Slavery used because available 455 



out of cheap labour, we may ask is the parallelism so exact as it is 

 thus represented to be? When we are told that the capitalist would 

 nowadays prefer to employ slave labour if it were to be had, and that 

 the legal form in which labour is supplied is a secondary consideration 

 from the economic point of view, we begin to hesitate: is this really 

 true? Was not the ineffectiveness of slave labour detected in ancient 

 times? Was it not proved to demonstration in America, as attested by 

 the evidence of both Northern and Southern witnesses? To reply that 

 what capital wants is not mere slave labour but efficient slave labour, 

 would be no answer. Capital is not, and never was, blind to the in- 

 efficiency of slave labour as compared with free labour. In the pursuit 

 of profit it needs a supply of labour at its immediate and certain dis- 

 posal; therefore it takes what it can get. In the ancient world the 

 unquestioned institution of slavery offered a source of supply, not ideal, 

 but such as could be relied on. , Therefore capital employed slavery to 

 extend its operations, simply turning existing conditions to account. 

 And the admission, that the most flourishing period of Greco-Roman 

 civilization was also the period in which slavery reached its greatest 

 development, is surely a virtual denial that the basis of that civilization 

 was free labour. That is, free wage-earning labour. For the indepen- 

 dent farmer or artisan had nothing to do with the matter: he 

 worked for himself, not for another, and was on a different plane 

 from either wage-earner or slave. If he did not employ either wage- 

 earner or slave, it was because he found such help too costly or a 

 doubtful boon. 



The case of agriculture at once reveals what was found to be the 

 strong point of slave labour, the feasibility of employing it in large 

 masses. Much of the work consisted in the mere mechanical use of 

 brute force, and one overseer could direct many hands. In operations 

 dependent on the seasons, the labour must be at hand to utilize op- 

 portunities. The choice lay between slaves not working with a will 

 and free wage-earners not likely to be on the spot when wanted. Why 

 were slaves preferred? Because their presence in sufficient number 

 could be relied on in the existing conditions of the world. The history 

 of industrial agriculture was a long tale of effort so to organize slave 

 labour as to get out of it the greatest possible margin of profit. Not 

 that slavery was thought preferable in itself; but a means of wholesale 

 cultivation had to be found, and the then available resources of civiliza- 

 tion offered no other. When the supply of slaves began to fail, landlords 

 sought a remedy in letting some or all of their land to tenant farmers 

 (extending an old practice), not in attempting to farm on their own 

 account with hired labour. Hired labour remained as before, an oc- 

 casional appliance to meet temporary needs. 



