raise profits.
This theory suggests that the better
care for the slaves would be the
best option available for their masters, to
enhance their economic-profits. This means
that oppression must be minimal.
The
existence of Abolitionism and
Coartacion showed that slavery meant
oppression in most cases, rather than
focusing on economic profits. Abolitionism was
a political movement to abolish slavery;
while under the system of Coartacion; a
slave could purchase freedom over a
period of time, by paying installments
on an agreed-upon price. If at all
the slaves and their masters would
have worked together in a way that
would maximize the net benefits for
both; that is, to maximize the net
economic profits from production; there
would not have been a need for
revolution, or to say, a disagreement
between the parties involved. It was
primarily the misbehavior on the part of
the slaveholders in most cases, that
sparked rebellion.
The debate
over the profitableness of slavery is
intense, but there has been a
destruction of so much evidence. Could
a planter who made money with
slaves, have made more if he had
employed free workers?[7] The
historians have had disagreements on this
issue. For instance: Solor Robinson, an agricultural
reformer, said that the profits form plantations
with slavery, were very low. But, the
editor of the Columbia’s “South Carolinian” said
they were large, because he was not writing
about economic profits per season; but
of accounting profits. To him, the
entire net income of the propertier,
after the deduction of all expenses,
including depreciation and loss of value
of assets, was PROFIT [8].
There are
several sources that account towards the
fact that the profits with slavery
were never significant. For instance, In
the “Slavery in Mississippi”(1933), Charles S. Sydnor
prepared a profit and loss statement
from several plantations, and showed a
very small rate of return for
plantation-owners; thereby doubting the profitableness
of slavery [9]. Secondly,
Louis Hacker in the “Triumph of American
Capitalism”(1940) showed that the hypothetical
planter made only 2% on his invested
capital9. Thirdly, Adam Smith proved
that in those countries, where slaves
were employed, free labor would be
more profitable because the slave-labor was
unskillful and lacked versatility [10].
Fourthly, slave holders typically preferred more
income to less, and less trouble to
more, other things being equal.
The existence of
misbehavior towards slaves thus, shows that
probably, it was the lower output and
lower profits that encouraged the
oppression by masters, even though the
lower output could have been due to
inappropriate weather, or inappropriate
water-supply. Some documents show that of
the 75 to 85 days off the work
in a year, roughly 10 days were
lost because of bad weather, and
another 10 days because of illness. This
hinted towards low investment in
worker-health. Moreover, 5 to 8 days
were given over to holidays, which
adversely affected production time and
profitability [11]. Now
the question that arose was: “Was hired
–labor’s production , similar to the
slave-holder’s production?”. In most cases,
the slave-labor yielded lower output, because
of lower productivity attributed to
insufficient diet, and excessive labor
demanded of them, and their inability
to adjust themselves to the new way
of life, under their masters.
In some
cases , For example in the south, the user
of slave labor had strong motives for
eliminating labor-redundancy, and for maintaining
full year of agricultural labor. This
led them to crop diversification and
also labor-intensive work routines at some
seasons of the year, when the labor
was in surplus12.
Another
issue to be addressed was that
of free leisure-time. Slave-Labor was in
most cases not offered leisure time.
Whether this was good or bad for
the labor-productivity is still open
to discussion. On one hand, no
leisure time means more time for work,
and hence should give more output, and
thereby higher profits. On other hand,
however, no leisure time means that
by working continuously, over the period
of time, labor’s productivity may get
adversely affected, thereby lowering output
and profits, even though more time is
being attributed to production-activities.
To
conclude the discussion, it is optimal
to say that most records indicate
that slavery meant misbehavior and oppression
for the slaves, even though to ensure
higher economic profits from the
production, the reverse should have been
the case. That is, a higher
investment in slaves as fixed capital,
would have ensured higher economic profits
in most cases.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Raymond T. Diamond No
call to glory: Thurgood Marshall’s Thesis on the intent if a pro-slavery
Constitution (Louisiana: Louisiana State University Law
Center,1989) 93-108
Thomas P. Govan Was
Plantation Slavery profitable ( Southern Historical Association)
Ralph V. Anderson, and
Robert E. Gallman Slaves as Fixed Capital:
Slave and southern economic Development ( The Journal
of American History: Nebraska ,1977)
Eric Williams The origin of negro slavery (North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press,
1944)
Gail Collins American Women-400 years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroin’s (New York: Gail Collins,2007)
Joseph
Conrad Heart of Darkness (Britain: Blackwood's Magazine,1899)
Sue Peabody and Keila Grinberg Slaves,
Freedom, and the Law in the Atlantic World ( Bedford: Bedford/St. Martin's,2007)
1. Sue
Peabody and Keila Grinberg Slaves, Freedom, and the Law in
the Atlantic World ( Bedford:
Bedford/St. Martin's,2007) Document 5
2. Eric Williams The origin of negro slavery (North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press,
1944) 75
3. Raymond T. Diamond No call to glory:
Thurgood Marshall’s Thesis on the intent if a pro-slavery Constitution
(Louisiana: Louisiana State University Law Center,1989) 96
4. Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness (Britain: Blackwood's Magazine,1899) 45
5. Ralph
V. Anderson, and Robert E. Gallman Slaves
as Fixed Capital: Slave and southern economic
Development (Nebraska: The Journal of American History ,1977) 8
6. Raymond
106
7. Thomas
P. Govan Was Plantation Slavery profitable
( Southern Historical Association) 501
9. Thomas
P. Govan 520
10. Eric
Williams 20
11. Ralph V.
Anderson 31
12. Ralph V.
Anderson 77
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