2. 5. 2. The morality as a reaction to the slave riot

The automatist society manifesto  

 

2.5. The evolution of methods of persuading servants to execute orders

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2. 5. 2. The morality as a reaction to the slave riot

(I return to the series of articles dedicated to the modern modification of slavery, after the series dedicated to feminism)

The second cause for the classical slavery abolition was derived from the slaves’ reaction on their masters, namely the morality. The basis of morality has been differently located by different theorists, but it can be reduced to a behavior guided by the principle "do as you would be done by!". The slave riots endangered their masters’ lives, even though they later organized and defeated them. But defending the slaves’ revolts does not mean solving the problem. Dead slaves can no longer be exploited, and the survivors no longer want to serve. The Roman Empire victories over the slave rots led to its final collapse, as attacked both from the outside, by the conquered people’s revenge, but also from the inside, by the slaves’ riot. The superior liberties granting to the classical slaves, by the feudalism and then by the capitalism, led to the slaves’ revolt tempering and to the master himself bigger security of his own life.

There is a morality root learned by everyone in the family: if a family member uses unequally the family resources, in its favor and against the others, he will receive their disapproval; when a child does not share with its brother/sister what he has, he will suffer the parents’ disapproval or punishment. At the social level, the same thing happens, but the disapproval/punishment does not come from the parents, but from the other society members, frustrated by the rich ones too big privileges. Kant's "categorical imperative" is, in fact, a diversification and superior development of this early experience. He formulated it in two ways. The first one was: " Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end!" The second one was: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law!"

Of course, as we already know, the slavery is deeply contradicts these principles. In the ancient times the classical slave was a person "who deserved to be killed, but for various reasons was allowed to live." Reducing the human status to an intermediate stage between man and animal, rather to the latter, has been a solution to reconciling profitable socio-economic practices with this immutable ethical principle.

Similarly, the modern wage slave can be thrown into not-being as an useless tool, after not being profitable enough. Obtaining access to medical services after losing a job, through the bureaucracy of losing health insurance, is a capitalism practice that identically reflects the way in which the classical slavery evaluated the slave. (On this basis, the furious free vaccination campaign against SARS-VOC2 seems more like a trap or a political advertising campaign than a medical honest practice). So, the status of the slave is no longer shown "as an end ", as Kant states.

The other categorical imperative formulation does not support slavery either. As most moralists have already stated, the slavery cannot be in harmony with morality, because the master cannot place all of humanity in the person of the slave or does not agree to be treated like his slave. To kill a human being, or to reduce his creative potential, can never become a universal law, because that would mean the extinction of the human species. In fact, the morality itself as a discipline was created by prominent figures in philosophy and religion precisely to counteract this scourge of civilization. Among the first morality manifestations in the civilization history there is the restriction "Do not kill!". This moral low is one of a group of ten "commandments" from the Old Book known as the "Old Testament." It is the basis for both Christianity and Judaism or Islam. If we look at the classical slavery ideological engine, expressed by the equivalence stated above, then we see that the slavery cannot exist without death. The beating, with which the slaves were sometimes frightened to work more efficient, is a slower death. Another such "commandment", in this group of 10, is "Do not steal!" It prevents the robbery specific to classical society, which is the main source of slavery.

Therefore, we can say not only that the slavery is immoral, but that the morality itself is dedicated to countering the slavery. I will return to this topic in one of the next articles. This moral perception is felt by everyone more or less clearly in his inner moral court. Any man educated in a civilized culture, and without interest in the comfort given by the slavery, will disavow it. And that is why it was disguised in today's waged form. Because, unfortunately, the slavery is the main engine of any pre-automatic economy, as it is still in our society.

So, morally, the slavery is not sustainable by the increasing personal freedom argument, as long as it is materialized by the mental / spiritual mutilation of others. The slavery thus turns out to be rather a set of abusive liberties, which the master takes from his slaves, violating their essential freedoms. That is why the Aristotle's famous argument for justifying slavery, by increasing and maintaining the master superior freedoms, is demolished precisely by this reality of attacking other people's freedoms.

This creates in the human mind a strange ambivalence between the moral law and the slave exploitation convenience preservation. An example is Aristotle himself, who freed his slaves at the end of his life, instead of giving them to a loved one. From this decision we can see that he himself only partially believed in that argument, that is, under the profit that results from this practice. But in fact, his moral side rejected him. If he had not rejected him, then the Stagirite would have left those slaves to someone, in order to do a "good". Kant said that this conflict between the convenience of profit due to self-interest and the moral law must not exist. But, of course, such an attitude is part of his rigid spirit that repressed the passion and promoted the reason. However, Freud found it camouflaged among the many mental conflicts, specific to various disorders, even though he did not recognize it literally, and preferred to recognize it in the conflict between sexuality and social norms.

However, even though the slavery was felt as immoral by civilization, its usefulness prevailed. Despite the Christianity moral pressures, as the figures of history show, the classical slavery has continued until recently. Indeed, it was largely replaced by the feudal system, which, as I mentioned, was an easier form of slavery, with the slave being given the freedom to leave or remain on the feudal estate. However, we know very well that the classical slavery was adopted by the very Christianity in America until the American Civil War. Not only Catholicism and (especially) Protestantism have practiced it. The Orthodox Church has also practiced it, even if not very often, over the centuries.

The conflict between the slavery usefulness and its prohibition given by the morality was balanced by the growing flexibility of the social system. In ancient times, the classical slavery system was much more rigid; the refusal to serve was punished by death. Later, in feudalism, its refusal only led to cutting off access to natural resources, an austere life. The capitalism came up with another invention, namely blaming any kind of traditional lifestyle and then artificially creating false needs, promoted by the advertising techniques that the system subliminally plants in the potential subject mentality. Satisfying these needs in exchange for the taking orders gives the slavery an appearance of free trade, as I showed in the previous chapter .

In this case, we notice that inside this wages versus work free exchange appearance, the slavery has infiltrated as an abuse of fundamental human freedoms, especially that of the free choice or rest and socializing with family and friends. Instead of taking its self-esteem out of this close social environment, it is manipulated to take it from non-specific areas. The modern order taker accepts to sale its freedom by the very execution of these orders in exchange for less important liberties, such as a false illusion of respect or social ascension from unknown persons or distant acquaintances.

Under a complex system of polling public opinion, the contemporary capitalism manages to determine the order taker degree of social unrest temper it with optimistic messages, entertainment or even offering wage increases. These measures are meant to lower down the slavery pressures and offer the order taker longer moments of rest. The holidays or the weekend days off are other measures meant to relax the modern order taker and to reduce its typical revolt. Its life experience and wisdom that comes with age make her/him prefer less well paid but more relaxing jobs, than better paid, but more stressful ones.

The capitalist system comes with such jobs to meet this personal evolution. Here, unlike the classical slavery crime, where the master was willing to go to war periodically to conquer new slaves, or to stop a slave riot, the capitalism masked slavery has certain accelerator and brake pedals. The capitalism is horrified by public riots and has developed a whole mechanism of absorbing and converting popular anger. This can be converted into the fantasy war of games , into entertainment and the use of psychoactive substances, or even to the artificial creation of wars , in which those with a high riot potential are attracted and discreetly eliminated. These measures of global manipulation actually turn the medieval morality into profit. The capitalism masked slavery is a negotiable slavery. In the next section, which will become a sub-chapter, I will describe the diversified modern wage slavery methods of persuasion , unlike those of classical slavery, based on direct threats directed at the slave.

Gabriel Baldovin