I have this super weird idea about slave-driven plantations. Initially, they could only be slave driven because mass wage employment were not invented yet.
Imagine you wanted to plant sugar on some remote islands and would pay wages to workers. Where would they spend those on a remote island? They would likely be conned and/or starve very quickly. Top level plantation executives with practical freedom of movement had wages, but even guards were mostly paid in dining and dress.
This is not to argue that slave labor is any less terrible than it was. It's just we should be grateful to live in societies where wage employment is mostly figured out.
There was a debate in America in the 1800 (during abolition) on how similar wage labor was/is to slavery. Those who said that it was would call it “wage slavery”.
> Initially, they could only be slave driven because mass wage employment were not invented yet.
??? "Mass wage employment" goes back to at least the building of Egyptian pyramids, 4000 years before the 17th century sugar plantations you're talking about. Plantation owners didn't pay their workers because they didn't think black people were humans and enslaving them was cheaper than the alternatives, not because they couldn't figure out how to pay them.
I'm sorry if I've misunderstood you but I've reread your comment many times and I cannot figure out what you're trying to say. When do you think paid employment was invented? How were ancient armies fielded? How did any pre-modern society build large buildings or roads?
Your speculation comes off as disgusting cope. Wage labour was well established in Rome, and we have receipts recording wages paid the labourers to build the pyramids. But given the life expectancy for some of the sugar islands was measured in just months/years before dying of horrible diseases, there could be no functioning wage market. So the powers-that-be resorted to mass kidnapping and slaving, like any other bandits and kings when they run out of gold.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 34.9 ms ] threadhttps://www.amazon.com/Debt-Updated-Expanded-First-Years/dp/...
The concept of "debt" has a long history that is surprising and illuminating. A really excellent book.
For a shorter version, see his talk at Google: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZIINXhGDcs
Imagine you wanted to plant sugar on some remote islands and would pay wages to workers. Where would they spend those on a remote island? They would likely be conned and/or starve very quickly. Top level plantation executives with practical freedom of movement had wages, but even guards were mostly paid in dining and dress.
This is not to argue that slave labor is any less terrible than it was. It's just we should be grateful to live in societies where wage employment is mostly figured out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tXJokkWQjY
??? "Mass wage employment" goes back to at least the building of Egyptian pyramids, 4000 years before the 17th century sugar plantations you're talking about. Plantation owners didn't pay their workers because they didn't think black people were humans and enslaving them was cheaper than the alternatives, not because they couldn't figure out how to pay them.
I'm sorry if I've misunderstood you but I've reread your comment many times and I cannot figure out what you're trying to say. When do you think paid employment was invented? How were ancient armies fielded? How did any pre-modern society build large buildings or roads?