And a third form of slavery is organized-the monetary, which consists in the strong man saying to the weak one: I can do what I like with each of you separately, I can simply take a gun and shoot each of you, or I can kill you by taking the land that feeds you; I can, with the money you have to bring me, buy up all the grain that feeds you, and I can sell it to other people and starve you all at any moment, and I can take from you all that you have: cattle, dwellings, and clothes; but that is inconvenient and unpleasant for me, and therefore I allow you all to arrange your own work and your own production as you please-only bring me so many pieces of money, the demand for which I will assess either per head or according to the land you hold, or by the quantity of food and drink you have, or by your clothes, or your buildings.
Bring me these money tokens and arrange matters among yourselves as you please, but know that I shall defend and protect not widows, nor orphans, nor the sick, nor the old, nor those who have suffered from fires, but only the regularity of circulation of these money tokens. That man only will be justified before me and protected by me who regularly brings me the required number of money tokens I demand. But how he gets them is a matter of indifference to me.
And the strong man only issues these tokens as receipts for the fulfilment of his demands.
The second method of enslavement is that by taking a fifth part of the crops and laying up stores of grain, Pharaoh, besides personal enslavement by the sword, obtains in common with his assistants the possibility of ruling all the workers in times of famine and some of them whenever calamity befalls them.
The third method is, that Pharaoh demands of the workers more than would pay for the fifth of the crops which he formerly took from them, and with his assistants obtains a new means of ruling over the workmen not only in time off amine and casual misfortune but at all times. Under the second method the people kept some supplies of grain, which enabled them without surrendering themselves to slavery to bear small failures of harvest and casual mishaps, but under the third method, when the exactions are greater, their supplies of grain and all other supplies of prime necessities are taken from them and at the slightest mishap the worker, having no reserves of grain or other supplies which he could exchange for grain, has to go into slavery to those who have money.
For the first method the oppressor need only have soldiers and need only divide with them; for the second, besides guards over the land and the stores of grain, he also requires collectors and clerks to distribute the grain; under the third method he can no longer himself own all the land, but besides warriors to guard the land and the wealth, he must also have landowners and tax-collectors, officials to allot the taxes and assess them per head or according to the articles used; inspectors, customs-officers, revenue officers and assessors. The organization of the third method is much more complex than that of the second; under the second method the collection of the grain can be farmed out as was done in ancient times and is still done in Turkey; but when the enslaved are taxed, a complex administration is needed to watch that the people or their taxable actions should not escape the tribute.
And so under the third method, the oppressor has to share with a still greater number of people than under the second method; besides which, by the very nature of the case, all people either of that same or of other countries who have money become participants. The advantages for the oppressor of this method over the first or second methods are the following:
In the first place, by means of this method a greater amount of labour can be taken and taken in a more convenient manner, for a money tax is like a screw, it can be easily and conveniently turned to the utmost limit which does not kill the golden hen; so that it is not necessary to await a famine year as in Joseph’s time-for the famine year can always be arranged.
Secondly, because under this method the coercion is extended to all those landless people who formerly escaped and gave only part of their labour for bread, but who are now obliged in addition to that part to give also part of their labour for taxes to the oppressor. The disadvantage for the oppressor is that under this method he has to share with a greater number of people: not only his immediate assistants but, first, with all those private landowners who usually appear where this system is adopted, and secondly, with all those people of his own or even of other nations who have such money tokens as are demanded from the slaves.
The advantage for the oppressed in comparison with the second method is only this, that he has still more personal independence from the oppressor; he can live where he pleases, do what he pleases, and sow or not sow grain; he is not obliged to account for his work, and if he has money he can consider himself quite free, and he can always hope, or actually attain if but for a time-when he has money to spare or has land bought for it-not merely a position of independence but even that of an oppressor.
The disadvantage for him is that, under this third method, the position of the oppressed in general becomes far harder and they are deprived of the greater part of what they produce, since under this third method the number of people who live on the labour of others is still greater and therefore the burden of supporting them falls on a smaller number.
This third method of enslavement is also a very old one, and comes into use together with the two previous ones without entirely excluding them. None of the three methods of enslavement has ever ceased to exist. All three methods may be compared to screws which press down a board that lies on the workers and squeezes them.
The chief, fundamental, and central screw, without which the others cannot hold-the one which is first screwed down and never ceases to act-is that of personal slavery, the enslavement of one set of people by another by means of threats to kill them with the sword; the second-which is screwed down after the former-is the enslavement of people by depriving them of land and of stores of food, a deprivation supported by the personal threat of death; and the third screw is the enslavement of people by a demand for money tokens they have not got, and that too is supported by the threat of murder.
All three screws are operated, and only when one is tightened are the others relaxed. For the complete enslavement of the workers all three screws-all three methods of enslavement-are needed, and in our society all three methods are constantly in use-all three screws are tightened.
The first method, enslaving men by personal violence and by threats to kill them by the sword, has never been abandoned, and will not be abandoned as long as there is any enslavement of man by man, because all enslavement depends upon it. We are all very naively confident that personally slavery has been abandoned in our civilized world, that the last remnants of it were abolished in America and Russia, and that now only among savages is there slavery, but that we have none. We forget only one small circumstance namely about those millions of men who in standing armies without which no single government exists and with the abolition of which the whole economic structure of every government would inevitably go to pieces.
But what are those millions of soldiers if not the personal slaves of those who rule over them? Are not they compelled to do the will of their owners under threat of torture and death-a threat frequently put into execution?
The only difference is that the subjection of these slaves is not called slavery but discipline, and that while the others were slaves from birth to death these are so for the period, more or less brief of what is termed their ‘service’. Personal slavery is not only not abolished in our civilized societies but with the introduction of universal military conscription it has of late been strengthened and still remains what it has always been though somewhat modified. And it cannot fail to exist, for as long as there is any enslavement of man by man there will be this personal slavery which by threat of the sword maintains the territorial and tax enslavement of men.
It may that this slavery that of the army, may be very necessary, as is alleged,
