Representation of the Institution of Slavery

[viola]

Is this all about some sort of free market fundamentalism?

If slavery was a rational economic choice and slavery is morally reprehensible that would would be an argument for market regulations.

But market regulations are wrong! So slavery must be a poor rational choice, this way my precious free markets can remain pure.

Also, the Free Market is the most perfect system that has ever existed and has also existed continuously since before mankind invented agriculture and domesticated animals and plants, but at the same time big corporations (who are the natural result of amassed wealth under a Free Market economy) is actually communism and we need the government to make anti-trust laws to break those communists apart.

The Free Market is perfect, except for that part where if you let it rock it promptly kills itself through corporate oligopolies arising, and you need the government to babysit it to keep it free.

 

[RisKFactoR]

Also, the Free Market is the most perfect system that has ever existed and has also existed continuously since before mankind invented agriculture and domesticated animals and plants, but at the same time big corporations (who are the natural result of amassed wealth under a Free Market economy) is actually communism and we need the government to make anti-trust laws to break those communists apart.

The Free Market is perfect, except for that part where if you let it rock it promptly kills itself through corporate oligopolies arising, and you need the government to babysit it to keep it free.

Now you ARE being a troll. Address the argument, and stay on topic.

 

[RisKFactoR]

Here is the post that has caused me to argue against you the most firmly. You advocated for making slavery in PC be an openly wrong choice, not one with some benefits and maluses, but one with short-term benefits and only maluses long-term (including reduced innovation and increased provincial development....when both of these seem counter indicated since the USA, one of the top slave-using nations was highly innovative and had a very high rate of infrastructure development during the period in which slaves were still held).

You've also advocated that competition between economic systems leads to some survival of the fitest model of changing how economies work when saying this has led us to "free markets" (which you don't understand and clearly are parroting things that are right-wing talking points). But, you're ignoring that for most of human history until states were powerful enough to impose an end to slavery on their country's residents, that free and open markets left slavery as an option and in some cases like high-value-added export crops like sugar (though not limited to sugar) that slavery was the primary means of production.

No. Free markets is a LIBERAL position. Monopolisitc and other top-down economics systems is a CONSERVATIVE position.

Slavery is a top-down economics system, in which a single landowner owns multiple slaves and dictates the terms of their individual lives. That is NOT a free market by ANY stretch of the imagination, nor is it a LIBERAL position by any means.

"Liberal" comes from the term "liberty." Please look at that text book definition. Slavery is the antonym of liberty.

Once again, you are only looking at it through rose-tinted glasses from the perspective of the rich. Those who were enslaved are ALSO humans, and you refuse to look at it from their perspective.

You are also not looking at it from the perspective of free citizens who are neither slaves nor slave-owners who have collectively and overwhelmingly opposed slavery for various reasons. Both morally and economically.

You've also ignored that most states being slavery agnostic and/or too uncentralized to enforce an end to slavery being the status quo for nearly the entire period PC covers 1337 - 1836. Your arguments are best taken to a Vicky 3 board since I tire of arguing with you over the same topic over and over and being called a liar when I assuredly have not lied. If you have misunderstood me, or simply failed to read my comments (which you have openly admitted more than once about both my comments and others), then that is not a failure of my lying but rather of your ignorance or laziness.

Nay, the opposite is true. You purposely misrepresented all of my posts, mainly because one troll earlier up thread was misdirecting and completely misconstruing the argument, and you and others just ran with it.

You dug up my OP and directly quoted it. I'm glad you did. You can either address what was written in that post and ignore all the previous nonsense, or you will not. Your choice.

I gave a few vague examples in that post of how maluses could potentially be applied, OVER TIME, and a reason why. It's becsuse slavery was NOT this overwhelmingly lucrative wealth-generating machine without any economic or social consequences whatsoever. And it's laughable that you and others went to such an extent to deny this.

To bring this back to discussing how slavery could/should exist in PC I'll simply say this would be my ideal model:

Some slaveries like Jannisaries and Mamlukes should actually be a class of citizenry with the ability to self-promote and advocate, despite technically being slaves. They did not live the lives most slaves have through human history, or during 1337 - 1836.

And I absolutely do not disagree with this position. It's just the connotations of the term "slavery," with the icon of a chain-and-ball, and mainly in west-African nations as used in EU4 is NOT the same thing as how the Ottomans and other civilizations have utilized that status / term.

In EU4, only one type of slavery (the western European / African / American triangular trade system of slavery) is the only type of slavery featured in the game, it doesn't model the negative consequences or growing unrest in either the slavery nations or the victim nations.

There certainly has been a HELL of a lot of unrest over the issue. Moral and economic outrage that led directly to several very bloody conflicts in the Western Hemisphere over it! The US Civil War, Haiti, Columbia, Venezuela, Brazil.... You name it.

It has ALSO been a big motivation for changing other nations' foreign policies over it. Slavery was so disgusting to the people of the UK, that they didn't want to side with the South - there were some with an interest in seeing the USA split in half as it was a growing naval and economic rival; but slavery was so abhorrent, that the UK stayed out.

I am telling you, slavery as an issue had growing and ongoing consequences over the course of hundreds of years. It was a build-up of so many different factors and aspects in economics and society.

The reason I kept harping on "LONG-TERM," is simply because none of this happened over night! It occurred slowly, over the course of decades, of centuries. Of many generations.

This is a game that covers 400 (now 500) years of human history. Nothing is completely static, and nothing SHOULD be static.

Traditional old world slavery and quasi-slaveries like serfdom (inability to legally migrate, responsible for some feudal dues to lord of the land they live on, despite technically being free otherwise) should probably be modelled one way with some degree of social mobility possible, especially by being soldiers. Slaves should be quicker to integrate to the culture they're living in, if doing so means they can become free (this is a typical thing with older forms of slavery)

New World trans-Atlantic slavery is a very specific thing though which really mostly exists only during the time period of PC (it dies out during Vicky, yes, but most of the time is during PC). Why did it exist? Generally it existed because a shortage of local labor existed in a remote location capable of producing a profitable export good. In addition to that shortage of local labor, the site of the production is remote from the source of free labor since it is in the colonies. Also in addition, a relatively cheap and plentiful supply of slaves must be available to meet this potential structure. This should be modelled much differently from traditional old world slavery to capture the true horror of it.

But, does capturing that horror mean it should be an openly wrong choice like slavery is in Stellaris? No. It doesn't seem to have inhibited the states which engaged in using slaves. It didn't damage the states in Europe themselves. The colony which used slavery among the most heavily in the Americas, the USA, was the global winner of becoming the most powerful state in the world as soon as the end of Vicky and throughout the HOI period. The USA didn't do this because it cast of slavery. It did this because it had a well-functioning state and infrastructure that was partially subsidized on the backs of slaves, lowering the implied cost of free immigrants to the portions of the USA that didn't allow slavery and increasing the wages of security-minded immigrants in parts that did allow slavery. The infrastructure, both physical and social, built with those slave-based subsidies didn't simply disappear with the end of slavery. It gave the USA a substantive headstart on most other new world countries which had either less slavery (like Mexico) or also too much slavery (like most Caribbean islands). The proof that the dropping of slavery wasn't what propelled the USA ahead is that other American ex-colonies didn't see a substantive boost to their state, societies, economies from emancipation.

If we make slavery have automatic and substantial long-term maluses, we're basically spitting on the contributions those unpaid slaves made to make America great the first time. America, for better or worse, proved you could have a large slave population well into the 19th Century and still thrive and dominate. We didn't fall behind on technology or have worse corruption. I mean, your complaints about "corporate communism" in the late 19th Century seem to be about corruption from oversized corporate power, perhaps well-modelled by corruption....and yet happening after slavery has ended.

Should there be long-term impacts? Absolutely. It should be hard to reintegrate former slave pops who are racially separate from the rest of the population. That could cause some level of long-term civil strife....but, only after those slave pops are freed.

Was it the most efficient system possible for maximizing human potential? Of course not, not even close. But, the real costs in terms of modelling in PC for those human potential losses are to be borne by the countries of origin, since they're losing the pops entirely, rather than the place of destination, who used them poorly and unethically, but still got something from their suffering that was tangible.

That is all I've been trying to argue for this entire time, a realistic modelling of how slavery worked, with pops since PC will have them, and yet we've been dragged badly off topic because you keep coming back to this strange idealization of free markets which didn't exist in modern form at any point from 1337 - 1836. I don't want slavery to be "all good" by any means. There should be costs. But, it shouldn't be mostly or only costs. If it was, states would have not chosen to do it in the first place since they competed with each other.

Again, I am no slavery apologist. I abhor slavery on multiple levels. It is a thing which worsens global economic potential, even if individual states have often benefitted from it over history. It degrades labor in general, weakening its negotiating power in favor of those at the top monetarily, which I oppose, the powerful have enough power, we should not make it more so by choice. It degrades humanity as a whole if some humans do not have even basic rights. If any person is subject to being property, actual human capital as opposed to analogical human capital, everyone's freedom is diminished a bit. None of that means we shouldn't model slavery in the time period PC covers in a way which will lead to at least reasonably historical outcomes. If players want to decline having slavery as Portugal for example, this should be possible. But, I'd think it should lead to substantively lower colony growth rates since you won't be able to buy-and-move pops like you can with slaves (I'm assuming it'll work somewhat like in I:R). If you can figure out how to make that work, great. If you don't care about not maximizing power and accept generating less of the valuable trade goods slavery provided colonial powers, also great. GSG should have choices. GSG which aim to model history should have choices but also try to get historically plausible outcomes. If you make slavery have maluses for the colonial powers themselves, you'll get ahistorical outcomes. Sadly, this won't lead to massively increased human potential allowing skipping Vicky and HOI and skipping straight to Stellaris.......Paradox games don't work that way. I mean, I'm sure many players might want to skip Vicky 3 these days, so, perhaps for some that is too bad.

I'm going to stop replying to comments which attack me, so, there is limited point to it unless it makes you feel better. If you wish to discuss how slaves can be modelled in PC, I'm game to persist in discussion though.

If you are genuinely left-leaning, I hope you do some more reading on economics and realize that free markets are not a panacea. I'd strongly encourage you to read almost anything by Thomas Piketty for example. Open markets with substantive regulations put in place by democratically elected governments are vastly superior to laissez-faire free markets (which are a right-wing push, not a left-wing one) both quantifiably in performance for middle classes, and ethically as well in my opinion.

 

[Superdark33]

This thread is a garbage fire i hope somebody brings up victoria 3 to make it somehow less toxic

 

[viola]

Now you ARE being a troll. Address the argument, and stay on topic.

With all the extraneous stuff added to the argument, I don't even know what the argument is anymore.

If it's about specific maluses to give the triangular trade so that it's not just a source of cash for colonial states, I've been thinking a little about it.
The problem is that we play as the rulers and ruling class of a state. We're going to interact with the Atlantic slave trade as either colonial powers or West African kingdoms. If the maluses while playing as an African kingdom are pretty easy to come up with (by selling your pops and the pops of your enemies captured in wars you get cash and technology, at the cost of robbing yourself of another valuable thing, the pops themselves), for the Europeans this is less easy because all the nasty things that were caused by slavery in the Americas were never really something the European elites ever suffered for. It messed up the social and economic system of the colonies, but the colonial powers only cared about exploiting those places anyway so it's hardly their problem, and this also costed a massive amount in human suffering, which is also something the ruling classes are callous for everywhere in the world, let alone when you exercise that cruelty on faraway foreigners in a domain that is separated by a whole ocean from your core heartland. The colonial powers get cotton and sugar in exchange for selling third grade goods to African kingdoms and keeping their colonies weak and dependent on their masters, and that's all they care for.

So, I guess we have to come up with maluses outside of the regular economic trade and production. Historically this was profitable for the Europeans, and in some way I feel the game should entice you into taking part to the slave trade because it should be profitable even if fundamentally very evil. After an European country has started engaging in what looked like a simple profitable trade, you start hitting them with events that put thing into context and are based on real historical events: like the fact that the slave trade was never silently accepted even in Europe, and the clergy looked negatively on it even if they couldn't do much to stop it or regulate, so let's have events that harm the relations with the clergy and explain how slavery and its evils have caused an internal debate in society. Then let's also add the issue of potential slave revolts caused by the terrible working conditions of the plantations, that would force European countries to start garrisoning their colonies more in order to keep dissent and revolts under control, and also more chances for the game to contextualize and explain the realities of the historical Atlantic slave trade.

Realistically, this should also be the kind of issue that a nation can't just fix by abolishing slavery and call it a day, because if I recall correctly there were attempts at reducing or regulating the slave trade even much before the late 18th century, but it was always too hard for the colonial nations to concretely apply any of their laws, so any attempt at abolishing the slave trade before early industrialism should run into the real issues that made the slave trade so hard to eradicate: there are many economic interests that want to keep the slave trade going, and someone also has to physically stop the slave traders going around the Atlantic, and only the British Navy was able to do that historically, well into the 19th century.

 

[Napoleon1971]

This thread is a garbage fire i hope somebody brings up victoria 3 to make it somehow less toxic

Are you sure we can't just argue about whether its OK to call the later Roman Empire any of the following:

Byzantium

Eastern Roman Empire

Basileum Rhomeoi

Roman Empire

Certainly that is less of a dumpster fire too, even if it will bring out the anti and pro Rome factions, which is never pretty.

 

[William the Merry]

New World trans-Atlantic slavery is a very specific thing though which really mostly exists only during the time period of PC (it dies out during Vicky, yes, but most of the time is during PC). Why did it exist? Generally it existed because a shortage of local labor existed in a remote location capable of producing a profitable export good. In addition to that shortage of local labor, the site of the production is remote from the source of free labor since it is in the colonies. Also in addition, a relatively cheap and plentiful supply of slaves must be available to meet this potential structure. This should be modelled much differently from traditional old world slavery to capture the true horror of it.

Why should there be a substantial difference between Africans shipped to New World and previous models of slavery.

Africans shipped from SSA to North Africa then onwards, Africans shipped from SSA to Horn Africa then onwards, East Africans shipped to Indian Ocean Litorral then onwards, Barbary pirates capturing Mediterranean Christians, Knights Hospitaller capturing Mediterranean Muslims, Tatars raiding various Slavic and Caucasian peoples, Tatars raiding one another, Muslims capturing various Indians to sell onwards, all these and more were slave trades irl that would use similar models and factors.
Putting people into a completely different climate to usual will increase their mortality; as will long trade distances due to the merchants skimping out on food to maximise profits, whether crossing the Atlantic, the Sahara, or the Med. Slaves castrated prior to selling or shipping will also increase mortality due to chance of infection

 

[RisKFactoR]

With all the extraneous stuff added to the argument, I don't even know what the argument is anymore.

If it's about specific maluses to give the triangular trade so that it's not just a source of cash for colonial states, I've been thinking a little about it.
The problem is that we play as the rulers and ruling class of a state. We're going to interact with the Atlantic slave trade as either colonial powers or West African kingdoms. If the maluses while playing as an African kingdom are pretty easy to come up with (by selling your pops and the pops of your enemies captured in wars you get cash and technology, at the cost of robbing yourself of another valuable thing, the pops themselves), for the Europeans this is less easy because all the nasty things that were caused by slavery in the Americas were never really something the European elites ever suffered for. It messed up the social and economic system of the colonies, but the colonial powers only cared about exploiting those places anyway so it's hardly their problem, and this also costed a massive amount in human suffering, which is also something the ruling classes are callous for everywhere in the world, let alone when you exercise that cruelty on faraway foreigners in a domain that is separated by a whole ocean from your core heartland. The colonial powers get cotton and sugar in exchange for selling third grade goods to African kingdoms and keeping their colonies weak and dependent on their masters, and that's all they care for.

I'm not completely finished replying to Napolean's last post. I was trying to edit and save, edit and save that post I am replying to him.

I don't have time ATM to completely rey to this post. But one thing I would like to point out:

Yes. You ARE ruling a nation as part of the ruling class. That does NOT mean that you shouldn't suffer consequences for decisions that anger a whole lot of your own citizens. Just ask Marie Antoinette and and Nicholas II and his entire family.

Revolutions do not occur in a vacuum. If there is an ongoing issue that's making people angry over time, there is rage bubbling just under the surface. Building up and building up. That's what the "Unrest" feature in all of PDX games is about. Even Millennia has an "unrest" feature in which many different things can affect it.

If you, as the state ruler, do not deal with growing unrest and just ignore it while living your happy little life, you may find your neck under the shape blade of a guillotine.

The British people were not happy about the idea of chattel slavery. Parliament DID do something about it, which had a POSITIVE social consequence to the nation by instilling a stronger sense of pride among the general population. It felt good to them to snub an American and sarcastically call it "that peculiar institution." That pride rightfully manifested itself in the form a stronger patriotism towards their flag, king, country, and parliament.

So, I guess we have to come up with maluses outside of the regular economic trade and production. Historically this was profitable for the Europeans, and in some way I feel the game should entice you into taking part to the slave trade because it should be profitable even if fundamentally very evil. After an European country has started engaging in what looked like a simple profitable trade, you start hitting them with events that put thing into context and are based on real historical events: like the fact that the slave trade was never silently accepted even in Europe, and the clergy looked negatively on it even if they couldn't do much to stop it or regulate, so let's have events that harm the relations with the clergy and explain how slavery and its evils have caused an internal debate in society. Then let's also add the issue of potential slave revolts caused by the terrible working conditions of the plantations, that would force European countries to start garrisoning their colonies more in order to keep dissent and revolts under control, and also more chances for the game to contextualize and explain the realities of the historical Atlantic slave trade.

Realistically, this should also be the kind of issue that a nation can't just fix by abolishing slavery and call it a day, because if I recall correctly there were attempts at reducing or regulating the slave trade even much before the late 18th century, but it was always too hard for the colonial nations to concretely apply any of their laws, so any attempt at abolishing the slave trade before early industrialism should run into the real issues that made the slave trade so hard to eradicate: there are many economic interests that want to keep the slave trade going, and someone also has to physically stop the slave traders going around the Atlantic, and only the British Navy was able to do that historically, well into the 19th century.

 

[William the Merry]

With all the extraneous stuff added to the argument, I don't even know what the argument is anymore.

If it's about specific maluses to give the triangular trade so that it's not just a source of cash for colonial states, I've been thinking a little about it.
The problem is that we play as the rulers and ruling class of a state. We're going to interact with the Atlantic slave trade as either colonial powers or West African kingdoms. If the maluses while playing as an African kingdom are pretty easy to come up with (by selling your pops and the pops of your enemies captured in wars you get cash and technology, at the cost of robbing yourself of another valuable thing, the pops themselves), for the Europeans this is less easy because all the nasty things that were caused by slavery in the Americas were never really something the European elites ever suffered for. It messed up the social and economic system of the colonies, but the colonial powers only cared about exploiting those places anyway so it's hardly their problem, and this also costed a massive amount in human suffering, which is also something the ruling classes are callous for everywhere in the world, let alone when you exercise that cruelty on faraway foreigners in a domain that is separated by a whole ocean from your core heartland. The colonial powers get cotton and sugar in exchange for selling third grade goods to African kingdoms and keeping their colonies weak and dependent on their masters, and that's all they care for.

Not always third grade, when slaves are bought with Indian cotton prior to widespread cotton plantations in the America, its very much luxury goods. Not only did Europeans need to outbid one another to buy slaves, they also had to outbid traditional buyers like Arabs that might have indian cottons to sell

So, I guess we have to come up with maluses outside of the regular economic trade and production. Historically this was profitable for the Europeans, and in some way I feel the game should entice you into taking part to the slave trade because it should be profitable even if fundamentally very evil. After an European country has started engaging in what looked like a simple profitable trade, you start hitting them with events that put thing into context and are based on real historical events: like the fact that the slave trade was never silently accepted even in Europe, and the clergy looked negatively on it even if they couldn't do much to stop it or regulate, so let's have events that harm the relations with the clergy and explain how slavery and its evils have caused an internal debate in society.

There wasnt blanket acceptance or rejection by the clergy of various states, although the estates system only works for an estate to act as monolith, so a straight +5 or -5 to estate loyalty for slave trading might not make sense. Modelling De Casas wanting an end to Native slavery and advocating for African slavery in its place will be interesting, as would events regarding the Curse of Ham.
Internal debate within a kingdom over slavery also shouldn't reach the point it causes a civil war, considering how little public outcry it caused among the non slave population in Early Modern Europe

Then let's also add the issue of potential slave revolts caused by the terrible working conditions of the plantations, that would force European countries to start garrisoning their colonies more in order to keep dissent and revolts under control, and also more chances for the game to contextualize and explain the realities of the historical Atlantic slave trade.

If the colonies are their own tag theyll be garrisoned by the tag, just like current carribean colonies in eu4. PC might have armies not always on map tho, so relying on just militias to put down slave revolts might be doable early game whilst their population is low

Realistically, this should also be the kind of issue that a nation can't just fix by abolishing slavery and call it a day, because if I recall correctly there were attempts at reducing or regulating the slave trade even much before the late 18th century, but it was always too hard for the colonial nations to concretely apply any of their laws, so any attempt at abolishing the slave trade before early industrialism should run into the real issues that made the slave trade so hard to eradicate: there are many economic interests that want to keep the slave trade going, and someone also has to physically stop the slave traders going around the Atlantic, and only the British Navy was able to do that historically, well into the 19th century.

Beginning of 19th. If stuff like the Imperialism CB is removed to reduce blobbing, anti slavery patrols could be a new cb to gain influence in a market or region

 

[ShadowGamerXXX]

Did I ever say that the free market was above the law?
A NO!

AGAIN! Purposely misrepresenting my argument. I have no idea why you people continue to do so.

But yeah. That information about consumption patterns. Again. For the second time today already;

They get that information from....you guessed it....a FREE MARKET operating in a FREE SOCIETY of relatively autonomous FREE CITIZENS making INDIVIDUAL CHOICES!

In a top-down repressive form of government with a top-down oppressive form of economics, the government could never collect the information of what a bunch of serfs and/or slaves would actually need or want, nor when they need or want it. You ONLY get accurate information from a collection of free citizens freely making choices of what they need and want in their own personal individual lives.

BEFORE THE COMPANIES PLACED IN THEIR TERMS AND CONDITIONS THAT YOU GIVE UP YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION FOR COLLECTION AND SALE, THEY WERE ALREADY SELLING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION WHICH WAS ILLEGAL IN ALL CURRENT LEGAL CODES, BUT HOW THEY SOLD IT TO THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT THEY GOT LEGAL PROTECTION AND SUBSIDIES FROM THIS, BASICALLY IT WAS A MONOPOLY CREATED BY A GOVERNMENT.

I hope you can read it now, I think you have gone blind.

 

[William the Merry]

No. Free markets is a LIBERAL position. Monopolisitc and other top-down economics systems is a CONSERVATIVE position.

Slavery is a top-down economics system, in which a single landowner owns multiple slaves and dictates the terms of their individual lives. That is NOT a free market by ANY stretch of the imagination, nor is it a LIBERAL position by any means.

"Liberal" comes from the term "liberty." Please look at that text book definition. Slavery is the antonym of liberty.

You can look at examples of the early US, France, and Spanish Americas where subjects wished to become citizens with full liberties, yet still wanted to keep slaves and thought this was fully consistent.
Free (cognate with liberty) trade can also help the slave trade, as if anyone can sell slaves to anyone, rather than certain states as the Asiento de Negros decreed, you can sell slaves to more countries

Once again, you are only looking at it through rose-tinted glasses from the perspective of the rich. Those who were enslaved are ALSO humans, and you refuse to look at it from their perspective.

You are also not looking at it from the perspective of free citizens who are neither slaves nor slave-owners who have collectively and overwhelmingly opposed slavery for various reasons. Both morally and economically.

If slaves were owned by such a small portion of the population, and the non slave owning population overwhelmingly opposed slavery, its weird that slavery could exist for so long, unless the truth is that most people of the time period didnt care about it, just as few cared about politics due to being subsistence farmers.

And I absolutely do not disagree with this position. It's just the connotations of the term "slavery," with the icon of a chain-and-ball, and mainly in west-African nations as used in EU4 is NOT the same thing as how the Ottomans and other civilizations have utilized that status / term.

In EU4, only one type of slavery (the western European / African / American triangular trade system of slavery) is the only type of slavery featured in the game, it doesn't model the negative consequences or growing unrest in either the slavery nations or the victim nations.

How lax do you think the Ottomans treated their slaves in mines, plantations and the like?

There certainly has been a HELL of a lot of unrest over the issue. Moral and economic outrage that led directly to several very bloody conflicts in the Western Hemisphere over it! The US Civil War, Haiti, Columbia, Venezuela, Brazil.... You name it.

What bloody conflicts were there in Columbia, Venezuela, and Brazil over slavery within the expected PC timeline, other than slave revolts?

It has ALSO been a big motivation for changing other nations' foreign policies over it. Slavery was so disgusting to the people of the UK, that they didn't want to side with the South - there were some with an interest in seeing the USA split in half as it was a growing naval and economic rival; but slavery was so abhorrent, that the UK stayed out.

Russia and Prussia threatening to intervene if Britain joined, just ten years after the Crimean War was also a large factor.

 

[Napoleon1971]

No. Free markets is a LIBERAL position. Monopolisitc and other top-down economics systems is a CONSERVATIVE position.

Slavery is a top-down economics system, in which a single landowner owns multiple slaves and dictates the terms of their individual lives. That is NOT a free market by ANY stretch of the imagination, nor is it a LIBERAL position by any means.

"Liberal" comes from the term "liberty." Please look at that text book definition. Slavery is the antonym of liberty.

Once again, you are only looking at it through rose-tinted glasses from the perspective of the rich. Those who were enslaved are ALSO humans, and you refuse to look at it from their perspective.

You are also not looking at it from the perspective of free citizens who are neither slaves nor slave-owners who have collectively and overwhelmingly opposed slavery for various reasons. Both morally and economically.

Free markets is only a liberal position by what liberal meant in the 18th and early 19th Century. This meant letting the bourgeoise do whatever they liked without interference from the crown/state or aristocrats. It also called for abolishing aristocratic privileges. This is not how the word liberal is used today, except for classical liberals, who are usually called libertarian (if people are polite anyhow). Libertarian parties are aligned with the right in all developed countries I know the politics of. This includes the majority of the developed world. I will concede I don't know the politics of Japan, eastern Europe, and the like. But, I suspect if they have libertarian parties at all, they're right-wing, not left-wing.

Slavery is a symptom of government indifference and an excess of private power at the same time (aka liberty of the wealthy).

I am not the one looking at things through rose colored glasses for the rich when discussing real world impacts. If we're discussing in-game impacts between 1337 and 1836, a time when things like unions were illegal because they interfered with "liberal" ideas of how an economy should work, I think we can scarcely say that working peoples had even the protections which current workers do in the USA, which are still quite insufficient in my opinion. But, the only thing which will bring them is either mass unionization (unlikely in USA) or government through regulation, which is an imposition on free markets by definition.

Non-slave-owning freemen in the southern USA were hardly overwhelmingly opposed to slavery. Despite their weak economic prospects, the fact that they had someone to feel "above on the totem pole" made them build an identity around supporting slavery because that is how they felt OK about themselves. The proof is in the pudding, when the US Civil War broke out, the vast majority of the rebel armies were made up of non-slaveowners. The parts of the south which didn't help much (Eastern Tennessee for example) generally had low slave populations to start with and were as skeptical of their state capitol as they were of Washington DC.

Nay, the opposite is true. You purposely misrepresented all of my posts, mainly because one troll earlier up thread was misdirecting and completely misconstruing the argument, and you and others just ran with it.

You dug up my OP and directly quoted it. I'm glad you did. You can either address what was written in that post and ignore all the previous nonsense, or you will not. Your choice.

I gave a few vague examples in that post of how maluses could potentially be applied, OVER TIME, and a reason why. It's becsuse slavery was NOT this overwhelmingly lucrative wealth-generating machine without any economic or social consequences whatsoever. And it's laughable that you and others went to such an extent to deny this.

For those who owned the plantations (or after the slave trade with Africa was cut off, those who bred slaves in Maryland and Virginia for sale down the river), slavery WAS an overwhelmingly profitable activity. If it wasn't profitable, it wouldn't have been able to crowd out free labor that was available by the early 19th Century (late for PC, but still relevant).

Were there consequences? Absolutely. Most of the ones felt between 1337 and 1836 were borne by the states which lost pops to slavery. The biggest cost in the long run fell 25 years into Victoria in Paradox timeline concerns (US Civil War). We should have the potential for a slaver rebellion to happen if slavery is at threat of being abolished. But, that seems to be the opposite of the direction you're aiming your suggestions.

Slave rebellions should be possible if there are too many slave pops compared to soldier pops perhaps. But, Haiti is the only successful one ever, and even Haiti's freed by force citizenry had to pay for their freedom per a treaty enforced on them by Charles X of France (with the tacit support of the UK, since many Britons owned portions of Haiti's slave plantations as well. Since this only occurred once and slavery was quite harsh on Caribbean islands, perhaps there should be a chance for it to happen it conditions get bad enough, and the European metropole can't send more troops (Haiti rebelled during the Napoleonic wars and the UK blocked most French troop reinforcements from arriving excepting during the brief Peace of Amiens).

I'm fine with slavery having some maluses associated with it. But, corruption ala EU4 seems entirely wrong because slavery didn't impact everything negatively like corruption does. Slavery very clearly did create long-term problems the USA is still facing today of course, since the descendants of slaves are still poorly integrated into US society (less opportunity, much higher rates of incarceration, open racism from the descendants of white folks in slave states, etc, etc). Since slavery was widespread in the Americas due to the specific context of the time -- highly profitable trade goods with far too little labor, especially after natives who could have been enslaved/exploited died of diseases or fled -- we should make sure the game models this and makes most countries choose slavery for American colonies, but still with the player having a choice to reject this.

And I absolutely do not disagree with this position. It's just the connotations of the term "slavery," with the icon of a chain-and-ball, and mainly in west-African nations as used in EU4 is NOT the same thing as how the Ottomans and other civilizations have utilized that status / term.

In EU4, only one type of slavery (the western European / African / American triangular trade system of slavery) is the only type of slavery featured in the game, it doesn't model the negative consequences or growing unrest in either the slavery nations or the victim nations.

There certainly has been a HELL of a lot of unrest over the issue. Moral and economic outrage that led directly to several very bloody conflicts in the Western Hemisphere over it! The US Civil War, Haiti, Columbia, Venezuela, Brazil.... You name it.

It has ALSO been a big motivation for changing other nations' foreign policies over it. Slavery was so disgusting to the people of the UK, that they didn't want to side with the South - there were some with an interest in seeing the USA split in half as it was a growing naval and economic rival; but slavery was so abhorrent, that the UK stayed out.

The UK stayed out in part due to a dislike of slavery among the voting population. But, importantly, they also stayed out because there was a genuine concern that the USA would invade Canada successfully and there was little stomach for a real war so soon after the Crimean War against Russia. And, while the US was distracted with the CSA, UK, France, and Spain successfully invaded Mexico to impose their "liberal" demands on the Mexicans that they actually pay off their debts to European bourgeoise. An Austrian Archduke was propped up as Emperor of Mexico for an extended run to do this. Not surprisingly, after the USA beat the CSA, this Archduke found himself before a firing squad only about 2 years later.

Interestingly, autocratic Prussia was the only state to send substantive military observers to the USA's army during the US Civil War (UK and France sent observers to CSA army). They learned a lot of neat tricks that helped them dominate Europe and unite Germany over both Austria and France's....well armies to be quite blunt (they also beat Denmark's senseless during the US Civil War to set up the trap for their future war with Austria).

So, the open sympathies of the governments of the more "liberal" European states were with the slavers due to the economic interests of their own bourgeoise and the openly autocratic Prussians had stronger sympathies with the anti-slave USA. Russia, also deeply autocratic, negotiated to sell us Alaska during the war and it was finished after the war was over to insure that the UK wouldn't occupy it while the USA was busy finishing up its own business.

Its pretty clear that liberal and conservative meant little to slavery even as late as 1860, which is deep into Victoria and not particularly relevant to PC. But, if it wasn't a clean thing in 1860, it certainly wasn't even in the closing date of 1836.

I am telling you, slavery as an issue had growing and ongoing consequences over the course of hundreds of years. It was a build-up of so many different factors and aspects in economics and society.

The reason I kept harping on "LONG-TERM," is simply because none of this happened over night! It occurred slowly, over the course of decades, of centuries. Of many generations.

This is a game that covers 400 (now 500) years of human history. Nothing is completely static, and nothing SHOULD be static.

I'm fine with some maluses showing up very late in the timeframe of PC. But, the biggest malus (a slaver-inspired civil war) should be reserved for if you abolish slavery after its been established and profitable for a long time. The length and profitability could easily be set to impact the strength of the rebellion, functionally locking some states with low centralization into being stuck as slavers.

Again, I'm not arguing for slavery to be a universal good for the states which have it. But, I believe the vast majority of the costs borne between 1337 - 1836 were borne by the African states which lost pops to being sold into slavery. This is easily modelled.

I don't disagree with you that there are massive long-term costs associated with the trans-Atlantic slave trade. We're still paying them. Those don't really fall prior to 1836, so I don't think they should be modelled in this game.

Some of your ideas might make a fine addition to Victoria 3, which I will concede I have not played, so I can not make suggestions about how to do them there.

I'd rather not wander back into a deep discussion of liberal/conservative and the like. But, you should be aware that claiming to be liberal and talking about the greatness of free markets at the same time is likely to confuse the fuck out of people in the 21st Century. This is not the language of 21st Century liberals, even if it is the language of 19th Century liberals. They're not the same thing. 19th Century liberals were seeking the overthrow of aristocratic privilege and the entire system that keep bourgeoise "in their place" even if they had more money. 21st Century liberals have a much more nebulous agenda...but in the USA at least it seems its heavily centered on preserving the New Deal and expanding individual freedoms, while occasionally trying to add a new social benefit which Europeans have had for decades (or longer).

Again, if you consider yourself a 21st century liberal economically, I encourage you to read Thomas Piketty, Joe Stiglitz, Robert Reich, and Paul Krugman.

If you consider yourself leftist non-socialist economist, I'd add MMT proponents like Stephanie Kelton and James Galbraith (not his father John Galbraith who was a solid post-Keynesian).

Feel free to read any of the Keynesian economists as well as they're considered more left-leaning these days compared to Austrian or Chicago school folks like Mises and Friedman who are cleanly right-wing.

 

[Napoleon1971]

Why should there be a substantial difference between Africans shipped to New World and previous models of slavery.

Africans shipped from SSA to North Africa then onwards, Africans shipped from SSA to Horn Africa then onwards, East Africans shipped to Indian Ocean Litorral then onwards, Barbary pirates capturing Mediterranean Christians, Knights Hospitaller capturing Mediterranean Muslims, Tatars raiding various Slavic and Caucasian peoples, Tatars raiding one another, Muslims capturing various Indians to sell onwards, all these and more were slave trades irl that would use similar models and factors.
Putting people into a completely different climate to usual will increase their mortality; as will long trade distances due to the merchants skimping out on food to maximise profits, whether crossing the Atlantic, the Sahara, or the Med. Slaves castrated prior to selling or shipping will also increase mortality due to chance of infection

Most of the slaveries prior to the trans-Atlantic slave trade were partially about getting "free labor" and partially about "faster integration of these people's into our society -- they have to do what we want there or they stay slaves".

Almost all of your examples above involve Islam. So, while occasionally circumvented, it is illegal to keep another Muslim as a slave and many states did enforce this rule. So, to become free, all you had to do was become Muslim. Thats a pretty solid method of integration since many Muslims learned Arabic back then as well.

I'd argue that is fundamentally different from shipping a group of people to a place where their race did not previous exist and only basically exists now as slaves for the purpose of them being a perpetual slave labor class. Perhaps not all American states had this model of slavery. But, the US model was definitely this model after Bacon's rebellion and the passing of the Virginia Codes.

Its an openly worse model of slavery (which is an accomplishment) and deserves to be modelled more accurately so that people can have a true appreciation its special horrors.

 

[William the Merry]

Most of the slaveries prior to the trans-Atlantic slave trade were partially about getting "free labor" and partially about "faster integration of these people's into our society -- they have to do what we want there or they stay slaves".

What? I certainly agree with the former, but the latter makes no sense when its people your realm never comes to rule

Almost all of your examples above involve Islam. So, while occasionally circumvented, it is illegal to keep another Muslim as a slave and many states did enforce this rule. So, to become free, all you had to do was become Muslim. Thats a pretty solid method of integration since many Muslims learned Arabic back then as well.

If that was all that was required, do you not think the slave markets would constantly have the shahada being recited, all day, and all night, if that was all it took to be freed? Slave traders are corrupt enough to start taking the king's own subjects as slaves rather than just his enemies, but will ignore someone professing to be a muslim? How much more integrated will the person be if they can speak some arabic in a turkish or berber area? They'll still stick out like a sore thumb, live in an alien culture, and have little money and no land to their name

I'd argue that is fundamentally different from shipping a group of people to a place where their race did not previous exist and only basically exists now as slaves for the purpose of them being a perpetual slave labor class. Perhaps not all American states had this model of slavery. But, the US model was definitely this model after Bacon's rebellion and the passing of the Virginia Codes.

There would have been a very small number of sub saharans across the Southern Med and going East prior to slaves, but if the vast majority arrive as slaves, there is no meaningful difference in them existing where the race did not previously exist. The same with slavs being shipped across the Med or traded further across the Steppe, or Turkic groups into Egypt. Greeks being shipped from one side of the Aegean Sea to the other, would be the only exception.

Its an openly worse model of slavery (which is an accomplishment) and deserves to be modelled more accurately so that people can have a true appreciation its special horrors.

The status of slave being hereditary or not, slaves being castrated, the child of a slave mother and free father being free or not, who can own slaves, what groups can be treated as slaves, whether freed slaves are given land or not, whether freed slaves are deported or not, all these and more are things that should be modelled, rather than just "is trading slave to colonial region:US=yes"

Edit: if pretending to be a muslim was enough to be freed, during the months it took to get from slave source to slave market, might people not imitate a few islamic customs? Not to mention the first few years of service?

 

[RisKFactoR]

Is this all about some sort of free market fundamentalism?

If slavery was a rational economic choice and slavery is morally reprehensible that would would be an argument for market regulations.

But market regulations are wrong! So slavery must be a poor rational choice, this way my precious free markets can remain pure.

I'm SOOOOO glad you are defining lasseiz-faire capitalism and misconstruing it with the term "free market." *Eye roll.*

 

[Napoleon1971]

What? I certainly agree with the former, but the latter makes no sense when its people your realm never comes to rule

Its how slavery fundamentally worked in many cases throughout human history. Peoples were captured in war and if they assimilated heavily to the dominant culture, they were likely to be eventually freed. Yes, of course this wasn't some perfect panacea since slavery is a terrible institution. But, it is how much slavery worked. Black African slaves rarely found this to work for them whether they went to the Americas or elsewhere in the old world. I'm not sure how to handle that. But if an Indian resident was taken to Persia or Arabia, they had better chances of escaping slavery than a serf did of advancing from serfdom in Europe, despite the latter being free.

Slavery shouldn't be great. But, assimilation was something which occurred. If slaves didn't pick up the culture and language of their owner-oppressors, they had zero chance for anything.

Social mobility in general was shit for much of the 1337 - 1836 period.

If that was all that was required, do you not think the slave markets would constantly have the shahada being recited, all day, and all night, if that was all it took to be freed? Slave traders are corrupt enough to start taking the king's own subjects as slaves rather than just his enemies, but will ignore someone professing to be a muslim? How much more integrated will the person be if they can speak some arabic in a turkish or berber area? They'll still stick out like a sore thumb, live in an alien culture, and have little money and no land to their name

I'll see if I can find a source I read a few years ago about this. The slaves in question had to learn that this was how things worked. They also had to be able to do it publicly before being sequestered off out of public view, or have the good luck of having an "honorable owner" who would follow the dictate of their own religion.

There would have been a very small number of sub saharans across the Southern Med and going East prior to slaves, but if the vast majority arrive as slaves, there is no meaningful difference in them existing where the race did not previously exist. The same with slavs being shipped across the Med or traded further across the Steppe, or Turkic groups into Egypt. Greeks being shipped from one side of the Aegean Sea to the other, would be the only exception.

The status of slave being hereditary or not, slaves being castrated, the child of a slave mother and free father being free or not, who can own slaves, what groups can be treated as slaves, whether freed slaves are given land or not, whether freed slaves are deported or not, all these and more are things that should be modelled, rather than just "is trading slave to colonial region:US=yes"

Yes, I'm not sure I'd limit it to colonial regions persay. Perhaps I'd make the form of slavery pickable by the country/player in question. But, the trans-Atlantic slave trade in practice was openly worse than other older slave traditions precisely because it was designed to be perpetual. Castration and the like could easily be modelled by having one of the choices with slavery being a check box of "disallow reproduction" like Stellaris does.

Edit: if pretending to be a muslim was enough to be freed, during the months it took to get from slave source to slave market, might people not imitate a few islamic customs? Not to mention the first few years of service?

Slaves had to know fairly quickly. Once sequestered on their owner's property they were at their owner's mercy as I said above.

Yes, all slaveries are bad. The trans-Atlantic one was openly worse than prior traditions. It shouldn't be shocking that moving peoples where virtually no freed person of that race/color had ever been ends up worse than places where people had traditionally migrated across as merchants/traders.

I mean, its not within the scope of PC since its in CK period, but, we know for a fact as we dig up various Viking burials that many of the Vikings were not Norse. There is a particularly famous one found in the late 19th Century which was simply assumed to be "a short Norse guy" buried and relatively recent DNA tests showed they not only weren't Norse, but Persiaic, but also a woman. The person in question wasn't some servant, they were clearly a Viking raider based on the burial. Assimilation is a thing with older forms of slavery. I'd be nice to model the better chance of this compared to the trans-Atlantic model which had nigh-zero chance for integration post assimilation (which still happened on language and religion).

 

[Revshawn]

Here's what I want to know.

Let's say you take over territory as the Byzantines or Ottomans.

It was *very* customary to take slaves after a victorious military campaign. They did it all the time and there were many reasons for doing so. Slavery was a very big economic reason to fight wars in that sense and at one point, one fifth of the population within Constantinople were Greek slaves. So my question is how much of the population will you be able to enslave once you take over a big population center like that? Is that something you will be able to control and how will Project Tinto handle it? It doesn't fit in EUIV because EUIV doesn't model population numbers. But if Project Tinto avoids the subject, it'll be a major missing feature of the times.

Gonna be interesting!

 

[William the Merry]

Here's what I want to know.

Let's say you take over territory as the Byzantines or Ottomans.

It was *very* customary to take slaves after a victorious military campaign. They did it all the time and there were many reasons for doing so. Slavery was a very big economic reason to fight wars in that sense and at one point, one fifth of the population within Constantinople were Greek slaves. So my question is how much of the population will you be able to enslave once you take over a big population center like that? Is that something you will be able to control and how will Project Tinto handle it? It doesn't fit in EUIV because EUIV doesn't model population numbers. But if Project Tinto avoids the subject, it'll be a major missing feature of the times.

Gonna be interesting!

IR lets you be more bloody with a sack if you control it, and so you take more slaves and gold

 

[Napoleon1971]

I'm SOOOOO glad you are defining lasseiz-faire capitalism and misconstruing it with the term "free market." *Eye roll.*

"Fully free market" in modern economic speak is pressing for laissez-faire policies (except of course for leaving security of property to the government -- a truly fully free market would have security market based as well).

You're talking about open markets with free participants who all have equal access to markets and even information about markets. That is often called "open markets" in the 21st Century.

 

[RisKFactoR]

"Fully free market" in modern economic speak is pressing for laissez-faire policies (except of course for leaving security of property to the government -- a truly fully free market would have security market based as well).

You're talking about open markets with free participants who all have equal access to markets and even information about markets. That is often called "open markets" in the 21st Century.

I never said "fully free market" in the sense of government non-regulation. I'm talking about "fully-free markets" with fair trading practices. Unfortunately, the larger an actor, the more ruthless they become.

I gave one example:

The robber barons of the 1880s. In particular, the railroaders.

A local restaurant has been around for decades, owned by some old mom and pop. The railroad comes to town, which benefits said restaurant. Until it doesn't, as the railroader decides they will open their own restaurant right next door. Seeing as they have such a huge flow of cash behind them, they can afford to break the local free market economy by purposely dropping prices to rock-bottom and purposely lose money in the venture just to put the mom-and-pop out of business. Just because. The railroad monopoly doesn't NEED a restaurant. It isn't going to really affect their bottom line. They could just easily shut down that restaurant a week after they put the mom and pop out of business. They could decide the entire venture wasn't really worth their time and effort after all.

But it DOES greatly negatively affect the owner of the dead business, their employees, and their supply chain businesses; presumably local farmers and dishware makers. It also resonates through the local culture of the town. One less popular hangout. One less businesses for travellers to spend money in the town.

That's not how a free, open, and natural market is supposed to work. The Progressives of that time period recognized this. The Progressive movement grew and grew, as a huge majority of people from every political spectrum understood the urgency the situation. For a time, up until the campaign and election of 1912, every party had a progressive platform.

The economic and manufacturing output of the USA was nothing short of a miracle under the rules and regulations that allow as fair trading practices as possible, in order to get as many people from as many backgrounds as possible to be able to participate. The more that participate, the better the information for all involved becomes. It's a basic rule of statistics. It's why in baseball, a player with a .500 batting average but only 6 at bats cannot be considered for the batting titles. The larger the sample size, the more accurate the information.

The problem with a monopoly.....if the entire economy was controlled by one giant monopoly (basically, the same results as communism), that one single company doesn't ever HAVE to offer new products. Or they could just arbitrarily no longer offer certain types of products that may still be in demand. They don't have to innovate. Like. Cereal, for instance.

If the entire food industry was only controlled by just a single corporation, that corporation could decide they don't want to offer Froot Loops, or Apple Jacks, or Capn' Krunch. They could keep reducing the number of choices down to just cheerios and Rice Krispies.

What's more, they could dictate the terms of product places in the grocery stores. Hell, they would OWN the grocery stores, and offer practically nothing in choices for all the things. You want a mocha-mint-flavored coffee? Too bad! They could also charge $23 for a gallon of milk and not bat an eye as nobody would purchase it at such exhorbitant prices. Hell, they could just do away with dairy products altogether if they so choose.

You think you're going to open your own grocery store and be able to undercut Monsanto who owns everything? Lol! Not gonna happen, because, you see, Monsanto ALSO owns all of the farms, and they don't want to sell any products to you at all. Or if they do, they can control the prices to be so exhorbitant, that you'd have to charge $32 for a gallon of milk inside your store, because you're paying them $28.

Maybe someone else wants to start their own farm to begin at the beginning of the food industry chain? Haha, Monsanto ALSO owns the banks, you see! Huge tracts of the best farmland is owned by Monsanto. Property prices are really high, so you need to get a loan. $10,000 / acre is what the current owner, Monsanto, is willing to sell to you as a small little ten acre corner lot. $100,000 for ten acres of land, you'll need a loan. $100,000 at 32% interest because Monsanto Bank can do that, and you don't even have any cows, seeds, or equipment yet.

The best such a society could possibly hope for, is to have a small "underground" craftsman-style economy for the most basic products. And I mean THE most basic products like....ceramic pots. Good luck to clothiers, considering cotton, polyester, silk, etc would all have to come through.... You guessed it! Monsanto!

They don't NEED information on what sorts of cereal, teas, coffees, style of clothing people want. They won't care. They'll just offer the most extreme basic food choices just to keep their workers alive, working, and producing the next batch of workers as they grow taller.

Now. That's an extreme situation, just to illustrate what monopolistic practices are all about. To prove the point that lasseiz-faire capitalism is NOT the same thing as a free market, and that the larger the share of a nation's citizens that can participate, the better the information and the more that each business would have to pay attention to that information, trends, and styles. They have to innovate, come up with newer and better products. They have to keep their prices at reasonable levels while striking a balance to make a decent profit.

Businesses go under all the time, and that's also healthy for the economy. Business is HARD, as it should be. Like an athlete lifting weights and working out. A species that has to struggle to survive. Humans thrive on a challenge. Hell, it's why we play complex Paradox-style strategy games! They're hard, and it's fun. You're forced to use your brain. Businesses that go under, improves the information. Maybe their business practices were bad in general? Maybe the products they offered nobody wanted? Maybe the location of their business was bad?

The latter point, bad location, is very useful information for civic and city planners. It's one way of how city managers, local politicians, emergency services, and even state and national departments of transportation make key decisions on infrastructure. How much to spend, when, and where. What needs upgraded.

The east end of town has had a crap load of businesses be abandoned and people move away. Why? Has traffic slowed through there? Are people not able to easily travel in an out because the condition of the roads are crap?

If it were all just owned by a single business and they just simply decided to move out, there isn't much information to be gleaned from that. So Monsanto decided they just simply no longer want to service that area. There isn't a whole lot of insight to be gained. It's just simply arbitrary.