this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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Slavery is not good for the economy... Think about it, you have a good part of your population that are providing free labour, sure, but they aren't consumers. Consumption is between 50 and 80% of GDP for developed countries, so if you have half your population as slave you loose between 20% and 35% of your GDP (they still have to eat so you don't loose a 100% of their consumption).
That also means less revenue in taxes, more unemployed for non slaves because they have to compete with free labour.
Slaves don't order on Amazon, go on vacation, go to the movies, go to restaurant etc etc That's really bad for the economy.
That really bad for a modern consumer economy yes. But those werent a thing before the industrial revolution. Before that the large majority of people were subsitance/tennant farmer or serfs who consumed basically nothing other than food and fuel in winter. Thats what a slave based economy was an alternantive to. Its also why slvery died out in the 19th century, it no longer fit the times.
And isn't the economy much better now than before the industrial revolution?
Look at the Saudi, China or the UAE, it's still a pretty efficient way to boost your economy. People don't need to be consumer if this isn't what your country needs.
True consumers are only 1 pillar of gdp.
Those are very specifics examples, with two of the biggest oil producers, and the factory of the world. Thus their whole economies is based on export, so internal consumption isn't important.
Moreover what proof do you have their economies wouldn't be in a better shape if they didn't exploit some population but made them citizen with purchasing power?
2/3 of the people living in the Saudi Emirate are immigrants whose passports have been confiscated, they work in factory, construction sites, oil pit, and all other kind of manual jobs. Meanwhile the Saudi citizens occupy all the well paid job that require education, immigrants can't apply to those. If they didn't use forced labor, there simply wouldn't be enough people in the country to occupy all the jobs. Their economy could not be as good as it is right now.
Because their GDP comes from exporting a very rare and valuable natural resource. This is a rare case in the world, and not the one I was talking about.
Plus who's to say they wouldn't have a better economy if those exploited people could consume more?