this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2026
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[–] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Speaking about African Slaves in American- slaves were expensive. I think it’s reasonable to draw a parallel between industrial farms and plantations. An industrial farm has big tractors and automation; small farms have small tractors and milk the cows manually.

Capitalists (ie those who earn money from the capital they already have rather than those who work) would be slaveowners and slave ownership would drop off as wealth drops to middle classes - the middle class would own fewer slaves or simply hire servants.

Geography is also a factor; the American South normalized chattel slavery of Blacks to an extent greater than most of the world.

But there’s a long history of slaves around the world that’s not reasonably captured here.

[–] Lumidaub@feddit.org 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Wait, sorry, hiring servants was less expensive for the middle class? Sounds counterintuitive on first glance. Is it because slaves became cheaper the more you had?

[–] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Slaves are upfront cost, plus the maintenance (room and board) while servants are paid monthly. A crass comparison - rental vs own.

[–] Lumidaub@feddit.org 4 points 1 week ago

So if I'm understanding this correctly, while servants may be more expensive long-term, slaves are a larger upfront investment that only upper class had the money on hand for, like renting a house is (often) ultimately more expensive than buying it. That would make sense to me.

(As the other commenter said, it's icky doing the comparison with objects but that's what slaves were thought of as and I'm trying to understand the reasoning behind choosing servants vs slaves)

[–] elbarto777@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

I guess it's because you don't have to house a hired servant or even feed them. You just pay them for the work done.

I don't get too comfortable comparing human beings to objects, but think of renting a car versus owning a car.

[–] disregardable@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 week ago

If you could. Lower class people would actually rent land and a % of the profit would go to the landlord. It was called share cropping.