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Having just had such a scintillating discussion of the moral value of poverty, I thought it might be interesting to consider what position a Catholic ought to take on slavery. I expect our readers may be somewhat divided on the relevant moral questions, so I might as well put my cards on the table from the beginning. First of all, I think it’s perfectly clear that slavery as it existed in the American South before the Civil War is morally indefensible. But secondly, I think that slavery probably can be defended under some circumstances.
The Importance of Moral Autonomy
It is interesting to note that, in the present day, slavery is more strongly and universally condemned in the West than almost any other possible moral evil I could name. There are some obvious historical reasons for this, but we might in any case expect that slavery would be deeply repugnant to a liberal society, in which individual autonomy is arguably the thing most highly prized. Slavery involves the curtailing of the personal freedoms of a certain class of people, and to make matters worse, the master can generally be assumed to be acting in his own interest, and considering the slave’s interest to a lesser degree if at all. If, as Westerners tend to believe, it is of utmost moral importance that an individual should have the freedom to build his life in the way that he chooses, then slavery will be a great evil indeed.
The Catholic position on slavery will be less obvious, because the Catholic commitment to autonomy is less stark. Certainly, some degree of moral autonomy is necessary for every person, if we believe that salvation comes through freely conforming our wills to God’s. A person need not have an unlimited number of options open to him in order to exercise individual autonomy, but presumably he needs some. So, for example, from the very early years of the Church it has been widely believed that every Catholic should be permitted to choose his state in life. St. Paul seems to counsel this. Another example would be the Church’s position on arranged marriages. I don’t know if the early Church Fathers addressed that one explicitly, and St. Paul did not, but the Catholic moralists of the 19th and 20th centuries seem to have frowned on arranged marriages. The Baltimore Catechism advises children to listen gravely to parental advice on this important question, but goes on to specify that they should not be forced to act against their own wishes. And certainly, the Church has never permitted priests or anyone else to force baptism, or any sacrament, on adults who were unwilling to receive it. These all seem to point to the Church’s acknowledgement that individual autonomy does have some importance. We can’t come to God freely unless we are, in a significant sense, free.
So autonomy is not worthless, but on the other hand, Catholics certainly should not follow liberals in their obsession with maximizing it in every possible way. Instead, the Church teaches that we are rightly subject to authorities of many kinds, and that we can be blessed for submitting willingly to those that are properly instituted. Rightly understood, this does not require us to relinquish moral autonomy. In one sense, moral autonomy is being manifested most fully when a person opts to bind himself to another person, or to God, through an act of will. Quite aside from the pragmatic necessities, submission to authority holds a particular value for Christians, since it can train us in humility, reminding us that our own wishes or judgments should often be set aside. Submitting to human authority can put us in the right state for submitting to God’s authority.
The bottom line is that, while moral autonomy is certainly important, we don’t necessarily need a maximal, comprehensive freedom in order to exercise it; indeed, that probably would not be optimal. Insofar as a person is deprived of, for example, freedom of movement, or the opportunity to select his own clothing or daily tasks, this would not necessarily prevent him from exercising moral autonomy in those ways that are most relevant to God and salvation.
The application to slavery is obvious. Slaves are deprived of certain freedoms, but their wills are still free, and they can still make moral choices. The orders imposed on them by other authorities may hinder them in their development of mature autonomy, but it may also help them to learn humility through their submission. This would not necessarily be an indignity, any more than a priest is undignified in submitting to the command of his bishop, or for that matter, any more than the Supreme Pontiff is undignified in submitting to the will of God. This understanding seems to be supported by Scripture. St. Paul tells slaves to submit to their masters, even in the event that they are unjust. Nowhere does he condemn the institution of slavery, though it certainly did exist in his world. So it seems that the Apostle to the Gentiles at least did not think slavery clearly, heinously evil.
Chattel Slavery and the South
A lot of objections can be anticipated at this point. Submitting to authority may not per se be an indignity or a curtailment of any of the liberties that we need for salvation. But it certainly seems possible for slaves to be treated in an undignified way, or to be ordered by their masters to do evil things. Here we confront the phenomenon of chattel slavery – a state in which slaves can be considered the property of their masters absolutely. With this kind of slavery, masters are free to treat slaves in any way at all without fearing legal repercussions.
As Catholics, it isn’t clear that we can ever own anything in this sense – that is to say, in such a way that there are no moral restrictions on what we can do with it. Everything we own should in a sense be considered “on loan” from God, and we should use all things in a way that’s consistent with their, and our, natures. This is most obviously true with respect to people. Every human being is a creature with a rational nature and a soul that is precious to God. So treating slaves in a way that is not consistent with that nature is clearly sinful.
This is why I say that slavery in the American South was clearly unjustified. Masters were free to prevent slaves from discharging their religious duties, to take sexual liberties with them, to sell them away from their spouses or children, and many other things that were obviously inimical to the slaves’ physical and spiritual well-being. I can see no way at all for this sort of arrangement to be condoned by a Catholic in good faith. If slave owners are to be given the status of authority figures, they must, like all properly instituted authority figures, take concern for the well-being of those under their care (even, probably, to the detriment of their own interests.) There may have been individual slave owners in the South who did understand the relationship that way, and who placed the highest priority on the well-being of their slaves, but the legal and social climate does not seem to have fostered this to a very great extent. The American practice of slavery thus stands condemned.
Other Avenues for Exploration
In the Ancient world, as I understand it, slavery sometimes took less absolute forms. So, for example, we can imagine a form of slavery in which slaves, while generally obliged to follow their masters’ orders and to work for them, were given legal protection from particular sorts of treatment. Slave owners, meanwhile, would be required to provide a reasonable standard of living for their slaves, and would be generally expected to take an active interest in their slaves’ physical and spiritual welfare.
Taken in this sense, I think it’s hard to deny that slavery would be an actual good for some people. Aristotle certainly believed this, and his words on the subject have been the target of scathing criticism in the modern era. No doubt he loses credibility for his claim that all non-Greeks would be better off as slaves. Still, his claim that some people might be “natural slaves” is not entirely ridiculous. There are individuals who seem not to have the ability to care for themselves. Even in adulthood, some people find themselves constantly getting into trouble, hurting others, and generally making choices that are certain to make their own lives (to say nothing of others’) miserable. These people might genuinely be better off with a life in which their freedom to hurt themselves were more severely restricted. If there are any natural slaves, and any potential masters who would be able and willing to take charge of them, then the institution of slavery could be, not just justified, but a positive good.
I’ve been reflecting of late on further related questions, the most important being: under what circumstances could one person justifiably claim this kind of authority over another? Presumably we can all agree that it is greviously unjust for a man to be kidnapped, dragged away from his homeland and family, and forcibly thrust under the authority of another person who assumes the charge purely for the sake of financial gain. Other cases, though, are less clear. Should a person be allowed to sell or give himself into slavery? Could he be born a slave? Might prisoners of war be justly retained as slaves? I’m not going to answer these questions today, in the interests of keeping this already-quite-long post to a more readable length. If people are sufficiently interested, I might take the topic up again at a later time. But for now, I think it’s enough to conclude that slavery in the South was wrong, but that the moral situation of slavery generally is more complex than the modern knee-jerk reaction to it would lead us to believe.
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort,
Pope St. Pius X,
St. Joseph,
St. Ambrose of Milan,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Francis (and St. Clare),
St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Alphonsus Ligouri,
St. John Chrysostom,
‘Submitting to authority’ - as you point out, the question is; where is a slave owner supposed to get this authority? The (highly disputable) claim that being a slave may benefit the slave does not confer such authority. The two grounds offered for a slavemaster’s authority by Catholic theologians were a man’s voluntarily selling himself into slavery, and being reduced to slavery as punishment for crime. the latter is not very different from life imprisonment, but such punishment seems to be the prerogative of the state rather than a private individual. the former raises doubts as it involves an individualistic conception of a man’s being his own property that he can dispose of at will. In any case neither of these liable to happen very often, and have very little to do with slavery as it actually exists in societies where it is practised. I recommend Belloc’s ‘The Servile State’ on how Catholicism leads to the eradication of slavery, and the sensible Catholic encycolpedia article on the topic.
It is an odd question to ask - are you having trouble with your hired help?
While I certainly concur that slavery is not a preferable - or, in most cases, justifiable -institution, I must challenge your position regarding slavery in the antebellum South. Though there was of course the abominable “Uncle Tom” who unjustly and immorally treated his slaves with contempt and violence, the vast majority of Southern slave owners were certainly of a different sort.
On that note, slavery was, by and large, something of an “American feudalism.” The landowners gave their slaves housing and plots of lands. They were expected to tend the fields or perform other tasks around the plantation, but were free to grow crops on their plot of land, attend mass or some Protestant variety of “service,” and be with their families. Thus, the condition of the median slave in the South was actually much better than the steel mill worker in Pennsylvania or child mill worker in New England.
Going further, how is slavery in the South any difference than the institution of serfdom in the Middle Ages? That glorious era, which Pope Leo XIII lauded for the happy union of throne and altar, employed an institution that restricted the freedom of the servant class. Nonetheless, the feudal classes were morally expected to take care of those under them - the essence of a truly organic society. There were surely some that abused their authority, but the system was by far a pleasant arrangement. The South is no different - a few terrible exceptions mar an otherwise happy communion.
Last, it is important to note that racial hatred and animosity towards blacks was a phenomenon that grew in the Re/Deconstruction period. Antebellum Southern whites viewed blacks like feudal Lords viewed their serfs. It was not until the Federal army brought its flames of destruction to the South that people developed enduring hatred.
No, outrageously enough, hired help is not included in my contract as a graduate student. But I’m a philosopher (in training), with a particular interest in moral philosophy and in virtue, so it doesn’t seem like such an odd question to ask. I am interested in the way that slavery and racism are perhaps the two things most universally condemned among professional ethicists — for moral relativists, slavery is the classic test case of what a moral theory can and can’t do. Now, there are lots of things that I as a Catholic would consider more obviously wrong than slavery, so considering the moral status of slavery doesn’t seem like such a strange thing. Also, St. Paul’s apparent endorsement of slavery is one of the parts of scripture most often criticized. Just another reason for giving the matter some thought.
I admitted that I neglected to discuss possible grounds that a person might have for enslaving another. I ran out of time and also I know that people get kind of intimidating about reading incredibly long posts. But if there’s interest, I’ll write a follow-up later.
“Antebellum Southern whites viewed blacks like feudal Lords viewed their serfs.”
I don’t concede this point. Was it illegal for feudal lords to marry serfs because serfs were viewed as racially inferior? Well, it was illegal for whites to marry blacks. That is contrary to both natural law and to the teaching of the Catholic Church — we are all one human race and marriage cannot be prohibited on racial grounds. The “throne” and altar simply were not united in the South.
Serfs could be emancipated and become freedman with the right to serve on juries and fight in military levies. Over a period of time, they could rise into the ranks of the gentry. This was not true of blacks, even freed ones. The Dred Scott decision said that blacks, never, ever, under any condition could become . . . U.S. citizens!
Plus, serfs were tied to the land. That means not only that they could not move, but their lords could not move them. Families could not be split up because serfs simply couldn’t be moved. The charters which determined what serfs owed to their masters could not be changed legally. As agriculture progressed, serfs could pay off their debts to their masters with less and less labor and the masters could not do anything as their serfs gained in wealth vis-a-vis themselves. The “fencing in” of the commons and the turning over of farmland to sheepherding that St. Thomas More laments in his “Utopia” took place because serfdom was so unprofitable for feudal lords. On the other hand, the law of the South permitted a master to sell off old slaves so that they wouldn’t drain coffers, and families could be broken up on the auction block. Slave marriages had no legal standing. Now, a master could be good and care for his old slaves and honor slave marriages, yes. But the law did not require it. The law in the Middle Ages did indeed recognize the marriage of serfs, etc.
Why was it legal for whites to own black slaves but not for blacks to own white slaves? The Church permitted slavery for a long time, but it never used racial grounds in justifying it.
Was Southern slavery the ultimate evil that Northern abolitionists made it out to be? No. Was there a revolutionary, puritanical, anti-Catholic element in abolitionism? Yes, indeed there was. Could one be a moral master? Yes, Catholic bishops in the South gave directives concerning how a master might morally discharge his duties as a master. But to imagine that the average Southern master really regarded his slave as a feudal master regarded his serf is highly dubious, if only because it ignores the fact that racism (which needn’t be murderous hate) really was the reality of the South.
The North has its false myths that it uses to defend its actions in the Civil War, but the South also has its false myths. When a problem has been seriously exaggerated to defend a dubious counter-measure, one mustn’t whitewash the problem in the process of rejecting the exaggeration.
The protestant-individualist ethic that brought about the abolition of slavery also produced a society now where the wealthy act with no real responsibility toward the underclasses. Large pockets of poverty within the USA and all throughout the developing countries are suffering under the calvinist and masonic economic principles. The largest sector of so-called western charity for the poor of our own country as well as throughout the world comes in the form of billions of dollars of contraceptives and ad campaigns designed to ‘control’ the population. (When the US Army topples a Third World regime, the first NGO on the ground is not Doctors Without Borders or Habitat for Humanity, but Planned Parenthood)
Tobias, I must side with Adam. If your case against slavery in the antebellum south points to all those nefarious Uncle Tom abuses permitted by law, it is only reasonable to expect someone to point out the horrors tolerated by the North at the time. And I don’t think Adam is suggesting that Southern slavery was equivalent to Catholic serfdom, merely that the average treatment of slaves more resembled the treatment of a serf than, say, what we read in school textbooks today.
Certainly, no one here is about to defend the slave trade, the splitting up of families, period opinions on the inferiority of the black race, or even public toleration of such things. I still didn’t much care for Clara’s original proclamation that southern slavery was morally indefensible. It’s a hard thing to argue that an entire evolving institution is immoral, and I thought her case was rather thin. What exactly did she mean by being indefensible? That the institution of slavery could not have been made acceptable without changing its nature, or that we can say nothing in its defense. Surely I can, as Adam did, that the conditions for a slave were in some ways preferable to Northerners at the time. Also, I know absolutely nothing of moral theology, or any such thing, but I imagine drawing the line that some amalgam of moral and immoral laws is “indefensible” is always going to be controversial. It smells like the whole “social sin” business to me.
“Adam is suggesting that Southern slavery was equivalent to Catholic serfdom, merely that the average treatment of slaves more resembled the treatment of a serf than, say, what we read in school textbooks today.”
If that were all that Adam said, then I would agree with him. But, Iacobe, I don’t think that is what he was saying. “The South is no different - a few terrible exceptions mar an otherwise happy communion.” As I pointed out, the legal ramifications of the master-slave relationship itself rested on the immoral premise that a black man could be a slave but a white man could not. That goes beyond the question of whether a master abused his slaves. If the status of the slave was so acceptable, then why was it deemed fitting only for blacks? Now, you could make arguments about white slavery, which happened in some form, or about white indentured servitude. But after these people were freed they could enter civil society and rise to the top.
About the Northerners’ treatment of factory workers: The arguments about Southern slavery too often get transformed from arguments about the intrinsic justice of the institution to comparisons with the North. Both the North and South do this, and I think it’s a cop-out. When arguing about whether abortion should be legal, I find it irrelevant to point out that Middle Eastern countries that ban abortion also permit female circumcision. I am not writing to justify the bloodshed and devastation of the War of Northern Aggression or to perpetuate Yankee-Whig interpretation of history. I am not writing to justify federally-enforced abolition, which involved wreckless social engineering. I am not writing to compare the North favorably to the South, or to excuse the abominable conditions of whites in Northern cities. I know that the life of a Southern slave could actually be, and very often was, much better, healthier, and “freer” than that of a Northern white Irish-Catholic factory worker.
I am just trying to point out that racism was an *integral* part of the institution of slavery in the South. Iacobe, you write: “Certainly, no one here is about to defend the slave trade, the splitting up of families, period opinions on the inferiority of the black race, or even public toleration of such things.” Well, in the actual way history unfolded, all of these things were entangled in the “peculiar institution.” I agree with the point that a Southern slave’s life needn’t have been a bad one, and that on a day-to-day basis it may have come closer to the life of a Medieval serf than most like to admit. I even agree that the really, really bad master was rare. But there is a danger in pretending that because we today rationally can distinguish between slavery-per-se and racism, therefore in our analysis of Southern slavery as it actually existed we can so easily divide the two. This seems to indulge in the same type of ahistorical idealization that rejected slavery-per-se as intrinsically immoral.
There are individuals who seem not to have the ability to care for themselves. Even in adulthood, some people find themselves constantly getting into trouble, hurting others, and generally making choices that are certain to make their own lives (to say nothing of others’) miserable. These people might genuinely be better off with a life in which their freedom to hurt themselves were more severely restricted. If there are any natural slaves, and any potential masters who would be able and willing to take charge of them, then the institution of slavery could be, not just justified, but a positive good.
There is a legal relationship similar to this called a Guardianship (or in some states a conservatorship depending on what is controlled). The block quote above would really not be a form of slavery at all because ward cannot, and probably should not, do work for the master. If anything, the master would really be the slave to the ward, as they would have to watch over and protect the ward. Therefore the above example is not a form of slavery.
The ideas expressed in the block quote above are incommensurable with the idea that slaves are “generally obliged to follow their masters’ orders and to work for them” even if “given legal protection from particular sorts of treatment.”
Clara,
Have you read what Aristotle and St. Thomas have to say about this? I think it is in the Politics and the Commentary on the Politics respectively. If I recall correctly, Aristotle holds that some men are, by nature, unfit to rule themselves and these men should be slaves. St. Thomas doesn’t exactly agree with this. Again, if I recall correctly, he holds that slavery may be acceptable as a temporary expedient with conquered barbarians, but that it is unsuitable as a regular practice among Christians. The reason - men should not be treated as means. They are liberal, or free, in the sense of having a “for-their-own-sakeness.” If their life and work are determined for them the way a slaves are, they are treated purely as a tool, a means to another man’s end.
Hmm…it’s been a long time since I studied this. Hopefully I haven’t misrepresented St. Thomas entirely.
I see you mentioned Aristotle in your original post. Sorry about that! I have a bad habit of skimming because I despise reading a lot of text on a computer screen.
My mother is physically handicapped and works in a factory which employs “clients.” “Clients” are physically or mentally disabled people who work there for less than the minimum wage. The factory sends out a bus to pick them up and there are supervisors who, as need arises, act as “babysitters” for those clients who are retarded. I think that the reason the factory legally can pay less than the minimum wage is because these people need special assistance in order to work at all and the state views it as better for the common good that these people contribute to the economy somehow than just sit at home and absorb social security monies. Since the minimum wage would make it unprofitable for businesses to hire them (they need more attention and can’t produce as much as others), they are exempt. Plus, these people get out of their homes, meet people, and feel as though they produce something. I can see how this is a form of “slavery,” and they certainly earn what most people would think of as “slave wages.”
Yes, the example given by Anon about Guardianship seems a little strange, if taken as a rebuttal to my post. In essence: “The relationship you’re describing is Guardianship, not slavery. And the ward doesn’t work for the guardian.”
Well, that critical difference seems to prove that the relationship I’m recommending isn’t guardianship… it’s slavery. That isn’t to say that I have anything against making adults legal guardians of other adults under certain circumstances. But that institution seems to have more limited potential, because the guardian gets no return to justify their investment in the relationship (beyond just the good feeling of helping someone else.) I don’t want to seem cras, but it seems evident that the do-gooder motive isn’t going to be enough to motivate many people to become legal guardians of incompetent adults, except maybe in an instance where the ward is a relative of theirs, or otherwise closely connected to them. Ithaca appears to have a good number of incompetent adults — I see them sometimes on the walking mall down the street from my apartment, or waiting in line for a meal at the Loaves and Fishes place. (Many of them seem young and able-bodied, by the way. There is certainly work out there that they would be capable of doing.) But I’m not about to just walk up to one some day and say, “Hey, you seem to need help. How would you like to be my ward? Let’s go down to the courthouse and arrange it!”
The good thing about slavery would be that, while the slave’s welfare would be a primary concern, his capacity for labor would still be utilized by the master, thus making the relationship mutually beneficial. This might motivate some people to take a commercial interest in the practice, which would allow for it to be more regularized and formally set up — and that could be good if you’re looking to create an environment with a lot of discipline and regularity, just as reform school or the military can be good for adolescents but would be hard to recreate by individual parents at home.
Also, slavery would give the slave a social place in society. Assuming that particular companies or people took on a lot of slaves at once, the slaves would presumably form a kind of community of their own. I’m guessing for a lot of the people who would be candidates for guardianship, loneliness is a big problem. Another big problem is the degredation of feeling useless if you’re deemed unfit for holding a regular job. Arrangements like the one Tobias Petrus describes can be really healthy; they enable people to feel productive and to interact with others who might be better candidates for friendship. (And I’m not trying to say that, say, a mentally disabled person would be inherently “unfit” to be my friend… but the truth is that friendship tends to be predicated on common interests and common activities, so it’s a lot more difficult to befriend people who have less in common with you.)
We do plenty to patronize the less fortunate in society, giving them handouts through welfare and dictating to them principles of how they ought to live (including, as JSP pointed out, discouraging them from having more children.) On the whole this is a very ineffective way of treating the relevant problems; we entrench a whole class of people in a degrading dependence on the government, but won’t assume enough authority over them to actually help them pull their lives together. So, while liberals would obviously be horrified at the “indignity” of enslaving the less fortunate (or, more probably, allowing them to volunteer themselves as slaves in exchange for support and care), it seems to me that they’re in a pretty undignified position right now, such that this could well be an improvement.
As per the comments on defending the South, Tobias Petrus pretty much covered it, but since Iacobus asked specifically what I meant by “indefensible” — I mean that from a Catholic perspective, I do not think any remotely plausible case can be made to justify the instution of slavery as it existed in the South. I think the key thing to note is that slavery in the South was wrong, not because a few individuals abused what would otherwise have been a good system, but because the whole set-up was morally unacceptable. Slaves were supplied through the heinous injustice of snatching people away from their homes in Africa; the legal system supporting slavery made no provisions for redressing crimes committed against slaves; the legal and social underpinnings of the instutituion were predicated on the assumption that blacks were intrinsically inferior to whites. Even if the Simon Legrees of the world were rare, those three facts remain true, and should be sufficient for any Catholic to condemn the institution as immoral.
Like Tobias Petrus, I dismiss the comparison with practices in the North as irrelevant to the issue at hand. No doubt the Northerners had faults, perhaps grevious faults. But right now we’re discussing slavery.
I don’t like the idea of slavery. We’re all born with human freedom, and just because some are idiots and abuse their freedom, or just because they don’t know how to properly and morally function with free will, doesn’t mean that they should be enslaved.
“So treating slaves in a way that is not consistent with that nature is clearly sinful.”
But isn’t slavery itself not consistent with nature?
this topic leads us to question morality of the civil war. does anyone agree that the civil war was morally unjustified and abraham lincoln wasn’t such a great guy after all? the war certainly created greater evil than slavery did at the time, which probably would have ended on its own. now we have federal laws supporting abortion and forcing secularism down our throats.
i heard that the pope gave andrew jackson a crown of thorns to show solidarity with him during a time of nationalism that he was experiencing in italy.
the civil war was less about the evils of slavery but about nationalism. this is opposed to the church’s teaching on subsidiary and our founding fathers. nationalism leads to globalism which leads to endless wars and conflicts.
Dr. Van Nostrum, I think it rather simplistic to claim that the type of federalism (or anti-federal centralism, if you prefer to call it that) imposed by the North during and after the Civil War is directly responsible for the judicial supremacy of the Supreme Court as expressed in such rulings as Roe v. Wade. Consider the Dred Scott decision, which came in 1857, before the war. That Supreme Court ruling nullified the Missouri Compromise (worked out by the legislature) and ruled that no state could make a black man a citizen. Many Southerners rejoiced at this ruling, which severely *restricted* states’ rights. If the Supreme Court could do that *before* the Civil War, it is hard to see how the North’s victory is solely responsible for such judicial over-reaching. Plus, if the Southern anti-abolitionists liked gratuitous over-reaching by the federal judiciary so long as it favored their own interests, it becomes more difficult to see their position on the nature of federalism as being so much more principled than the North’s. Surely this does not mean that the South was entirely wrong or the North entirely right, etc., etc. I just want to note that a violation of subsidiarity in a *pro-Southern* federal ruling helped precipitate the war.
It seemed to me you were justifying slavery by saying that some people have the [in]ability to care for themselves. Even in adulthood, some people find themselves constantly getting into trouble, hurting others, and generally making choices that are certain to make their own lives (to say nothing of others’) miserable.” I don’t think this fact necessarily makes slavery a good idea because in this situation, the person would not be a “slave” because they should not, or can’t, do work for the guardian. The situation you described did not seem like a justification for slavery because the person should not, and often does not, work for a master.
But why shouldn’t the person work for a master? is my question. I grant that it’s not the only conceivable way to solve the problem of incompetent adults, but it may well be the most effective one, for reasons I’ve outlined above.
If the person can’t even take care of themselves, how are they going to take care of things for the master. In addition, isn’t this just taking advantage of people to do what you want them to do? If not I think it has a strong tendancy to lead to that.
A person who cannot effectively take care of himself should not then be assigned to be a secretary, a steward, a manager, etc. But he might perfectly well be able to dig ditches, bind books, wash clothes, weed gardens, and a whole variety of other things, so long as he is supervised and instructed in what to do.
Modern life, with its emphasis on independence and autonomy, actually requires a pretty high degree of self-direction and self-control just for survival. In order to live decently you have to find a job (some people have no idea how to do this) and if you succeed in finding one, you have to hold it down. That generally means getting yourself up at a consistent hour, transporting yourself to work, maintaining acceptable standards of dress and hygiene, interacting with people in your workplace pleasantly and professionally, and on and on. Outside of the job proper, survival requires being able to pay your bills and your taxes, to manage money to some degree, to shop for and prepare decent food for yourself, and a whole variety of other little life skills. All this is just too much for some people to handle, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that those same people couldn’t accomplish anything useful given proper direction (and in some cases, proper medication; a lot of homeless people in America are mentally ill, and could be treated quite effectively if they would just take pills on a regular basis, but they can’t or won’t remember to do this and nobody has the authority to force them.)
Many societies have had fairly natural niches for people like that, who are able-bodied but completely lacking in personal discipline and self-direction. They could be farm hands, or help out in the family business, or what have you. In our society, unless they have family willing to care for them, people like that often end up homeless vagrants, living horrible, desperate lives. The life of a well-cared-for slave would surely be far, far better for many such people.
Is this taking advantage of people? In a way, yes, but not necessarily in an unfair way. There are plenty of legitimate ways to take advantage of people. For example: I’m a graduate student getting a PhD at Cornell University. Cornell pays me a very moderate annual stipend, and in exchange I work for my department, teaching sections and grading undergraduate papers. Cornell may have some academic/ideological reasons for wanting to produce Doctors of Philosophy, but in large part people like me, and Iosephus, and Tobias Petrus, are kept on because we’re competent teachers and graders, and we’re a lot cheaper than full faculty. Is Cornell taking advantage of us? Yes, but not in an unreasonable way; everyone gets what they want out of the arrangement.
Similarly in my suggested form of slavery, the masters would be taking advantage of the slaves, but the reverse would also be somewhat true, and everyone would be better off. This is precisely why the idea is potentially more effective than a large-scale guardianship scheme: the profit motive would persuade more people/companies to actually get involved, whereas most people don’t randomly volunteer to take responsibility for an incompetent adult that they don’t know from Adam.
Of course the thing would need to be properly regulated, to make sure that slaves weren’t worked unreasonably hard, that they really were given decent living conditions, and that some freedoms were respected. (For example, they should not be prohibited from marrying and having families, from worshipping God, etc.) Maybe it wouldn’t be feasible to actually set such a system up in modern-day America, but at least in the abstract I don’t think such a scheme would necessarily be bad.
JSP, I am intrigued by your position on how the wealthy elude responsibility to the poor. On a tangential point, would you mind giving me a summation of your position on the graduated income tax, in case you have one? I often have heard rightwingers (and generally I include myself, and would include you, in that category) denounce it.
I think that Clara hit on the key point - this isn’t just an issue of wealth. The poor, in most cases and especially of the poor in the USA, are incapable of taking care of themselves.
I think any changes in fiscal policy are only tinkering around the edges of the problem of poverty and may in fact, as modern history has shown, cause more problems than good, despite the good intentions of bleeding heart liberals.
My humble suggestion to alleviating the suffering of the poor would be -
Restore the Church to Her Sacred Traditions. Replace the apostate, heretical, and even the orthodox liberal bishops with real ones.
Catholic bishops will create Catholic priests, who will inspire the laity. In every city, Catholic institutions of social services, created by the tithes and staffed by the vocations coming out of this reinvigorated laity, would again be truly Catholic and assisting the poor not only with money, but with the message of the Gospel and the sacraments of the Church. The powerful bloc of Catholic voters would bring about Catholic-inspired social policies. And all this would go a long way to alleviate poverty.
Using the word slavery probably isn’t useful, but something similar - a path for people to follow other than the Calvinist sink or swim model may be required. In my own life, I think I’ve consciously chosen a path of slavery of sorts because it makes life easier to handle. To be sure, I was inspired to serve in the military for love of country and a desire to serve (and I still have these sentiments), but some of the motivation to stay in (so far for 11 years) and to retire, hopefully, in 9 more years, is the relative ease of life — I do not have to worry about downsizing, being fired, staying marketable, watching the bottom line, planning for my retirement, and plus, I get a free house, subsidized groceries, tax-free department store, free medical care for life, and a host of other benefits, including what I think is a decent wage (able to pay for a maid, multiple vacations, and save at least 10% a month - all of this on a single income with my wife staying home homeschooling). Life is considerably easier than many of my civilian counterparts. Adopting the military model would in some ways be impossible for the rest of the private sector. The military is an artificially economically inflated institution. I get all of this economic security package and a nice income on top. Something similar in the private sector would have to come with trade-offs. But I think many people would gladly trade large portions of their income for this kind of security. Not a system forced down their throats by an all-powerful federal government, but something that people can choose.
But in the end, I think tinkering with fiscal policy may do more harm than good. All social problems have at their base a rejection of Jesus Christ on His Church. So, any changes short of changes in the Church and in society with respect to the Church could do more harm than good.