Influx of Slaves

[Markdoc]

Well as to how it'd work out, history already gives us a hint - exactly this situation has played out at least twice before (probably more often) in the real world.

When Athens rose to prominence it started to acquire lots and lots of slaves from its wars of conquest. Large landowners (who just like in medieval europe formed the military elite and provided most of the commanders) got lots of slaves.

Slaves ARE cheaper than serfs - and more efficient. You can work 'em all year and get all of the value. You can work 'em to death and buy new ones cheaply, if there are enough of them - and at the peak of the slave trade, a slave in Rome cost about 500 to 1500 denarii - less than 16 Aes, which was the cost of a Modius: enough wheat to make 20 loaves of bread. Or about the same as a donkey (put that into today's prices: about 100 bucks). Plus - unlike serfs - you can buy educated slaves at a small premium, which means you can set them to running your industry/agriculture. You really *don't* need peasants if you have slaves

We know what happened in Athens. The wealthy class, who had the most slaves, were able to prosper, even though the influx of cheap labor dropped prices. The poorer landowners and craftsmen were unable to compete and either sold their property or simply walked away from it - ending up either in the army, in the city (which started to develop big slums at this point) or dead. Political unrest soared. However, the slave-based economy (not just agriculture, but also slave-based craft workshops and slave-based mining) was so much more efficient that Athens established a hegemony (the so-called golden era) and a disproportionately large economy (at one point half the residents of Athens were slaves). This imbalance was one of the causes of the war that bought Athens down and with the slave trade cut off, the economy crashed hard.

In Rome the same story played out, a few centuries later. They also became owners of hundreds of thousands if not millions of slaves (nobody knows for sure how many, but most historians agree about 300-400 thousand in Augustinian Rome, which at the time had a population of about a million. The military/economic elite had the most slaves and they added the extra twist that the old roman system had a patron/client system based on debt. Many small landowners could not pay their debts - or even buy food - as agricultural prices fell, so were arrested and sold into slavery themselves. This led first to political unrest, then mass rioting and eventually revolt and mutiny in the army, before a law was passed preventing romans being enslaved for debt. Hundreds of thousands lost their land and ended up in the city or in the army. The world's first social welfare programs were set up to keep the unemployed proles (who lived in huge, horrible crime-ridden slums) from rioting - all underpinned by the surplus generated by slave labour. The end was the same too: when Roman military expansion reached its limit, fresh suplies of slaves started to dry up and the roman economy started to go - sliding first into recession and then collapse. With economic collapse came the end of the expensive military and essentially the end of the empire.

Shouldn't be too hard to impose that pattern on a mock-medieval medieval economy: the basic economic structures are more alike than different and though the political structure is different, the elements of unrest and repression and conciliation are the same.

cheers, Mark

[austenandrews]

Now that's interesting. The influx of treasure implies inflation but the influx of slaves implies lower prices. How to reconcile? Here's a question - is it possible to have both? That is the absolute value of gold currency drops, but since human workers can't compete with elf slaves, they still can't earn enough money to make ends meet?

[Roland]

If elf-slave labor displaces human labor in any region or sector, then you'll have a problem of unemployment or underemployment. You could have lower prices and plenty of money in circulation, but anyone who can't find a full-time paying job won't reap his share of the benefits.

One way or another, I would expect the situation to resolve itself by using some of that money to employ or support the displaced peasants and workers. Markdoc gave two possibilities - military recruitment and a public dole. I suggested public works projects.

Another possibility is colonization - encouraging the unemployed to settle in newly discovered or conquered lands. Perhaps the nobles who have staked claims in the fairy lands will need to import human workers to farm their land, work their mines, etc. There could be an exchange of populations - elves to the mundane world, where their magic does not work, and non-magical humans to the fairy lands. The rulers will think they have precluded the possibility of magical revolt. But maybe the humans will start to develop magic if they live in the fairy lands long enough . . .

[Markdoc]

Now that's interesting. The influx of treasure implies inflation but the influx of slaves implies lower prices. How to reconcile? Here's a question - is it possible to have both? That is the absolute value of gold currency drops, but since human workers can't compete with elf slaves, they still can't earn enough money to make ends meet?

Absolutely - in fact, the early Roman empire had both of those things. Increasing inflation AND lower prices. Perhaps I should have been more specific! Sorry about that.

Anyway, here's how things worked: the influx of cheap forced labour drove most product prices down. At the same time, it also reduced wages for free workers in the same fields. That kept inflation in check for many things, although the real wage ie: what you could buy for your money, gradually decreased, since inflation was slightly higher than wages. That's why the bread dole was introduced: it wasn't just for unemployed people - often, even people with poor-paying regular jobs relied on it.

However for goods that were limiting: land, military command, political office, gold and jewellery etc, the price skyrocketted. You can guess the effect: the social elite (the optimates) got rapidly richer and richer - everybody else got slowly poorer. This eventually stretched the republican system to breaking point and led to political collapse and the rise of the empire.

So in your world, the people who are taking elf slaves will benefit from cheap/free labour and sale of same, and also benefit from inflation, since most things will become cheaper while their inflated income allows them to outbid everybody else for things that retain real value.

Expect those nobles who don't have access to slaves to get very angry, very fast, as they see their social position evaporating. Expect the commons to become unhappy - although how much depends on the level of export in your society: if there are lots of merchants and thriving trade, you'll get a booming middle class who can take advantage of cheaper prices to drive export trade: this is what made the post-sheep-farming boom England so wealthy and to some extent blunted the suffering at the lower end of the social scale. Of course the noble class may be a bit unhappy about a rising middle class who can afford to buy slaves (and soldiers!) of their own...

Cheers, Mark

[austenandrews]

Since I want to start with a condition of social unrest, it sounds like I need to limit the amount of exports. In fact I can see the opposite happening - foreign traders coming in greater numbers with luxury goods, to trade not for local products but for plundered fairy gold.