Representation of the Institution of Slavery

[William the Merry]

It was variable, the pressure to export slaves in huge quantity created at long term and in some cases kingdoms where their own citizens could be selled to slavery overseas.
For example Kongo Kingdom had a lot of problems where some kings tried without practical success to outlaw the selling of their own people.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40206695

Yes, but if you are centralised enough to stop your nobles selling your own people into slavery, you won't face a malus.

Although such historical events should be replicated in PC, in eu4 Mali has an event for Kabu cozying up too close to the Portugese, but the mechanic is never replicated elsewhere, nor does the slaver sultan eu4 event ever have ramifications

 

[Sapa Inca]

Yes, but if you are centralised enough to stop your nobles selling your own people into slavery, you won't face a malus.

A game mechanic where the presence of intense slave trade for exportation in your kingdom creates a problem where nobles start to enslave and sell your own pops to gain money and enrich the noble state while creating more internal unrest would be a very interesting type of crisis and problem with good historical inspiration.

This could work with the building system already published in dev diaries, where states can build bad buildings in your country under certains conditions.

 

[Napoleon1971]

Sorry it took this long to respond but just a couple of points

1. Northern anger at the South was going to subside eventually whatever you did. The reason for the end results was the Northerners didn't have modern values either and the anger didn't last forever. There isn't that much that could have been done differently if you are going for a better result. In an alternate scenario where Lincoln isn't killed things go a lot better for freed slaves but that is because Lincoln understood he had to get the concessions he wanted while Northern Anger (and therefore his leverage) was at maximum, and he would have to sweeten it by being merciful. There was actual logic to what Lincoln was doing. In an alternate history scenario where you want a better result by him selecting a better VP that would mean Lincoln is thinking of who will govern well if I die instead of unification appearance which would mean Lincoln searching for someone thinking like him.

2. When most people think American capitalism they think of things like free market enterprise, securing private property in law, enforcement of contract law, investment banking, stock ownership, anti-monopoly statutes, freedom of trade, modern banking etc in other words the things that govern how you are able to engage in commerce which was all either built in the North or was inherited directly from England. Southern cotton did make some northern states rich and the amount of money added was gargantuan but it was just a participation in a structure that was partly inherited from England and partly crafted by the North. The only contribution the south had to the structure of American capitalism was being anti-tariff which America has never been consistent about (even today you find large portions of both sides see tariffs as a gift).

Modern-style capitalism was in fact inherited from the English who themselves picked it up from the Netherlands (modern capital markets with stock exchanges and semi-modern investment banks and the like were first in the Netherlands, though the swiss and italians had older form of investment banks from medieval period). The northern part of what is now the USA was an able participant but didn't really establish rules that impacted its global course until Vicky is basically over.

There are lots of things the north could have done to "make things go differently", for example they could have managed the conquered south the way Genghiz did the portions of China he conquered. I'm not remotely advocating for those things, nor do I think they could have been durable. But, it was quite possible to have US Army soldiers put "blue sheets" on and go 'mess' up white southerners while being unidentifiable for a while during reconstruction. Again, I'm not advocating for that, but, we know that could be done with 100% certainty since others did it to promote an alternate cause.

I guess the thing we disagree on is the fundamental nature of US slave system in impacting how even northern markets handled their labor market and the impact of southern financial capital on northern investment markets increasing the pace of development in the north (ironically dooming their eventual rebellion to maximize the profits of plantation owners over time). The proof of this assertion on the chattel slave system on US labor markets is quite simple, no other developed country in the world treats their workers so poorly (even with our conservatives being 'pro life' we don't have paid pregnancy leave, we didn't have unpaid pregnancy leave where you couldn't be fired until relatively recently in the grand scheme of things). This is because labor in the north had to compete head-to-head with a chattel slave system during US capitalism's infancy. Americans all still deal with the consequences of that.

 

[BugStupidDummy]

What could be more secure a private property than having the full legal rights over a slave? Both any children born of them are yours, and if they flee to an area without slavery, you can take them back.

These all sound like useful things for the South. Little use in establishing various plantations if the different cash crops you grow are under monopoly

1. In what way does the American concept of private property rights come from the South when you could literally read the barons forcing King John I to permanently acknowledge the sacred nature of private property and cease to violate it in the Magna Carta? To the extent private property was developed as a concept by the United States at all (it was an extremely established right from the classical era onwards) it was northerners establishing new concepts in it like the development of the stock market (something that was without doubt a concept from the northerners).

2. None of those things originated in the South. Without exception every element of capitalism practiced in America is either an inheritance from England that owes nothing to America at all, or was a concept developed by northerners originally in the north.

Southerners had to engage in capitalism, if you can't read a ledger your plantation will go bankrupt. However they didn't invent it, and the ways it progressed are things that industrialists did not planters.

If it makes you feel better Northerners didn't develop the most important elements of American capitalism either those mostly came direct from England.

 

[BugStupidDummy]

Modern-style capitalism was in fact inherited from the English who themselves picked it up from the Netherlands (modern capital markets with stock exchanges and investment banks and the like were first in the Netherlands). The northern part of what is now the USA was an able participant but didn't really establish rules that impacted its global course until Vicky is basically over.

There are lots of things the north could have done to "make things go differently", for example they could have managed the conquered south the way Genghiz did the portions of China he conquered. I'm not remotely advocating for those things, nor do I think they could have been durable. But, it was quite possible to have US Army soldiers put "blue sheets" on and go fuck up white southerners while being unidentifiable for a while during reconstruction. Again, I'm not advocating for that, but, we know that could be done with 100% certainty since others did it to promote an alternate cause.

I guess the thing we disagree on is the fundamental nature of US slave system in impacting how even northern markets handled their labor market and the impact of southern financial capital on northern investment markets increasing the pace of development in the north (ironically dooming their eventual rebellion to maximize the profits of plantation owners over time). The proof of this assertion on the chattel slave system on US labor markets is quite simple, no other developed country in the world treats their workers so poorly (even with our conservatives being 'pro life' we don't have paid pregnancy leave, we didn't have unpaid pregnancy leave where you couldn't be fired until relatively recently in the grand scheme of things). This is because labor in the north had to compete head-to-head with a chattel slave system during US capitalism's infancy. Americans all still deal with the consequences of that.

I agree, the U.S. contribution in terms of ideas and structure was later.

About the alternate history don't worry I know you wouldn't advocate for that sort of thing.

But lets suppose Lincoln gave the orders

It isn't impossible that the triumphant president would get impeached for that. My proof of that is Thaddeus Stevens during the civil war was highly concerned about civil liberties and was very uncomfortable with many of the measures actually taken. That was what the radical republicans felt. All it takes for a congressional investigation would have been one drunken officer in the wrong place at the wrong time, and then you have men like Stevens outraged that their noble cause is being sullied. It is very easy to give an order, that order being obeyed as instructed (i.e. the kind of person who would obey that may be the kind of person who will take it way too far and outrage northern opinion, and there would have been many officers outright disobeying and writing to their connections in outrage) is a very different matter. Congressional oversight would have been an extreme check on any attempt to use less than desirable methods.

The mood of the radical section of the Republican Party included very strict limitations on what the president could be permitted to do in order achieve their aims. Furthermore there is the issue of what did the northern population think? Immediately after the civil war their sentiment was anger at the south which translated to helping the radical republicans (who as I said wanted their agenda but didn't want it sullied by what they viewed as threats to their own liberties). Over time however they lost all stamina for occupation and I don't think there is much that would have kept up that stamina longer than what it was historically.

Grant didn't handle reconstruction particularly effectively, and there was a scandal in his administration that couldn't have helped things, but fundamentally I don't think there were many tools for achieving something better, at least not without a northern population that has views we would find more acceptable concerning race. Better than South doesn't mean they thought like 21st century people. At the start of the civil war multiple northern states by law banned black people from living in them at all. All achievements in an alt history scenario have to be made before northern anger historically died down, and has to be done in a way that won't outrage congress.

I agree in at least some northern states Southern Cotton did create a massive boon to the economy that made it develop much faster. I just don't think there was much of a prospect for an earlier labor movement. The Republican Party was much more of a private property absolutist party in the 19th century, and historically labor's association with democrats is because republicans did oppose them very consistently.

Remove southern chattel slavery from the picture and you still have the same politicians with the same thoughts making the same alliances with the same industrialists, everyone is just a lot less wealthy because the cotton boon doesn't happen.

 

[Napoleon1971]

I agree, the U.S. contribution in terms of ideas and structure was later.

About the alternate history don't worry I know you wouldn't advocate for that sort of thing.

But lets suppose Lincoln gave the orders

It isn't impossible that the triumphant president would get impeached for that. My proof of that is Thaddeus Stevens during the civil war was highly concerned about civil liberties and was very uncomfortable with many of the measures actually taken. That was what the radical republicans felt. All it takes for a congressional investigation would have been one drunken officer in the wrong place at the wrong time, and then you have men like Stevens outraged that their noble cause is being sullied. It is very easy to give an order, that order being obeyed as instructed (i.e. the kind of person who would obey that may be the kind of person who will take it way too far and outrage northern opinion, and there would have been many officers outright disobeying and writing to their connections in outrage) is a very different matter. Congressional oversight would have been an extreme check on any attempt to use less than desirable methods.

The mood of the radical section of the Republican Party included very strict limitations on what the president could be permitted to do in order achieve their aims. Furthermore there is the issue of what did the northern population think? Immediately after the civil war their sentiment was anger at the south which translated to helping the radical republicans (who as I said wanted their agenda but didn't want it sullied by what they viewed as threats to their own liberties). Over time however they lost all stamina for occupation and I don't think there is much that would have kept up that stamina longer than what it was historically.

Grant didn't handle reconstruction particularly effectively, and there was a scandal in his administration that couldn't have helped things, but fundamentally I don't think there were many tools for achieving something better, at least not without a northern population that has views we would find more acceptable concerning race. Better than South doesn't mean they thought like 21st century people. At the start of the civil war multiple northern states by law banned black people from living in them at all. All achievements in an alt history scenario have to be made before northern anger historically died down, and has to be done in a way that won't outrage congress.

I agree in at least some northern states Southern Cotton did create a massive boon to the economy that made it develop much faster. I just don't think there was much of a prospect for an earlier labor movement. The Republican Party was much more of a private property absolutist party in the 19th century, and historically labor's association with democrats is because republicans did oppose them very consistently.

Remove southern chattel slavery from the picture and you still have the same politicians with the same thoughts making the same alliances with the same industrialists, everyone is just a lot less wealthy because the cotton boon doesn't happen.

There was a strong feeling among radical Republicans in Congress for punishing the south more fully than happened. Dissolving seceded states and reforming them with separate boundaries, leaving them "outside government for 20+ years", and plenty of other ideas were openly debated in Congress. The executive branch in the end got to decide the course because no consensus developed.

I disagree firmly with the idea that US capitalism develops the same without slavery. You're missing one of the fundamental keys, northern 'market based capitalism' both benefitted from and competed directly with the southern chattel slave plantation system. That changed the nature of the social systems that were formed, even at the level of the structure of the US government itself, let alone open markets which flow easily in whatever direction leads to profit maximization (within the regulatory structure) and making sure the businesses are an ongoing concern. Without chattel slavery we'd likely have had an entirely separate development of the 'open markets' and its likely it would have produced less wealth at the top and been friendlier to free labor. But, a detailed examination of this is beyond the scope of discussion that is viable on this forum or the internet in general.

 

[Pellucid]

A slave rarely has rights due to being a slave. If machines ever become sentient they might see our technology/early computers as slaves who's rights were violated

You know, other than the fact that human slaves are objectively sentient.

 

[Lightwell]

So something that has been on my mind, is the extent to which Paradox games do/should/ought to represent the institution of slavery, especially the transatlantic slave trade. I honestly feel like the way it was represented in EU4 was a little weak and underepresented, and it really did fail to represent the impact that the slave trade had on the continent of Africa, and the impact the slave trade had on the settler colonies in America, and ultimately the economies of western Europe, which arguably were heavily boosted by the cash crops, that Slavery was essential for its cultivation. I understand the discomfort that paradox might have in representing that institution in a game, especially in a way that may make it so desirable for the player to reenact, ie for economic advancement. However, I dunno that it is really a good idea to really whitewash that chapter of our history.

So is there a way to represent this episode of our history in a manner that does justice to history, as well as the people that were subjected to this?

Thoughts?

Im currently in college studying to be a history teacher, so the treatment of this sort of topic in project Caeser, is one I am very interested in. So I just wanted to get a conversation going to read some of your thoughts on this, as well as the almight Johan himself, if he would deem this matter worthy of his engagement.

The building system should easily handle this. A building that converts local pops into goods for the purpose of the trade system, who are then re-converted back into pops automatically once they arrive at their destination.

 

[RisKFactoR]

Except the slave's property rights are being completely violated in every conceivable way.

Dude doesn't even address my points. Ever. He's just an apologist that only has strawman arguments.

For instance, he tries saying that the kingdom taking the slaves is the one that benefits, clearly ignoring the long-term negative.co sequences that I have extensively covered in other posts.

He was also trying to suggest that the victim nations shouldn't receive maluses because they already receive maluses from losing wars. As if losing a war is exactly the same impact as selling it's own people into slavery to another continent, and shouldn't therefore, receive maluses.

What he doesn't understand, is that negative to positive comparisons between the slaver nation and the source nation is NOT a zero-sum game.

The only real "positive" for either, is just simply an immediate economic gain for only a handful of rich plantation owners from the slaver nation, and corrupt leaders from the source nation. Long-term impacts are negative all the way around for both cultures.

I'm beyond baffled by so many apologists on this board "respectfully disagree" with this overwhelming fact.

 

[RisKFactoR]

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

I just now noticed this post. Sorry.

However, I will say that if you intend on creating a strategy game based on as historically accurate issues as possible, then it follows that "historical analysis" would be necessary in a discussion bout how things in the game could or should be.

These are facts, most of which have been down voted for some odd reason, and absolutely should have a similar mechanic in-game:

1) Slavery absolutely has had an enormous impact on human history. This should go without saying.

2) Slavery absolutely DID have long-term negative consequences on ALL societies involved in the trading and enslaving of sentient human beings. And those negative consequences have had enormous and long-standing impacts on human history, as well as decision-making. I'll give one obvious example:

Decision-making:

Does Britain "side" with the North, the South, or remain neutral in the US Civil War?

The South tried to use cotton and economics to sort of "bribe" Britain to support their endeavors. Britain had other major sources of cotton in Egypt and India.

The North had grains, as well as the moral superiority. The British people were HIGHLY offended by what they derisively called "that peculiar institution" in the Southern US states.

The Northern States also had a superior navy over the South, and for the British to have to contend with a growing naval power would have been expensive. Just to support an offensive slave-holding society that doesn't even offer them any sort of real economic incentive to do so. Other than the fact that it would have permanently divided the upstart rival USA.

The British remained neutral. And slavery was one of the major key causes of it. How much different human history would have been had the British interfered in favor of the South!

That's not even to mention the cultural impact the Africans had on US society:

Food, music, language, the arts: clothing styles, acting, etc. Politics, economics.

The history of slavery is completely intertwined with the history of the United States of America. The USA, in turn, is among the most influential nations in the world throughout the 20th and into the 21st century. The ripple effects down through the centuries and all around the planet among human societies is extremely far-reaching and undeniable.

If you want to create a truly immersive and historically accurate game, you cannot just simply whitewash and ignore such historical analyses. After all, that's why the game includes such systems as the HRE in Europe, the Mandate of Heaven system in China, and the Daimyo system in Japan. These are extremely important institutions that have a great impact on how the game plays, and adds a depth that is unparalleled in the strategy gaming world.

 

[William the Merry]

The building system should easily handle this. A building that converts local pops into goods for the purpose of the trade system, who are then re-converted back into pops automatically once they arrive at their destination.

Why that instead of the slave purchase and migrations of IR?

You know, other than the fact that human slaves are objectively sentient.

To us nowadays, yes, to many people, including those that owned slaves back then, no.
Pgymies have often been seen as non-human, whilst various great apes have been seen as human, as in the famous Queen Victoria quote.

There was a strong feeling among radical Republicans in Congress for punishing the south more fully than happened. Dissolving seceded states and reforming them with separate boundaries, leaving them "outside government for 20+ years", and plenty of other ideas were openly debated in Congress. The executive branch in the end got to decide the course because no consensus developed.

I disagree firmly with the idea that US capitalism develops the same without slavery. You're missing one of the fundamental keys, northern 'market based capitalism' both benefitted from and competed directly with the southern chattel slave plantation system. That changed the nature of the social systems that were formed, even at the level of the structure of the US government itself, let alone open markets which flow easily in whatever direction leads to profit maximization (within the regulatory structure) and making sure the businesses are an ongoing concern. Without chattel slavery we'd likely have had an entirely separate development of the 'open markets' and its likely it would have produced less wealth at the top and been friendlier to free labor. But, a detailed examination of this is beyond the scope of discussion that is viable on this forum or the internet in general.

Why does slavery make wealth accumulate at the top more than socities without slavery?

 

[William the Merry]

1. In what way does the American concept of private property rights come from the South when you could literally read the barons forcing King John I to permanently acknowledge the sacred nature of private property and cease to violate it in the Magna Carta?

Not that Southerners invented property rights, but that codification of slavery laws increased property rights, as now not only the nobility could own people and their offspring's labour but anyone rich enough to buy a slave.

To the extent private property was developed as a concept by the United States at all (it was an extremely established right from the classical era onwards) it was northerners establishing new concepts in it like the development of the stock market (something that was without doubt a concept from the northerners).

The stock market long preceded the US, let alone the 13 colonies?

2. None of those things originated in the South. Without exception every element of capitalism practiced in America is either an inheritance from England that owes nothing to America at all, or was a concept developed by northerners originally in the north.

Southerners had to engage in capitalism, if you can't read a ledger your plantation will go bankrupt. However they didn't invent it, and the ways it progressed are things that industrialists did not planters.

Is it not capitalism to import slaves to grow cotton, that you then sell for a profit to buy more slaves?

If it makes you feel better Northerners didn't develop the most important elements of American capitalism either those mostly came direct from England.

I mean I'm English so feel fine either way. It'll be interesting to see if Paradox makes a Dixie and Yankee culture in PC, or if itll just be the American of eu4. It looks like each colony will be represented now

 

[William the Merry]

Dude doesn't even address my points. Ever. He's just an apologist that only has strawman arguments.

For instance, he tries saying that the kingdom taking the slaves is the one that benefits, clearly ignoring the long-term negative.co sequences that I have extensively covered in other posts.

He was also trying to suggest that the victim nations shouldn't receive maluses because they already receive maluses from losing wars. As if losing a war is exactly the same impact as selling it's own people into slavery to another continent, and shouldn't therefore, receive maluses.

You lose a war:
You're occupied, pops die in battle and from starvation, devastation increases, buildings are damaged, your ruler's legitimacy is questioned, estates become upset at you and might depose you, you more easily lose the next war and your neighbours think you weaker so are more likely to invade you
You lose a war and the captives are sold into slavery:
You're occupied, pops die in battle and from starvation, devastation increases, buildings are damaged, your ruler's legitimacy is questioned, estates become upset at you and might depose you, you more easily lose the next war and your neighbours think you weaker so are more likely to invade you

What greater malus should there be? Opinion loss with enslaving enemy? When you'll already have opinion loss from the war, money, and possible land taken?

What he doesn't understand, is that negative to positive comparisons between the slaver nation and the source nation is NOT a zero-sum game.

The only real "positive" for either, is just simply an immediate economic gain for only a handful of rich plantation owners from the slaver nation, and corrupt leaders from the source nation. Long-term impacts are negative all the way around for both cultures.

But they're not nations, its Dahomey raiding its neighbours, which might in the 21st century be grouped together as one country called Benin, to sell to Europeans. It's Ethiopians raiding the remaining Pagan Horn of African people to castrate and then sell onto Muslims. It's the Knights Hospitaller raiding merchant ships to sell to Catholic powers for galley slaves.
There's a monetary gain in selling slaves, a technological gain with access to European arms and gunpowder which can't be made locally, a material gain in obtaining textiles like cotton to more easily cope with the heat

I'm beyond baffled by so many apologists on this board "respectfully disagree" with this overwhelming fact.

Because you are not just saying mere facts.

 

[Napoleon1971]

Why that instead of the slave purchase and migrations of IR?

To us nowadays, yes, to many people, including those that owned slaves back then, no.
Pgymies have often been seen as non-human, whilst various great apes have been seen as human, as in the famous Queen Victoria quote.

Why does slavery make wealth accumulate at the top more than socities without slavery?

Because slaves are predominantly owned by people at the top to start with and slavery is generally profitable when it exists, or you can't find people to shell out the big money to own slaves.

You can see the same phenomenon in Rome when it started getting a massive influx of slaves from the many wars of the late Republic. Wealth massively shifted upwards and did so extremely enough to end the Republic.

 

[Normannus]

In a situation where you have constrained labor supply, for whatever reason (but, let us suppose because you're in a colonial situation and the natives have either fled or substantively died of disease for example), a slavery system which imports the amount of labor demanded to maximize supplies of goods demanded can certainly be beneficial for some states' economies, even if by "the economy at large" you mean the entire world.

Yes slavery is terribly inefficient compared to many alternative labor systems. But, in a labor shortage situation with little will to force free labor to migrate to the locations the labor is needed, in the short-term it can be a rational thing to be done by many economic agents.

This is a fundamental reason why purely laissez-faire economics is a terrible thing. Sometimes one man's profits require another man's complete subjugation. Without regulation, only monetary power and perhaps moral suasion can prevent this occuring to people who are vulnerable to having force bought and used on them.

The other poster was actually correct- slavery is a drain on the economy. Slaves aren’t consumers, and they only do the most menial labor, and they are unable make autonomous decisions regarding their comparative advantages in how they can do labor. So sure, perhaps it is better to have a slave than nobody at all, but a free man is much better for the economy than a slave is. We saw this somewhat in the Reconstruction era South, by the way, the new freedmen immediately began employing themselves in far more efficient modes of labor while also becoming true consumers. It also reduced the burden on the southern economy of having individuals whose role was simply to threaten force to keep the slaves enslaved, which freed up more of the population for productive work

 

[Pellucid]

To us nowadays, yes, to many people, including those that owned slaves back then, no.
Pgymies have often been seen as non-human, whilst various great apes have been seen as human, as in the famous Queen Victoria quote.

This is patently absurd. You're conflating the concept of "white man's burden" with the concept of sentience. I've never seen a source that argued that black and aboriginal people weren't SENTIENT. Yes, there were plenty of bigots and racists more than happy to say that they were "subhuman," i.e. a "lesser" human, but not NON-human. It would be idiotic to argue that, considering that mixed-race babies exist and have existed for thousands of years.

There was plenty of real racism all throughout history. There's no need to invent new racism just to push the silly argument you made that equates non-thinking tools created by humans out of inanimate objectsthat we use to perform tasks with sentient, living, breathing humans who were terribly mistreated throughout history.

I don't see why we can't realistically depict ALL the bad parts of slavery. It should feel totally wrong to perform in-game to our modern sensibilities, and if we white-wash it or sanitize it, the game not only suffers mechanically but it makes us look like apologists.

 

[treb]

This is patently absurd. You're conflating the concept of "white man's burden" with the concept of sentience. I've never seen a source that argued that black and aboriginal people weren't SENTIENT. Yes, there were plenty of bigots and racists more than happy to say that they were "subhuman," i.e. a "lesser" human, but not NON-human. It would be idiotic to argue that, considering that mixed-race babies exist and have existed for thousands of years.

There was plenty of real racism all throughout history. There's no need to invent new racism just to push the silly argument you made that equates non-thinking tools created by humans out of inanimate objectsthat we use to perform tasks with sentient, living, breathing humans who were terribly mistreated throughout history.

I don't see why we can't realistically depict ALL the bad parts of slavery. It should feel totally wrong to perform in-game to our modern sensibilities, and if we white-wash it or sanitize it, the game not only suffers mechanically but it makes us look like apologists.

This is one thing that quite annoys me about modern "woke" progressives, their so hyper focused on making things "Safe" that they swing back round to ignorantly and inadvertently justifying covering up how horrific some aspects of history are to prevent offense...

 

[William the Merry]

This is patently absurd. You're conflating the concept of "white man's burden" with the concept of sentience.

white man's burden painted the colonised people as uncivilised and needing education it didnt deny their humanity.

I've never seen a source that argued that black and aboriginal people weren't SENTIENT. Yes, there were plenty of bigots and racists more than happy to say that they were "subhuman," i.e. a "lesser" human, but not NON-human.

African pgymies have been described as non human by their neighbours. Indonesian Pgymies may have been mistaken for an extinct related species by other islanders

It would be idiotic to argue that, considering that mixed-race babies exist and have existed for thousands of years.

Yes, they compared them to wolfdogs, ligers, and mules

There was plenty of real racism all throughout history. There's no need to invent new racism just to push the silly argument you made that equates non-thinking tools created by humans out of inanimate objectsthat we use to perform tasks with sentient, living, breathing humans who were terribly mistreated throughout history.

I'm not inventing new racism?

I don't see why we can't realistically depict ALL the bad parts of slavery. It should feel totally wrong to perform in-game to our modern sensibilities, and if we white-wash it or sanitize it, the game not only suffers mechanically but it makes us look like apologists.

I don't want any sanitisation of slavery in game either, dont worry. I just disagree with a "YOU TRADED IN SLAVES?!?!?!? +500% TECH COST" and "YOU SOLD YOUR NEIGHBOURS AS SLAVES TO EUROPEANS?!?!?! +50 UNREST TO OWN PROVINCES"

 

[Lindaegan]

This is one thing that quite annoys me about modern "woke" progressives, their so hyper focused on making things "Safe" that they swing back round to ignorantly and inadvertently justifying covering up how horrific some aspects of history are to prevent offense...

You know, maybe I just can't read - so could you tell me where exactly in that comment they were "ignorantly and inadvertently" attempting to justify this covering up? Because I just don't see it - I only see someone using using buzzwords to shut down conversation.

 

[Lightwell]

Why that instead of the slave purchase and migrations of IR?

Clean integration with the trade system, and I'm not even sure if IR has a slave purchasing system or supporting abstraction. I didn't play that game, and the wiki doesn't mention it.

Why does slavery make wealth accumulate at the top more than socities without slavery?

Two reasons:

• The people who would gain wealth from working on-the-ground jobs now have competition being brought in from abroad who work for absolutely no pay, and the ratio of slave managers to slaves is intentionally minimized, to the point that some don't even hire non-family members. Since slaves can't buy goods for themselves, internal consumption is minimized and services struggle to profit. For any given population in an area, the value of labor will be lower in areas with slaves, hurting the prospects of free workers.
• Because the profitability of a venture is no longer bound to immediate labor costs, and because slaves are essentially assets, you have a freestanding production center that can easily scale with only necessary inputs like land, driving up the value of land as bidders draw on ever-increasing capital reserves and financial pools to expand their holdings. What might've been a space that could support some 1,000 families quickly becomes a place that holds <40 legally-recognized entities, each able to derive full value from the land and sponsor workers in ridiculous numbers. The benefits of scale apply, and the benefits go to those few families, rather than being spread across the whole of an agrarian community. (And yes, this also applies to urban slaves if laws don't prevent the encroachment of the institution.)