# What % of humans were slaves at various points in time **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 5, 2015, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-humans-were-slaves-at-various-points-in-time/716898 "2015-04-05T18:51:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2015, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-humans-were-slaves-at-various-points-in-time/716898/21 "2015-04-08T09:49:00Z")
Slavery was used during extensively in WW2 by the Nazis for labour in the war industries. Says in Wikipedia it was about 20% of the population of the Nazi occupied territories at its height. > **[Forced labour under German rule during World War II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labour_under_German_rule_during_World_War_II)** > > The use of slave and forced labour in Nazi Germany (German: Zwangsarbeit) and throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II took place on an unprecedented scale. It was a vital part of the German economic exploitation of conquered territories. It also contributed to the mass extermination of populations in occupied Europe. The Germans abducted approximately 12 million people from almost twenty European countries; about two thirds came from Central Europe and Eastern Europe. Many wor Be... WW2 Japan used slavery extensively. > **[Slavery in Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Japan)** > > Japan had an official slave system from the Yamato period (3rd century A.D.) until Toyotomi Hideyoshi abolished it in 1590. Afterwards, the Japanese government facilitated the use of "comfort women" as sex slaves from 1932 – 1945. Prisoners of war captured by Japanese imperial forces were also used as slaves during the Second World War. > The export of a slave from Japan is recorded in 3rd century Chinese historical record, but it is unclear what system was involved, and whether this was a commo... China also has a forced labour system. > **[Laogai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laogai)** > > Laogai (Chinese: 劳改), short for laodong gaizao (劳动改造), which means reform through labor, is a criminal justice system involving the use of penal labor and prison farms in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Láogǎi is different from láojiào, or re-education through labor, which was the abolished administrative detention system for people who were not criminals but had committed minor offenses, and was intended to "reform offenders into law-abiding citizens". Persons who were detained in the... As indeed did the Soviets with their gulags. So here we have another part of the jigsaw: forced labour in time of war…Hot or Cold War? Being a PoW was often to be enslaved Eg. Japan, Nazi Germany (but in the case of Germany, PoWs were only enslaved if your country did not have German prisoners.) Being a political prisoner was often to be enslaved during peacetime. Eg. China, Soviet Union Is conscription a form of slavery? I guess we have a problem of definition here. ---
**Author:** ![jezzaOZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@jezzaOZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jezzaOZ)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2015, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-humans-were-slaves-at-various-points-in-time/716898/22 "2015-04-08T10:30:41Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > I guess we have a problem of definition here. One man’s slave is another man’s forced labourer is yet another man’s Prisoner of War. I’d say that to be a slave you need to be able to be bought and sold and probably need to be in private ownership. Though I guess State Entities could get into the property market and buy and sell slaves for particular purposes. I imagine the Roman slave supply was actually the Legions who sold captured slaves on the open market either for their own funding or their leaders’ or for Rome. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2015, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-humans-were-slaves-at-various-points-in-time/716898/23 "2015-04-08T13:03:46Z")
The more nuanced forms of slavery, where it was incorporated into the economic and social culture, was from a time when human labour had a high value in pre-industrial societies. Slaves were not bought and sold in markets by the Nazis or Japanese, the Soviets or the Chinese. They were ‘owned’ by the state and put to work in state enterprises. Moreover the value of their labour was not high because there was a abundant supply from occupied countries and therefore little effort was made to avoid death. I would guess that the incidence of slavery in human history is probably related to two factors: large scale war involving the capture of many prisoners and occupied territories and technology. The machines of the industrial revolution changed the pattern of employment towards centralised production and a requirement for a range of technical skills rather the manual labour required by agriculture. I would suggest the world wars of the twentieth century caused a significant peak in an otherwise steady decline of slavery that came about as industrialisation spread around the world. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-humans-were-slaves-at-various-points-in-time/716898.md?page=1)