Some definitions:
Are these acceptable definitions?
No one ever truly owns someone else – not even a child. They may pay money for someone. They may think they own someone else. That “bought” person may even believe he or she is owned. But it is a distortion of the truth. No plantation owner ever “owned” a black slave anymore than a man owned a wife. The slaves were stolen goods from another land. They did not relinquish their rights of ownership to themselves.
That’s a fine definition. But I’m missing the part of that which says the slave is held by a whole country rather than by individuals.
Zoe, that’s a lot of philosophical bullshit. Ownership in this context is a legal term. In those states in which slavery was legal the right of ownership was conferred by the State’s recognition of same. In all ways that mattered, the slave was the property of his master.
What Little Nemo refers to is what is more accurately called Chattel Slavery.
(Same cite as other definitions.) And insofar as the entire society is defining you as property, is worse than mere captivity from which escape could be imagined. But chattel slavery is only one form of slavery. Debt bondage slavery is indeed slavery as well and is very common across the world today.
Ownership require laws and laws require a country.
Obviously it’s possible for one person to hold another person in captivity without the law. But that “ownership” is limited by its illegality - it only exists to the extent that the “owner” can maintain constant physical possession of the “slave” and avoid being detected by any legal authority. A slave who manages to get a hundred yards away is free.
Compare that to the real slavery that used to exist in the United States. There was no point in running away from your owner because there was no freedom to be found for hundreds of miles. And it would be you and not your owner who needed to fear legal authorities.
It seems a little bit smug for you to sit there and say that slavery isn’t real. You’re essentially blaming the slaves for their enslavement.
No, ownership existed before either.
And really, claiming that someone isn’t a slave if it isn’t legal is ridiculous; if someone has a basement full of chained people who work for no pay under the threat of force, how is that NOT slavery regardless of it’s legality ? If it’s not slavery, what is it, and what’s the point of twisting the term “slavery” so far that it doesn’t apply ?
Kidnapping. It’s also wrong but not the same wrong.
I’m not saying that you can’t stretch the definition of slavery to include something like kidnapping - there are some similarities. But you’re getting far into a gray area. The general definition of slavery should include the openness of the act - the idea that it’s everyone and not just the owner who sees the slave as a slave.
Why ? The main effect of your definition is that it redefines all sorts of forced labor to something other than slavery.
And the main effect of your definition is that it redefines all sorts of abductions as slavery.
So Little Nemo you would say that debt bondage slavery is not slavery at all and that only chattel slavery counts? What would you call debt bondage slavery?
I don’t know where you got that from. Debt slavery is a law-based system of involuntary servitude so it’s an example of what I was saying.
What about a tribe? If Tribe A captures members of Tribe B and forces them into servitude, is that then slavery? Tribe A recognizes the right to keep slaves, and so would consider anyone abducted and forced into servitude to be a slave, but they aren’t so organized that they could realistically be called a country. At what point in social complexity do you get to the point where you can keep slaves, rather than simply abduct people?
Debt bondage is not “ownership” as in “I think the most widely accepted definition of a slave is a person who is owned by another person.” (- Little Nemo) One could even argue that it isn’t completely “involuntary” as the debt was entered into willingly, even if without clearly understanding its ramifications, and even if the willingness may have been a generation or two earlier, and even if once entered any ability to consent or escape is lost. Debt bondage is prohibited by international law. It persists in many countries but not with full official weight of the law on its side; its practice is just ignored and tolerated as it is traditional.
By international consensus and international law it is considered slavery. Has been since 1956. Yet it involves no ownership and is, officially at least, against the law even in those countries in which it widely practiced and tolerated. By both criteria that you’ve proposed (ownership and weight of law) it is not slavery.
But you still agree that it is. Explain.
And ? Given the human propensity to wiggle out of guilt by redefining an evil out of existence, it’s generally better to err on the broad side. While I don’t think it’s your intention, you sound much like I’d imagine some slaveowner would trying to justify himself by claiming that his slaves aren’t “really” slaves.
Legal involuntary servitude is slavery, but illegal involuntary servitude is not slavery? Why should this be? I don’t understand why the question of whether it is legal or not should bear on the question of whether it is slavery or not.
Anyway, as a legal definition this is clearly unworkable. It would mean that a law saying “there shall be no slavery” would only outlaw legal involuntary servitude. Illegal involuntary servitude would not be outlawed because it isn’t slavery. Therefore all involuntary servitude would be simultaneously legal and illegal.
I see the point in recognizing a difference between an underground practice and an openly established practice, but I don’t see why that should be taken as a fundamental difference in the nature of what is going on.
It wouldn’t be a very smart slaveowner who said “They’re not slaves because what I’m doing to them is illegal!”
If they were trying to wash their hands of moral guilt they might. It’s just as rational as the ones who used the Golden Rule to justify slavery ( “Well, if I were black I’d want to be a slave ! They only want to get out of slavery because they’re ungrateful louts who don’t know what’s best for themselves !” ).
And as pointed out, a lot of places slavery is illegal but the law’s unenforced, so the slaveowner wouldn’t care about admitting he was breaking the law.
Okay, I’m willing to be flexible. While I think my previous definition - “a slave is a person who is owned by another person” - stilll qualifies as the best general definition, I’ll amend it to “a slave is a person who is held as property or in involuntary servitude by another person or entity equivalent to a person in accordance with the laws or the social equivalent of laws of the society that they are in”.
When people wonder why laws aren’t written in plain English, this thread will serve as an explanation.
The point is that when you’ve got the truth on your side, you should use it. Slavery is wrong. Kidnapping is wrong. Stand by those convictions. You don’t need to exaggerate the truth to make it stronger.
If you accuse a kidnapper of slavery or a slaveowner of kidnapping, they’re technically innocent of the crime you accused them of. When you try to make the evidence fit the crime, you have to bend it into shape. When people see you manipulating the evidence like that, they can reasonably wonder if maybe the person you’re accusing is innocent. If they’re guilty of something why would you need to manipulate the evidence?