tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post6569559628824436701..comments2024-03-19T03:01:28.295+11:00Comments on Thinking Out Aloud: Of human bondage and history’s selection processesLorenzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00305933404442191098noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-49609467550795192442011-11-23T15:03:42.322+11:002011-11-23T15:03:42.322+11:00Thank you Michael in Canberra! (I will try to.) ...Thank you Michael in Canberra! (I will try to.) The original analysis is Domar's model of bondage labour, which seems to me to capture some key elements well.Lorenzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00305933404442191098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-54899562157041491942011-11-17T11:13:34.075+11:002011-11-17T11:13:34.075+11:00Thanks Lorenzo- I agree of course with all these p...Thanks Lorenzo- I agree of course with all these points (it was the details of the model or hypothesis not the facts that I was gently querying). BTW I wanted to sign myself as 'Michael in Canberra' but there didn't seem to be that option. <br />+ Please keep on with posting your Big Sweep of History items. I for one love them.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-33671608769096572142011-11-17T05:53:11.546+11:002011-11-17T05:53:11.546+11:00Anon: the Eastern Empire remained more densely pop...Anon: the Eastern Empire remained more densely populated than the Western Empire (or former Empire), so it is not surprising that slavery was more limited there and the peasantry was largely free. <br /><br />Mining as skilled occupation was also the pattern in Latin Christendom, so clearly was a viable alternative to slave-mining. Free rowers had also been the pattern in Classical Greece. Unpleasant/dangerous work that is easily supervised was "suited" to slavery, it did not require slavery.<br /><br />Slave warriors were a pattern limited (as far as I am aware) to Islam. Land tenure and kin networks operated somewhat differently in the Roman Empire and points West than they did in Islam: so that slave officials and warriors were not used in areas under Roman or various forms of Germanic or Celtic law is not surprising.Lorenzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00305933404442191098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-26369371194759364172011-11-16T14:39:12.356+11:002011-11-16T14:39:12.356+11:00The land-labour trade-off that you postulate seems...The land-labour trade-off that you postulate seems to have worked itself out in a somewhat different way in the Christian Roman Empire of the Greeks (Byzantium). After about AD 600 slavery was largely limited to (rich) households. And there were (a few) eunuchs. But mining and the rowing of galleys were done for pay by free people, which perhaps goes against the pattern? And Byzantium did not use slave warriors. Other than for doing household work for the upper classes, slaves were mainly important as a subject for transit taxes, i.e. levied on the slavers transporting their human merchandise through the Empire - to the Caliphate.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com