That was the personal slavery that first appeared among all peoples and is still to be met with among primitive tribes. That form of enslavement comes first, but as life becomes more complex it changes its form. As life becomes more complicated that method presents great inconvenience to the oppressor. To exploit the labour of the weak it is necessary to clothe and feed them that is, to keep them so that they are fit for work-and this of itself limits the number of the slaves; besides, this method obliges the oppressor to stand always over the slaves threatening them with death. And so another method of enslaving them is devised.
Five thousand years ago, as is written in the Bible, Joseph in Egypt invented this new, more convenient, and broader method of enslaving people. It is the same that in modern times is employed for taming unruly horses and wild beasts in menageries. It is-hunger.
This is how this invention is described in the Book of Genesis, in the Bible:
‘Ch. xli, v. 48. And he gathered up all the food of the seven [fruitful] years which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities: the food of the field, which was round about every city, laid he up in the same.
‘49. And Joseph laid up corn as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left numbering; for it was without number.
‘53. And the seven years of plenty, that was in the land of Egypt, came to an end.
‘54. And the seven years of famine began to come, according as Joseph had said: and there was famine in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread.
‘55. And when all the land of Egypt was famished the people cried to Pharaoh for bread: and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph; what he saith to you, do.
‘56. And the famine was over all the face of the earth: and Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine was sore in the land of Egypt.
‘57. And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because the famine was sore in all the earth.’
Joseph, employing the primitive method of the enslavement of people by threat of the sword, collected the grain in the fruitful years, in anticipation of bad years which usually follow good ones, as everyone knows even without Pharaoh’s dream, and by that means-hunger-he enslaved both the Egyptians and the inhabitants of the surrounding countries by methods more powerful and more convenient to Pharaoh. When the people began to hunger, he arranged matters so as to keep them permanently in his power-by hunger. This is described in Chapter xlvii:
‘13. And there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine.
‘14. And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the corn which they bought: and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house.
‘15. And when the money was all spent in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph, and said, Give us bread: for why should we die in thy presence? for our money faileth.
‘16. And Joseph said, Give your cattle; and I will give you for your cattle, if money fail.
‘17. And they brought their cattle unto Joseph: and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for the horses, and for the flocks, and for the herds, and for the asses: and he fed them with bread in exchange for all their cattle for that year.
‘18. And when that year was ended, they came unto him the second year, and said unto him, We will not hide from my lord, how that our money is all spent; and the herds of cattle are my lord’s; there is nought left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands:
‘19. wherefore should we die before thine eyes, both we and our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh: and give us seed, that we may live, and not die, and that the land be not desolate.
‘20. So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine was sore upon them: and the land became Pharaoh’s.
‘21. And as for the people, he removed them to the cities from one end of the border of Egypt even to the other end thereof.
‘22. Only the land of the priests bought he not: for the priests had a portion from Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them; wherefore they sold not their land.
‘23. Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh: lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land.
‘24. And it shall come to pass at the in-gatherings, that ye shall give a fifth unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for your food, and for them of your households, and for food for your little ones.
‘25. And they said, Thou hast saved our lives: let us find grace in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh’s servants.
‘26. And Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth; only the land of the priests alone became not Pharaoh’s.’
Previously Pharaoh, to exploit the labour of the people, had to compel them to work by force; but now, when the stores and the land were Pharaoh’s, he only had to guard those stores by force, and hunger enabled him to compel them to work for him.
The land is all Pharaoh’s and the stores (the part he collects) are always his, and so, instead of driving with the sword each man individually to work, it is only necessary to use force to guard the stores, and the people are enslaved not by the sword but by hunger.
In a year of famine all may be starved at Pharaoh’s will, and in a year of plenty those who owing to some mishap are short of grain can be starved.
And the second method of enslavement is instituted not directly by the sword, that is, not by the strong man driving the weaker man to work by threats of killing him, but by the oppressor, having taken the supplies and guarded them with the sword, compelling the weaker man to labour for his food.
Joseph says to the hungry: ‘I can starve you to death as I have the corn, but I spare you on condition that, for the grain I give you, you will do whatever I command.’
For the first method of enslavement the man in power needs only warriors constantly riding about among the people and, by threats of death, seeing that his orders are obeyed. For the first method the oppressor need only divide up with his warriors. But under the second method, besides warriors, the oppressor needs another kind of assistants to preserve the stores of grain and the land from the hungry people-he needs great and little Josephs, managers and distributors of the grain. And the strong man has to divide up with them, and to give Joseph a vesture of fine linen, a gold ring, and servants, and grain, and silver for his brethren and his relatives.
Besides. by the nature of the case, under the second method not only the managers and their relatives but all those who have stores of grain become sharers in the advantage of the violence used. As under the first method founded on sheer force, everyone who had arms became a participant in the violence employed, so under the second method based on hunger, all who have supplies share in the benefits of the oppression and lord it over those who have none.
For the oppressor the advantage of this method over the former is that, first and chiefly, he is no longer obliged to coerce the workers by force to do his will, but they come themselves and sell themselves to him; secondly, a smaller number escape his coercion. The only disadvantage of this method for the oppressor is that it obliges him to share with a larger number of people. The advantage of this method for the oppressed is that they are no longer subject to coarse violence, but are left to themselves and can always hope under fortunate conditions to pass over from the ranks of the oppressed to the ranks of the oppressors; the disadvantage for them is that they can never more escape from some measure of coercion.
This new method of enslavement generally comes into use together with the old method, and the strong man reduces the one and extends the other as may be required. But this method of enslavement still does not fully satisfy the strong man’s desire-to take as much as possible of the produce of their labour from the greatest number of workers and to enslave as great a number of people as possible-and does not keep pace with the increasing complexity of life’s conditions, and a still newer method of enslavement is devised. The new, and third, method is that of tribute.
This method like the second is based on hunger, but to the method of enslaving people by depriving them
