Debt: The First 5,000 Years

by David Graeber

Slave-owners might dress it up in all sorts of legalistic or paternalistic language, but really this is just window-dressing and no one really believes otherwise; really, it is a relation based purely on violence; a slave must obey because if he doesn’t, he can be beaten, tortured, or killed, and everyone is perfectly well aware of this. Second of all, being socially dead means that a slave has no binding moral relations with anyone else: he is alienated from his ancestors, community, family, clan, city; he cannot make contracts or meaningful promises, except at the whim of his master, who could just as easily take it back; even if he acquires a family, it can be broken up at any time. The relation of pure force that attached him to his master was hence the only human relationship that ultimately mattered. As a result—and this is the third essential element—the slave’s situation was one of utter degradation. Hence the Mande warrior’s slap: the captive, having refused his one final chance to save his honor by killing himself, must recognize that he will now be considered an entirely contemptible being.12 Yet at the same time, this ability to strip others of their dignity becomes, for the master, the foundation of his honor. As Patterson notes, there have been places—the Islamic world affords numerous examples—where slaves are not even put to work for profit; instead, rich men make a point of surrounding themselves with battalions of slave retainers as tokens of their magnif...