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Some Notes on Coerced Labor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Robert Evans
Robert Evans
Affiliation:
Brandeis University
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Extract

Though Social critics have often spoken of the “wage slavery” associated with modern capitalism, it is more common to believe that coerced labor was banished with the coming of modern standards of civilization. Thus the corvee of ancient China, the feudalism of Western Europe and Japan, and the New World enslavement of blacks in the 17th-19th centuries are seen as products of those earlier and less enlightened ages, mere way stations in the historical evolution of modern day economies.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , December 1970 , pp. 861 - 866
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1970

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References

I am indebted to my colleagues, especially Barney K. Schwalberg, for their comments.

1 A somewhat different approach was utilized in: Evans, Robert Jr, “The Military Draft as a Slave System: An Economic View,” Social Science Quarterly, L (Dec. 1969), pp. 535–543Google Scholar.

2 This is the crucial element in the argument that “free land” is a primary condition conducive to slavery. See for example: Domar, Evsey D., “The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: A Hypothesis,” THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY, XXX (Mar. 1970), pp. 18–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nieboer, Herman J., Slavery as an Industrial System (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1900)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wakefield, E. J., A View of the Art of Colonization (London, 1834)Google Scholar.

3 Rud, Jon, “Freedom of Employment and Maintenance of Public Services,” International Labor Review, VC (Jan.-Feb., 1967), pp. 78–95Google Scholar.

4 The government felt that salaries were already considerably above those offered to others with comparable education. Ibid., p. 82.

5 The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, I (Cambridge: The University Press, 1941), pp. 512–13Google Scholar.

6 Smith, Thomas C., The Agrarian Origins of Modern Japan (New York: Atheneum, 1966), pp. 110–112Google Scholar.

7 Blum, Jerome, Lord and Peasant in Russia (New York: Antheneum, 1964) pp. 89Google Scholar, 152–159, 197, 252–253.

8 The importance for worker freedom of landlords having to compete for labor because of a governmental inability or unwillingness to give them control over labor may also be seen in the colonization of Europe where the lords and princes offered attractive conditions, not forced labor, to obtain new peasants. Slicher Van Bath, B. H., The Agrarian History of Western Europe, AD 500–1850 (London: Edward Arnold Ltd., 1963), p. 145Google Scholar. A similar competition for peasants was evident in the establishment of new areas in the 11th century. Latouche, Robert, The Birth of Western Economy (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1961), p. 279Google Scholar. In France, when the war ended around 1400, the entire rural economy had to be rebuilt and good terms were offered to secure the necessary peasants, The Cambridge Economic History, I (1941), p. 531Google Scholar.

9 The conclusion is similar to Milton Friedman's hypothesis that competition is essential to political freedom. Friedman, Milton, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), pp. 7–21Google Scholar, especially pp. 14–15; 19–21.

10 Latouche, Robert, The Birth of Western Economy (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1961), pp. 3–28Google Scholar and The Cambridge Economic History, I (1941), pp. 108–114Google Scholar.

11 A modern quotation accurately captures the feeling: “We know that coercion [of peasants] is bad but the tasks are urgent and time is short; there are few alternative methods; you are anxious and, therefore, cannot avoid using a little coercion.” Chiang Wei-ching, First Secretary of the Kiangsu Party Committee, 1956, quoted in Walker, Kenneth R., “Organization of Agricultural Production,” in Eckstein, Alexander, et al., Economic Trends in Communist China (Chicago: Aldine, 1968), p. 425Google Scholar.

12 Galbraith, John K., A Theory of Price Control (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952), pp. 34–372Google Scholar.

13 Taylor, Paul S., “Plantation Agriculture in the United States: 17th-20th Centuries,” Land Economics, XXX (May, 1954), pp. 141–152CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smith, Abbott Emerson, Colonists in Bondage (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1947), Ch. 12Google Scholar.

14 Marshall, Ray, “Industrialisation and Race Relations in the Southern United States,” in Hunter, Guy (ed.), Industrialisation and Race Relations: A Symposium (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 65Google Scholar.