Representation of the Institution of Slavery

[William the Merry]

Here's the thing, though:

From 1337 up until the original start date of this game... What was it again? 1450?

How much eu4 have you played to not now its 11th November 1444?

Europe was still very much a feudal society. The game traditionally begins in the early modern era. Slavery wasn't exactly all that common. It was mostly of the "traditional" variety; enemy soldiers and criminals would be enslaved. Perhaps even heretics. Though the economy was mostly of trade craftsmen whereost people owned their own small business and parcels of land for farming, and with serfs tilling the land in a sort of "rent-to-own" deal. I think I had covered that in one of my previous posts. Can't remember now.

The first slaves didn't begin to arrive into the western hemisphere until 1517. The original establishment of the triangular trade was due to traditional African slavery; like pretty much everywhere else, the slaves were normally rivals and enemy soldiers. And a form of indentured servitude for the less well-off. The African kingdoms that sold slaves to the Europeans werent fully aware of the slaves' fates.

They wouldnt be fully aware either if sold across the sahara or to the other side of west africa. Nor would you be fully aware if a slaves passed more than 2 owners.

Eventually, actual corruption would take hold due to greed and the desire to be like the Portuguese.

The slavery that began in the Caribbean in the 16th century was a new type of slavery of particular cruelty. It did began in this century, but was still very far from its peak

Was it new and particularly cruel compared to the zanji transplanted to work Egyptian and Iraqi plantations?

. It wasn't until a century later that it would really begin to take off by 1619.

Very interesting choice to pick 1619

So from game start to 1619, that's less than 200 years of play time where slavery (the western hemisphere variety of particularly cruel chattel slavery) wouldn't even really be all that impactful. It's only from 1600 or thereabouts, until 1760 at the start of the industrial revolution that matters to your point. That's only 160 years. And there would still be another 60 years.to play beyond that into the industrial revolution.

IRL, it lasted clear until the 1880s in the case of Brazil. But in EU 4, between 1760 to 1820, it's still more than half the era that is known as the "Industrial Revolution," which lasted just 20 years longer than the game's end (1840.)

The game isnt just europe and its colonies, so we still need plenty of slave mechanics for PC

Also, btw, there was also still the idea that slavery was an evil even in the 1500s. Bartolomè de las Casas is a great example of this. If one person expressed misgivings over slavery, certainly there had to have been others who were conscientiously aware of the moral degradation of such an institution. This is just a side note, because nother one of my big pet peeves is when people say things like: "he (or she) was a person of their times." As if people were not aware of the evil nature of mistreatment towards other humans and animals.

Being a person of the time means institutions were largely in favour of something. So even if a few people are opposed to slavery, you wont get widespread estate rebels fighting you. You might even have nobles oppose you lightening serfdom or the encominedas

 

[William the Merry]

The encomiendas were not really particularly different than literal slavery, so probably not on that front, but if you're saying that the extreme concentration of wealth generated by slave labour doesn't, in turn, create corruption, then I don't really know what to say. Brazil's slaveowners dominated its political system for years. Same deal with the US South.

I would say corruption doesn't make sense in this time period largely because the idea of the government cooperating heavily with private interests just wasn't really a standard for corruption at this point. Were colonial charters corrupt? Nowadays, when countries award total monopolies to private firms in which the head of state has a share, we'd balk. But, obviously, at the time governments weren't meant to be accountable to the citizenry so that behaviour wasn't necessarily corrupt

You see some accusations of corruption for only the EIC being able to trade in China towards end of period, but thats more mercantilism free trade arguments between whigs and tories

What. Because it was better before abolition?

Isn't this just apologia? It's certainly a hell of a lot better for people who would have been slavery otherwise

No, that abolition didnt make brazil great, when he was arguing the US only became great due to abolition

 

[William the Merry]

American capitalism grew up side-by-side with chattel slavery and this is why the USA has markedly less labor protections than other developed countries. We still have the stain of chattel slavery upon all laborers in this country because the social compact is still substantively designed around the idea that free labor must compete with unfree labor (I won't go into extensive details, but, this is a big part of why the GOP makes big noises about immigration but doesn't actually have INS show up to workplaces to you know, deport illegal labor....unless they organize, then they all get deported cause the company calls INS). We still have this dynamic in play just the unfree labor is less openly seen. I've had a consulting contract with a big national retailer once to examine their costs. So, I asked quite bluntly "how do you have this agreement to have 10k hours of after-hours cleaning labor on the books at a cost of $34k?" and was asked to simply take it at face value. Clearly, someone had laborers not being paid min wage (or perhaps at all).

Slavery has and will again exist in circumstances where you have a localized labor shortage and trouble getting free labor to migrate there willingly (or when regulatory regime drops enough that the rich can enslave as they wish). Regardless of any short or long-term human talent destruction caused by the use of unfree labor, if it is possible, and the market demands it enough due to lack of migration or other labor constraints, you'll get it unless government aggressively fights it.

I will concur with your assessment that slavery is destructive over time on the talent base available to a society. But, a rigid economic system which gives limited chance for social advancement does nearly as well without open chattel slavery. I know full well if I'd grown up in different circumstances that I'd not have been trained in economics and had the opportunities I've had in life. Despite the fact I probably count by most people's definition of "rich", I favor an economy which gives much more balanced opportunities. I'm not sanguine its coming anytime soon, despite my substantial efforts to push for it, both time and moneywise.

Your sports analogy is highly broken though as your only specifically cited athlete, Babe Ruth, plays during a time in which the descendants of slaves were still barred from playing, despite being free. I get the idea behind what you're trying to say, but perhaps you should have picked a post-integration example. I don't disagree with what you're saying here, but, the former economics professor in me requires me to point out that its an openly broken example which might assist the other side's argument along these lines "Ruth is the best baseball player ever, so, since black people couldn't play then, its a sign that letting black people play didn't improve the level of play....." or something horrid like that. Its hard for me to actually make the insane drivel arguments which come from that subset of Americans now, so, I've done at best a bad proxy.

I think we mostly agree. I'm going to re-read what I wrote that inspired you to respond as such, since it seems we mostly agree. Perhaps you took my fatalism towards laissez-faire reimposing slavery if able as an ethical justification, which was never my intent.

P.S. I see what you object to, I am arguing that most of human history is compatible with slavery or quasi-slavery. I will stand by that. Until relatively recently, talent was hardly required for states to progress and have power. Not surprisingly, economic growth approached zero during most of these times with occasional spurts from some development or another, but also seeing crashes from plagues and the like. Overall, things didn't change very much so talent was not needed or rewarded. Occasionally you lucked out and some inbred monarch lined up the right recessive genes and was talented instead of at best averagish. But, this was not the norm and often those folks died young (see Alexander Argead as one of the more extreme examples of this but plenty others like Henry V of England abound).

The modern world requires a different set of things than an agriculture-first world did. We do need more talented folks than a late medieval or renaissance world did. Hopefully we don't end up snuffing the sources of talent up in our foolish quest for austerity pushed by populist parties around the globe.

By Alexander Argead do you mean Alexander the Great?

 

[Galadredid]

Here's the thing, though:

From 1337 up until the original start date of this game... What was it again? 1450? Europe was still very much a feudal society. The game traditionally begins in the early modern era. Slavery wasn't exactly all that common. It was mostly of the "traditional" variety; enemy soldiers and criminals would be enslaved. Perhaps even heretics. Though the economy was mostly of trade craftsmen whereost people owned their own small business and parcels of land for farming, and with serfs tilling the land in a sort of "rent-to-own" deal. I think I had covered that in one of my previous posts. Can't remember now.

The first slaves didn't begin to arrive into the western hemisphere until 1517. The original establishment of the triangular trade was due to traditional African slavery; like pretty much everywhere else, the slaves were normally rivals and enemy soldiers. And a form of indentured servitude for the less well-off. The African kingdoms that sold slaves to the Europeans werent fully aware of the slaves' fates. Eventually, actual corruption would take hold due to greed and the desire to be like the Portuguese.

The slavery that began in the Caribbean in the 16th century was a new type of slavery of particular cruelty. It did began in this century, but was still very far from its peak. It wasn't until a century later that it would really begin to take off by 1619.

So from game start to 1619, that's less than 200 years of play time where slavery (the western hemisphere variety of particularly cruel chattel slavery) wouldn't even really be all that impactful. It's only from 1600 or thereabouts, until 1760 at the start of the industrial revolution that matters to your point. That's only 160 years. And there would still be another 60 years.to play beyond that into the industrial revolution.

IRL, it lasted clear until the 1880s in the case of Brazil. But in EU 4, between 1760 to 1820, it's still more than half the era that is known as the "Industrial Revolution," which lasted just 20 years longer than the game's end (1840.)


Also, btw, there was also still the idea that slavery was an evil even in the 1500s. Bartolomè de las Casas is a great example of this. If one person expressed misgivings over slavery, certainly there had to have been others who were conscientiously aware of the moral degradation of such an institution. This is just a side note, because nother one of my big pet peeves is when people say things like: "he (or she) was a person of their times." As if people were not aware of the evil nature of mistreatment towards other humans and animals.

At least for Western Europe, that's true at the start of the game. But the game does model every country around the world, where in Africa, the Middle East, etc. you can still see a lot of it (even Venice, too).

Yes, the Caribbean was basically kind of ignored until the 17th century in terms of the sugar plantations, but that is because Mexico and Peru were first a big focus and Spain couldn't be everywhere at once (which is why the English, French, Dutch can pick these islands off them pretty easily). However, while you wouldn't see it on a massive scale, you'd see at least some sugar cane-based slavery already by the 15th century - not in the Americas, but in the Azores, Madeira, and Canary Islands. So at the very least it's something the player unlocks way, way earlier than the possibility of building factories.

It is true though that the player needs to get into half the timeframe to see any kind of big, plantation-based economics. But just from listening to friends play the game, it's way more common I think to get into the 1600s than the late 1700s for most people in EU4. And, while a campaign might end for some people before it's viable, they'll definitely unlock the mechanics earlier - especially depending on what the tag is.

As for the industrial point, I think like the back ~45% of the game is more influential than the last ~15% or so, right? I also would say that your comparison to pre-17th century is kind of apt as a comparison for the sort of industry that'd be in the game's timeframe. Some factories are popping up in some places, and are making use of things like the spinning jenny - but it's small still in comparison to what yet will come. By 1820, Manchester had only been the world's first fully industrialized city for the past five years or so, and most cities around Europe were still just buying goods like furniture from independent artisans for the next few decades. And even if it's obviously optimal for the player to pick industry, there's a chunk of the game where plantation-based economics are viable but you haven't quite hit slavery yet.

I agree on Las Casas, and definitely don't think much of historical people who endorsed slavery. But, I think people like Las Casas are a lesson that the opposition to slavery wasn't consistently the same as a position someone today would have. Instead of abolishing slavery completely, a lot of early-on anti-slavery achievements, as such, were more about imposing certain limits instead of completely abolishing the system. There's also the fact that abolitionism itself could be fairly prejudiced, with a lot of them being in favor of repatriating all enslaved people to their 'original homelands' in their view of abolition. But of course, there should be movements a player might want to lean into, such as maybe becoming Quaker for completely ending the system before you kind of reach any mass liberal abolitionist movement.

 

[Napoleon1971]

By Alexander Argead do you mean Alexander the Great?

This is his generally recognized last name, yes.

 

[Napoleon1971]

Could the myth about king cotton die already? It was tested in the civil war, king cotton failed spectacularly while American Industry was proven the winner.

The Wheat Trade which America had was unrelated to slavery.

Domination of shipping and whaling was atrocious from the standpoint of ecology and we are still dealing with the legacy of American innovation and creativity it also had nothing to do with slavery.


The Steel industry was unrelated to slavery

I could go on but especially if you are claiming to be a professor please stop teaching King Cotton, it is a lie, and was literally tested in battle and failed. American Industry was not purely textile, and was not dependent on the south.

Slavery hurt the ability of the South to develop the kind of multi-faceted economy the North had, and prevented industrialization.

"King Cotton" lost the US Civil war for a few reasons, almost none of which had to do with the lack of profitability of cotton leading up to the war.

Southern harvests had been spectacularly good for a few years running at the end of the 1850s. This allowed European textile industries to have excess supply and begin to branch out for more diverse sources of cotton (Egypt and India for example) so they didn't have a few slave states in the USA able to strangle their economies by causing a supply-side shock of the needed input for so many jobs. The south grossly misunderstood their position here and thought if the USA blockaded them, that UK and France would use their fleets to break the blockade to avoid industrial worker riots. The fact that the UK and France would have to be fighting to prop up unseemly slavery also didn't hurt.

The south had a poorly diversified economy where the border states in the east (Maryland and Virginia) had substantive slave breeding enterprises to sell slaves "down the river" where they'd be used in plantations. This was an unintended consequence of the closure of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The cotton and other raw material plantations in the Carolinas and deep south were highly profitable, despite spending $600-800 a head for adult slaves who weren't older yet (quite the sum during the time), so I think we can rule out them being inviable enterprises. What made them inviable outside of a chattel slavery system was quite simple, nobody would willingly do the labor required in a cost-efficient fashion, so, given the legal structure of the time chattel slavery filled the gap and functionally subsidized lots of US economy. As horrible as it is, the industrial development in the north was substantively funded by banks with a combination of southern plantation owner and northern mercantile (often trans-Atlantic slave made) money. Without the institution of slavery having given the early USA an easily exported set of commodities to send to Europe, industrialization would have been markedly slower.

None of what I'm writing is to justify the prior existence of slavery in America. I deplore that it was ever a thing. But, northern industrialization takes multiple generations longer without the south having had it. I'm not arguing that northern industry depended on cotton directly, I'm saying it did depend on banks filed with the deposits from slave owners who benefitted directly from the slavery. At the time of the start of the US Civil War, if we counted chattel slaves as "capital", they were worth more than all the physical capital in the northern states. Owning the lifetime production of another human being (let alone millions of them) is highly profitable, even if they are mostly stuck doing rote, menial labor

The primary reason the south lost the US Civil War is they underrated the determination of the north to win. Everyone knew the north would marshall larger and better equipped armies. Some southerners thought they could win quickly due to their "superior martial culture" but, that really only applied to cavalry which was not capable of winning wars by itself by 1861. A failure to foresee that they'd get no foreign help was involved. Their inability to capitalize on UK/France/Spain's invasion of Mexico over debt issues during the US Civil War was driven by their unwillingness to side with a country they still had territorial demands on (Mexico, even as the 2nd Empire of Mexico under an Austrian Archduke) even though the US was fairly openly supporting the previously legitimate government's resistance to such. Once Lincoln won a 2nd term in 1864 it was done, no chance for the south to win. But, it wasn't because cotton was not profitable. Perversely, it was because cotton had been "too profitable" leading up to the war and encouraged the south to feel overstrong while not understanding that those bumper crops in the late 1850s created a cushion against a supply shock from a loss of north American cotton.

I assure you I am no fan of the CSA. But, I do assess the situation rationally. The south was roped into the war by foolish arrogance created precisely because cotton had just been king, even helping to prop banks up during the panic of 1857. They didn't understand modern economics enough to know that by the time 1861 rolled around, it was already too late. If they'd wanted to do this more intelligently, they'd have imported more of the means of fighting an extended war before commencing aggressions. They certainly had the gold and silver to back such buying. Let us all be thankful that they did not.

That aside, perhaps we should move this portion of the discussion to the Vicky 4 forums

 

[Napoleon1971]

I've said this in another thread and it's worth repeating here.

This forum is about game design, not historical analysis, as interesting as that may be (I mean that sincerely. It is interesting).

So let's circle back to how things could/should look in a game.

OK, how to make slavery work in Project Caesar:

Most slavery throughout human history has been something that could reasonanably escaped by the slave.

The trans-Atlantic slave system was designed to be a perpetual slave class, even to the point that Maryland and Virginia had slaves as their largest "export" for much of the time after the trans-Atlantic slave trade was abolished and before the US Civil War.

These two things are not alike.

I think "American" (and I mean all of the Americas, I'm not leaving slaveries inflicted on natives or black people that weren't in the now USA out) slavery should work differently than slavery anywhere else. The slave pops should perhaps be able to become free for a short time after initial set up (this happened) if nuance is wanted. But, quickly the system worked to create a slave system where slaves would produce the next generation of slaves along with their own labor and few additional free slaves were allowed, precisely because it would confuse the otherwise easy task of catching escaped slaves (if almost all black people in the US south were slaves, if you ever came across a black person who didn't have a clear owner, you could almost assume they were a slave....sadly, free black folks were even enslaved at times because of this). Even more horribly, perhaps there should be a way to set up a province-by-province "slave cruelty" index that controls if the slave population will grow, hold steady, or shrink. That may be a level of genocidal horror we don't want to model. But, it was a real thing as the export of slaves from Maryland and Virginia to the deep south shows. The deep south had negative slave population growth because treatment was harsh with the goal of maximizing immediate profits. The upper coastal south on the other hand had the goal of making surplus slaves for sale as its goal, so, while cruel, it manifested differently and they had positive slave population growth.

Slavery elsewhere in the world should have some level of social mobility, though still less than serfs and the like. Perhaps specific slave "quasi-ruling classes" like the Jannisaries and Mamlukes should be modelled somehow as well.

Will we model free peasants and serfs separately or will serfs be a quasi-slave?

These are all legitimate questions to ask. A serf is technically not a slave but lacks freedom of movement and often owes labor-duties to the lord/owner of the land in question. Does that count as free or slave or something in between? I don't know how much nuance Johan is looking for with pop types. In a Platonic ideal world, I'd like to see serfs as "something in between". But, maybe that is too much to ask.

 

[TitaniumMan91]

Slavery should be a boon to the aristocrat estate while lowering economic growth more generally and being harmful to lower estates and it should take some work to get most religious estates on board. Slavery made some people very wealthy and with how taxes worked at the time, that made money for the country, but it's pretty broadly agreed that it was bad for the general economy because, as others have said, it takes skilled individuals out of the economy more broadly and sticks them into largely labor-intensive jobs. That might fit a certain playstyle, but I would prefer for the slave trade to be something the player has to opt into in most situations or else can opt out of early. We have records of some kinds of abolition going back thousands of years and more often than not, things like "banning Christian slaves" effectively banned all slavery, the only significant exception I'm aware of being rowers on Mediterranean galleys.

 

[Ispil]

Fundamentally, slavery is a net negative on growth. You are taking up resources that you would use to grow your free population and instead using it to maintain, effectively, what is being treated as an industrial apparatus (for chattel slavery, specifically; the discussion changes when we're talking about military slavery or household slaves like what you'd see in Europe around the startdate depending on the country).

You're basically giving yourself the labor needed to work the farms without the peasant estate power gained from the population providing said labor. As a result, your estate representation will be quite lopsided.

Also, you can't tax slaves.


So, mechanically speaking, chattel slavery lets you fill the labor requirement for RGOs without needing to actually grow your population (allowing you to fill out that RGO production a lot faster than relying on your own population growth to do so), at the cost of effectively creating a large resource sink that, outside of the resource production, you get nothing out of. I suppose to really drive the point home, slaves could instead take their share of the population and put it towards the noble estate's power from a given location.

You'd get the resource production at the cost of creating a broad underclass of population that's ultimately providing less to your economy than if they were all free commoners instead, and empowering your nobility in the process. You're effectively trading money for time, buying a pool of laborers rather than spending the time to grow your population up to the same. This ultimately becomes a drag on an economy due to the lack of overall economic activity provided by this underclass by the inherent nature of slavery. It also empowers the nobility, who would only demand even more for the power it gives them. After all, they don't care about the consequences of chattel slavery for the state.


Military slavery... honestly, in the two critical countries that practiced it for this game's timeframe (Mamluks and Ottomans), it should outright be its own estate.

Household slaves... it feels a bit disgusting to say it, but I think that'd just be effectively the rough equivalent of a trade good? Preferably with more coherent representation than that (maybe just have them draw from the existing slave population at a location), but "thing in which the nobility would acquire at expense to increase their satisfaction" pretty much sums up the nature of household slaves in this era.

 

[dongwookuk]

American capitalism grew up side-by-side with chattel slavery and this is why the USA has markedly less labor protections than other developed countries. We still have the stain of chattel slavery upon all laborers in this country because the social compact is still substantively designed around the idea that free labor must compete with unfree labor (I won't go into extensive details, but, this is a big part of why the GOP makes big noises about immigration but doesn't actually have INS show up to workplaces to you know, deport illegal labor....unless they organize, then they all get deported cause the company calls INS). We still have this dynamic in play just the unfree labor is less openly seen. I've had a consulting contract with a big national retailer once to examine their costs. So, I asked quite bluntly "how do you have this agreement to have 10k hours of after-hours cleaning labor on the books at a cost of $34k?" and was asked to simply take it at face value. Clearly, someone had laborers not being paid min wage (or perhaps at all).

Slavery has and will again exist in circumstances where you have a localized labor shortage and trouble getting free labor to migrate there willingly (or when regulatory regime drops enough that the rich can enslave as they wish). Regardless of any short or long-term human talent destruction caused by the use of unfree labor, if it is possible, and the market demands it enough due to lack of migration or other labor constraints, you'll get it unless government aggressively fights it.

I will concur with your assessment that slavery is destructive over time on the talent base available to a society. But, a rigid economic system which gives limited chance for social advancement does nearly as well without open chattel slavery. I know full well if I'd grown up in different circumstances that I'd not have been trained in economics and had the opportunities I've had in life. Despite the fact I probably count by most people's definition of "rich", I favor an economy which gives much more balanced opportunities. I'm not sanguine its coming anytime soon, despite my substantial efforts to push for it, both time and moneywise.

Your sports analogy is highly broken though as your only specifically cited athlete, Babe Ruth, plays during a time in which the descendants of slaves were still barred from playing, despite being free. I get the idea behind what you're trying to say, but perhaps you should have picked a post-integration example. I don't disagree with what you're saying here, but, the former economics professor in me requires me to point out that its an openly broken example which might assist the other side's argument along these lines "Ruth is the best baseball player ever, so, since black people couldn't play then, its a sign that letting black people play didn't improve the level of play....." or something horrid like that. Its hard for me to actually make the insane drivel arguments which come from that subset of Americans now, so, I've done at best a bad proxy.

I think we mostly agree. I'm going to re-read what I wrote that inspired you to respond as such, since it seems we mostly agree. Perhaps you took my fatalism towards laissez-faire reimposing slavery if able as an ethical justification, which was never my intent.

P.S. I see what you object to, I am arguing that most of human history is compatible with slavery or quasi-slavery. I will stand by that. Until relatively recently, talent was hardly required for states to progress and have power. Not surprisingly, economic growth approached zero during most of these times with occasional spurts from some development or another, but also seeing crashes from plagues and the like. Overall, things didn't change very much so talent was not needed or rewarded. Occasionally you lucked out and some inbred monarch lined up the right recessive genes and was talented instead of at best averagish. But, this was not the norm and often those folks died young (see Alexander Argead as one of the more extreme examples of this but plenty others like Henry V of England abound).

The modern world requires a different set of things than an agriculture-first world did. We do need more talented folks than a late medieval or renaissance world did. Hopefully we don't end up snuffing the sources of talent up in our foolish quest for austerity pushed by populist parties around the globe.

I don't think you and RisKFactoR mostly agree. I think the crux of your earlier message was lost amidst the econ jargon.

Where I think you and RisKFactoR do agree is on the idea that, given the same pool of labour, economies without slavery tend to do better in the long run. So a society of 7 million free labourers and 3 million slaves will tend to be economically worse than a society of 10 million free labourers in the long run, because slaves are a relatively inefficient allocation of the same amount of human capital. And I understand that the academic consensus overwhelmingly supports this.

However, @RisKFactoR, I think many people here (including me and Napoleon1971) are disagreeing with you (and AmericanNapoleon as you mentioned earlier) because this doesn't seem to be the appropriate analysis, at least in relation to the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the early modern period. The import of slaves from Africa into the Americas is, at least from the perspective of the 'localised' economy comprised of Western Europe and the colonised portions of the Americas, a net input of human capital (albeit in an inefficient form) which otherwise would not have meaningfully participated in that economy. So the question is now whether a society of 7 million free labourers and 3 million slaves will tend to be economically worse than a society of 7 million free labourers only in the long run (particularly from the perspective of the free labourers only).

To be clear, slavery is evil and unjustifiable. And I think the vast majority of people who are respectfully disagreeing with you will agree with that statement. But in terms of economics, it seems strange to argue that a net input of human capital into an economy, even in an economically inefficient form, is worse for an economy than not importing that human capital, regardless of its evil. I don't particularly want to conduct this analysis now, as I'm sure it will depend on the quantity of slaves imported as well as ownership structure, but just wanted to point out why people are disagreeing with you.

In terms of game mechanics, I hope, and don't think, separate new modifiers and systems are required to reflect the economic consequences of slavery. I would much rather that those consequences arose organically, as a natural consequence of how slavery works.

• Specifically, I think that all that needs to be reflected is: (a) slaves have lower economic output compared to 'free' commoners; (b) slaves receive much lower 'wages' than commoners, to the effect that they do not consume goods other than food and do not meaningfully participate in the wider economy as consumers; and (c) slaves are restricted from migrating to locations with higher wages. All of these are relatively 'obvious' features of slavery, I would say.
• The organic, gameplay result is that, countries are still incentivised to import slaves to increase their economic output, particularly in the early game where they have colonised lands with lots of free land but little labour to work that land; but in the long run, there is an incentive to emancipate those slaves for that further productivity, consumption, and efficient allocation of labour. Admittedly, it may be that these long term benefits outweigh the costs only at the very end of, or even after, the period of PC (or when the import of slaves becomes impossible) - but it seems that would reflect historical reality.
• Indeed, this is how slavery works in Victoria 2 - and the way by which players are incentivised to emancipate slaves via the very mechanics of the game, rather than a developer-imposed straitjacket, is really quite elegant in my opinion.

 

[Napoleon1971]

I don't think you and RisKFactoR mostly agree. I think the crux of your earlier message was lost amidst the econ jargon.

Where I think you and RisKFactoR do agree is on the idea that, given the same pool of labour, economies without slavery tend to do better in the long run. So a society of 7 million free labourers and 3 million slaves will tend to be economically worse than a society of 10 million free labourers in the long run, because slaves are a relatively inefficient allocation of the same amount of human capital. And I understand that the academic consensus overwhelmingly supports this.

However, @RisKFactoR, I think many people here (including me and Napoleon1971) are disagreeing with you (and AmericanNapoleon as you mentioned earlier) because this doesn't seem to be the appropriate analysis, at least in relation to the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the early modern period. The import of slaves from Africa into the Americas is, at least from the perspective of the 'localised' economy comprised of Western Europe and the colonised portions of the Americas, a net input of human capital (albeit in an inefficient form) which otherwise would not have meaningfully participated in that economy. So the question is now whether a society of 7 million free labourers and 3 million slaves will tend to be economically worse than a society of 7 million free labourers only in the long run (particularly from the perspective of the free labourers only).

To be clear, slavery is evil and unjustifiable. And I think the vast majority of people who are respectfully disagreeing with you will agree with that statement. But in terms of economics, it seems strange to argue that a net input of human capital into an economy, even in an economically inefficient form, is worse for an economy than not importing that human capital, regardless of its evil. I don't particularly want to conduct this analysis now, as I'm sure it will depend on the quantity of slaves imported as well as ownership structure, but just wanted to point out why people are disagreeing with you.

In terms of game mechanics, I hope, and don't think, separate new modifiers and systems are required to reflect the economic consequences of slavery. I would much rather that those consequences arose organically, as a natural consequence of how slavery works.

• Specifically, I think that all that needs to be reflected is: (a) slaves have lower economic output compared to 'free' commoners; (b) slaves receive much lower 'wages' than commoners, to the effect that they do not consume goods other than food and do not meaningfully participate in the wider economy as consumers; and (c) slaves are restricted from migrating to locations with higher wages. All of these are relatively 'obvious' features of slavery, I would say.
• The organic, gameplay result is that, countries are still incentivised to import slaves to increase their economic output, particularly in the early game where they have colonised lands with lots of free land but little labour to work that land; but in the long run, there is an incentive to emancipate those slaves for that further productivity, consumption, and efficient allocation of labour. Admittedly, it may be that these long term benefits outweigh the costs only at the very end of, or even after, the period of PC (or when the import of slaves becomes impossible) - but it seems that would reflect historical reality.
• Indeed, this is how slavery works in Victoria 2 - and the way by which players are incentivised to emancipate slaves via the very mechanics of the game, rather than a developer-imposed straitjacket, is really quite elegant in my opinion.

I would go further than simply removing the 3 million slaves from the colonial labor pool. Many of those free inhabitants lives were meaningfully supported by the way the slave system of the time worked.

Yes, quite simple, the input of additional labor, even slave labor to early colonies easily shifted the production possibility frontier to the right (aka more production). People would not have brought slaves in if it didn't do so. I'm not ethically justifying slavery remotely. I'm explaining why human beings did it. I also believe if we allow our political systems to grow weak enough that private power will enslave other human beings again, even if not officially.

In the long run, I concur 100% that slavery is damaging to a society. But, when you're talking about times which are still heavily impacted by the initial ramp-up period, which required slave labor working to produce easily exported raw materials, the number of free laborers would be smaller as well because migration would have been less appealing if you, the migrant, are going to be the ones in the fields doing the harsh labor required for the export good, rather than less onerous tasks like security, animal husbandry, and the like, filling in needs that the plantations (whether for sugar, indigo, cotton, or other goods) had for local goods. Eventually, after many generations this tended to do better in places less associated with slavery. But, by the time you get there, Project Caesar will be approaching its terminus and it'll be time to play Victoria.

From a game standpoint, I think it would be reasonable to have slavery stop making sense towards the very end of the period PC covers. But, I think a player who chooses to engage in substantive colonial spread in the Americas and doesn't embrace slavery will need to do something more akin to the model seen in Asia, where client-kings among natives keep order so the colonizers can control the flow of trade. A large impediment to this being the "best" policy from a game efficiency standpoint of course should be the spread of Eurasian diseases among the natives (which hit natives much harder than any European weapon superiority ever did). I don't want to make this an impossible path perhaps, but, it should be harder to pull off. To know better how such a thing could be worked, I'd need to know how disease will be modelled. For example.....will there be a single "plague/epidemic" mechanic which just spreads disease. Or, will it be more complex and have multiple Eurasian diseases which can spread about and surviving pops will actually develop some level of immunity to it? Would it be possible to use Greenland colony to get the black death and other Eurasian diseases to North America early enough to allow native populations time to bounce back before colonizers show up? I don't know. But, this seems a possible way a player could alter history, if the game's epidemic system is modelled in the way I've suggested.

Its hard to engage realistic ways of finding ethical paths in a game we're only perhaps 1/10th enlightened on at this point.

And again, I certainly am not arguing that economic efficiency justifies crimes against humanity. I'm simply explaining why past cultures with different ethical models did what they did and why it wasn't "terribly inefficient" in the context in which they did it. I'd hate to see slavery be modelled to be a "clearly bad choice from efficiency" standpoint because it doesn't match what actually happened and it insults the contributions that people who were enslaved did make to the world we live in today through their uncompensated efforts.

 

[honkajoki]

I think you should be mechanically incentivized to do slavery if you're colonizing the new world, at least. I just don't think it should be something abstracted away to prevent the player feeling bad about doing it. If Victoria 3 can have you do the scramble for Africa or become a despotic fascist nightmare state, then I don't think Project Caesar should try and avoid acknowledging the existence of slaves.

Perhaps that is right from a simulation standpoint. I was thinking from the point of avoiding that the game is seen as glorifying slavery, which could result both in negative publicity and some players avoiding the game just because they don't feel good playing it. The game could be seen as glorifying slavery if having it is a no-brainer option to winning.

I'm not saying that slavery should not be in the game. On the contrary, if the game is to simulate the period or educate its players about it, it's impossible not to have slavery in there. Indeed a bit more detail than EU4's trade good should be used for those goals. But I think that there should be some possible alternative history paths that allow the player to be competitive without slavery.

 

[Ispil]

I mean, I'd certainly present it as a choice rather than just a thing you're obligated to do. The only real thing you're trading is a focus on "extraction of trade resources" versus building a taxable population base in your colonies, so depending on your priorities it's entirely reasonable to forego slavery as a viable strategy.

If your goal isn't to maximize RGOs as quickly as possible, then chattel slavery is a moot point.

 

[honkajoki]

Also, you can't tax slaves.

Could be theoretically possible, as in some societies slaves could have property. But yes, direct taxing of slaves would be such a niche case there's no reason to have it in the game.

However, it is entirely possible to tax slave owners based on the amount of slaves owned, bought, or sold. Slave import tax is even mentioned in the US Constitution, Article I Section 9. So in the game the number of slaves in a location could influence the taxes of that location, if it's assumed that the state taxes the slave owners for the slaves.

 

[Teng_Ri]

entirely possible to tax slave owners

absolutely. infact thats the whole premise, prelude and prequel of janissaries. beys had to give up 1 slave for every 5 they captured during campaign. this pençik/one-fifth tax was the manpower pool of janissaries early on. its more of an in kind tax but hey

i wonder how wartime slavery/enslaving pows will be represented a la early ottoman and crimean tatar

 

[RisKFactoR]

How much eu4 have you played to not now its 11th November 1444?

Irrelevant.

They wouldnt be fully aware either if sold across the sahara or to the other side of west africa. Nor would you be fully aware if a slaves passed more than 2 owners.

Irrelevant to my point. Context matters. I've spoken very extensively about how this type of slavery was new, different, and particularly cruel.

Was it new and particularly cruel compared to the zanji transplanted to work Egyptian and Iraqi plantations?

Iraq is in West Africa?

Very interesting choice to pick 1619

Very interesting choice to discount some of the women in the Industrial Revolution. And to go to such great lengths to to erroneously discount all the points I've made about how terrible slavery has been in modern civilization.

The game isnt just europe and its colonies, so we still need plenty of slave mechanics for PC

See, this is what it's about here. You aren't actually trying to legitimately argue factual points in good faith in IRT more historically accurate game mechanics over slavery. You're just here to score political talking points.

At this point, no further discussion can be had between us.

PS: I have about 3,000 hours in the game since release, if you must know.

 

[Vlad123]

I want remember roman slavery was different than the egyptian slavery than the CSA. On CSA was only goods. But for romans was very precious and can be free, plus if a slave are well educated (exemple a greek philosopher or similar) you can use for educate your sons (and to you cost only food, a beed and the educational tools!),or for domestic jobs...In romans only mining/farmer slave was "mistreated" but because the job was very dangerous/very stressing. Be a domestic or a educational slave was "a lot better"...i don't know why people thougth CSA slavery = only possible slavery. In Ottomans and arabs, Slave engineer or very educated slave have palace,servantas etc, but remain a slave of the sultan, because sure "a slave treated like a noble never wanted escape"...if i rememer exist some christian warrior can become a muslim pirates, but not remember who.

 

[TitaniumMan91]

Yes, quite simple, the input of additional labor, even slave labor to early colonies easily shifted the production possibility frontier to the right (aka more production). People would not have brought slaves in if it didn't do so.

Because it maximized the profit of the people doing the slaving, and really only under certain styles of settlement patterns (plantations). That, I think, is the whole point of mine and RisKFactoR's criticism, if that same colony didn't do slavery and instead populated itself with free people then long term economic growth would be better while slavery would maximize immediate profit (especially for the aristocrats and burghers) at the expense of that long term growth. One would almost certainly enable more snowballing, but if I don't want to play as a slave empire or want to change the history of the European slave empires to not do the slavery, that should be an option. Give me that mechanical trade off

Slavery wasn't really a thing in England (or most European metropoles) by the time it cemented itself in the America's, and it was contentious enough that a British judge said slavery required an affirmative law allowing it rather than just the absence of a law banning it.

 

[William the Merry]

Irrelevant.

Nah thats a genuine question

Irrelevant to my point. Context matters. I've spoken very extensively about how this type of slavery was new, different, and particularly cruel.

It was different but I wouldn't say particularly more cruel. Not being castrated is definetly a benefit for male slaves even if for female slaves that means more likely to be raped

Iraq is in West Africa?

No, but african slaves working plantations in iraq under the abbasids is a similar example to slavery in the americas

Very interesting choice to discount some of the women in the Industrial Revolution. And to go to such great lengths to to erroneously discount all the points I've made about how terrible slavery has been in modern civilization.

To the people invovled its terrible, but I wouldn't say economically, socially etc etc it was terrible.

See, this is what it's about here. You aren't actually trying to legitimately argue factual points in good faith in IRT

in irt? International relations theory?

more historically accurate game mechanics over slavery. You're just here to score political talking points.

Why would I want that? This a gaming forum not a politics board, although for some reason paradox does have an irl sub forum

At this point, no further discussion can be had between us.

;-;

PS: I have about 3,000 hours in the game since release, if you must know.

Based and byzpilled

 

[RisKFactoR]

Because it maximized the profit of the people doing the slaving, and really only under certain styles of settlement patterns (plantations). That, I think, is the whole point of mine and RisKFactoR's criticism, if that same colony didn't do slavery and instead populated itself with free people then long term economic growth would be better while slavery would maximize immediate profit (especially for the aristocrats and burghers) at the expense of that long term growth. One would almost certainly enable more snowballing, but if I don't want to play as a slave empire or want to change the history of the European slave empires to not do the slavery, that should be an option. Give me that mechanical trade off

Slavery wasn't really a thing in England (or most European metropoles) by the time it cemented itself in the America's, and it was contentious enough that a British judge said slavery required an affirmative law allowing it rather than just the absence of a law banning it.

It's also why the British always famously called it "that peculiar institution" in a snobbish looking-down sort of way, when referring to American slavery. In this case, though, not really "snobbish," so much as it was more out of disgust. It just carried with it the same tone of a British royal snob in just about any other subject. Lol