If there were an international market for human slaves, then might there be fewer massacres?

[Boojatta]

For example, if the chosen victims in Rwanda could have been easily sold into slavery, then might many of them have been sold into slavery rather than massacred?

I think that abolition of slavery is a good thing, but have the nation-states of the world actually reached a stage of moral development advanced enough for there to be no slavery? Is a world with wholesale massacres based on the ethnicity or religion of the victims an improvement over a world with openly practiced slavery and international markets for human slaves?

[Posteritatis]

1. The implications behind slavery being acceptable suggests there would be more. (nt)

[provis99]

2. I don't see the connection.

The Hutus were interested in slaughtering the Tutsis, not enslaving them. You're confusing different issues.

[Oregone]

3. They are asking if life of prisoners in war has more value than death...

would there be less death?

And by value, they are attaching an actual monetary value to the life with the mention of slavery.

The only problem is that slavery can create enemies and wars between nations at peace too, as it makes war lucrative.

[Boojatta]

4. Are you claiming that no Hutus would have accepted money for a Tutsi?

I didn't intend to suggest that Hutus were interested in becoming owners of Tutsi slaves. However, are you confident that none of the Hutus who slaughtered Tutsis would have been interested in the alternative of receiving money and knowing that the victims had become slaves rather than corpses?

[Oregone]

5. Forget the Hutus and the Tutsi for a moment...

Can you not imagine two tribes, who were not previously at war, fighting each other because captured enemies created a large incentive to engage in conflict?

Because, after all, thats exactly what the last slave trade did. It created more war.

At the end of the day, you will never be able to quantify "bad" and determine what creates the best world. One with more war and slavery, or one with less war and ensured death. But don't fool yourself in thinking that no one would die in war if there was always monetary value to life. War has a lot of unintended consequences, and when you incentivize war, you amplify such consequences.

[darkstar3]

7. Thread over.

That's all that needed to be said.

[Silent3]

11. Yeah, but what if Batman traveled back in time...

...to the beginning of the American slave trade, and ran into Superman, who had also traveled back in time while under the influence of red kryptonite?

What then, huh? :)

[Boojatta]

8. Can you quote words I wrote that you took to mean that I thought no one would die in war?

In case it's not clear what motivates me to ask the question in the subject line of this message, I will quote your words:

But don't fool yourself in thinking that no one would die in war if there was always monetary value to life.

At the end of the day, you will never be able to quantify "bad" and determine what creates the best world.

If you take such a skeptical position, then can I presume that you don't claim to have enough knowledge to justify opposing the introduction of an international market for human slaves?

[KaoriMitsubishi]

18. What he said.

[madrchsod]

6. no.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

9. That's a good example of the old fallacy of the false dichotomy

In your view, could the world have less war and no slavery? I don't see any reason why humanity has to decide on one or the other instead of striving for less of both.

Why does it have to be either/or?

[Boojatta]

10. Are you sure that it's a good example?

Given that the original message of this thread specifically invoked the status quo of moral development of the nation-states of the world in this era of history, it's difficult for me to understand how you arrive at the conclusion that it's a good example of a false dichotomy or false dilemma fallacy. I don't even see how you arrive at the conclusion that it's an example (good or otherwise) of that kind of fallacy.

[edhopper]

12. Yes it is a very good example of a false dichotomy

Hitler for example, wanted to eliminate Jews, he would not have made them slaves.
Your whole premise is indeed ludicrous.

[Boojatta]

13. "he would not have made them slaves"

Do you believe that the claim that he not only would have, but did use Jews as slave laborers is a hoax claim?

Also, do you believe that the claim that he was willing to send some* Jews to Spain or Portugal in exchange for trucks is a hoax claim?

* specifically: Jews from Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Poland

[edhopper]

14. Do you think

he would have spared all 6 million Jews to make them slaves.
The purpose of the slave camps was death not work.

[Boojatta]

15. Starting with the assumption that there might be...

fewer massacres (in other words accepting, for the sake of argument, the hypothesis of this thread), how do you arrive at the conclusion that massacres would be completely eliminated?

[Boojatta]

16. On the topic of slavery...

Link to an interesting DU Religion/Theology thread not created by Boojatta

[Boojatta]

17. Kick

[Boojatta]

19. Now this thread is just a bit more than one year old.

[backscatter712]

20. Creating a slave-market = creating a profit motive for atrocities.

When this international slave market opens, it won't take long for the people unscrupulous enough to deal in slavery to figure out they can make money at it.

You really think this will lower the level of suffering in the world? What will happen is that the present level of violence and depredation will increase vastly once it becomes easy and profitable to enslave people. And judging by the historical eras when slavery was legal, I'd say there were plenty of massacres then. More, since killing a slave was considered a crime akin to destruction of property.

Stupidest idea ever!

[Boojatta]

22. "killing a slave was considered a crime akin to destruction of property"

Destruction of property isn't necessarily a crime. I can compose a poem on paper and, after I have forgotten everything about it, shred the paper that it was written on. The law doesn't compel me to recycle the paper. I can mix it with any kind of garbage. Thus, without violating any law (criminal or civil), I would have destroyed at least three levels of property: the value of the paper as mere physical paper, the original manuscript, and the information or intellectual property that could have been copyrighted.

Today, in many societies there are second-class citizens. This is simply a fact, regardless of official pronouncements. What protects them? If they were slaves owned by first-class citizens whose "property rights" in slaves were protected by law enforcement authorities, then at least those second-class citizens would have some actual protection besides good luck.

[backscatter712]

23. But what if the owner killed his own slave?

Then the owner's destroying his own property.

Which means that under the rules of slavery, a slaveowner killing a slave isn't committing a crime at all. And back in the bad old days of slavery in the antebellum days of the U.S., slaveowners murdered their slaves all the time, with no consequences. And they whipped and otherwise abused their slaves even more frequently. Case in point: Deep13's post just below...

Yeah, real conducive to peace and justice, this slavery thing...

[Deep13]

21. Not now. Not ever.

I'd rather be killed than be a slave.

Never, never, never again!









Five generations of slaves:






NEVER!