Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists? • Hacker News Board

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#61

Post by stereolambda » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 6:45 PM UTC

quocanh wrote: post #18

britch wrote: post #10

What a strange piece. Putting the reader in the master's perspective certainly is a choice. It fails to investigate that almost anyone in its ostensible audience of corporate managers is both a "master" and "slave" (mangers have managers). An incredibly grim takeaway as well. It acknowledges the exploitation in both systems, but doesn't ask you to do anything about it or interrogate it deeper. There's no way that you…

You definitely have to be opened minded in order to read this. I can see how this could be offensive or distasteful but from a purely academic point of view it's interesting to see that a master-slave relationship was more than a contractual relationship. Leadership was just as important in that relationship as it is in a manager-employee relationship. And although we have since abolished slavery, we will always need…

Well, there was nothing contractual about this relationship: you have no contract with your property.

A related rant. Being a wage worker is historically strictly better than being a peasant, as you can go wherever and leave your employer whenever you want; being a peasant was also strictly better than being a slave, since you're not property, are tied to a place (and cannot be just moved wherever), have legal personhood and duties limited by public law. That people like to conflate all this muddles actual historical progress and also prevents people from real analysis and improvement of their situation. I don't think that the current situation of wage workers will be something accepted by people long term, assuming civilization progresses. But to deconstruct the bad parts of social machinery they need to understand it beyond slogans, otherwise they can be made content with different slogans. /rant

In a sense, the free person's (and therefore, often a master's) perspective is the only one relevant to the present inhabitants of First/Second World countries. You are emphatically not a slave, can have no remotely close experience and can only cultivate memories for ethical reasons. That being said, I don't think there is anything to "learn" from ancient managers of slaves either, because hopefully you can never be in that sort of situation. Romanticizing of slave and peasant relationships also exists, and is obviously BS, although not something that people are tending to push openly with the current swing of cultural pendulum.

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#62

Post by cogman10 » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 6:51 PM UTC

xeromal wrote: post #50

cogman10 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This works to an extent. You have to be careful to make sure you aren't just softening history with a "product of their time" argument. A good example is US slavery. You might mistakenly fall under the understanding that slavery was just a common and well accepted practice. Yet, from the founding of the US and earlier it was HIGHLY controversial. You can't just take the perspective of the slave owner, you must also c…

It works the further out a historical event goes. US slavery is still very recent compared to Roman slavery. Once 1000 years has passed from the US slavery, historical takes will probably be different from what we have now.

Fair point.

I'm more advising caution due to my background as an exmormon. "Product of their time" is used frequently by mormon apologists to excuse the racist or predatory behaviors of the founders of the religion. I also see it used for excusing the actions of the founding fathers or confederate generals.

When I see someone say "we can't judge the romans for their actions" my mind instantly goes to thinking "Well, what are their peers saying?" I think it's fair to judge them based on how their peers judge them. Maybe that's completely missing from the historical record (again, not a roman historian), but something that I think everyone should keep before taking the mental shortcut of "product of their time".

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#63

Post by inglor_cz » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 6:56 PM UTC

MisterTea wrote: post #32

wins32767 wrote: post #27

"And just as a household needed slaves, so companies need staff. Permanent employees, like slaves, are far more desirable than outsourcing to outsiders. The Romans thought external contractors could never be relied on like members of the primary social group. They failed to turn up when instructed to, took liberties with their fees and, taking little pride in their work, carried out their tasks shoddily. With slaves,…

> "With slaves, however, who were stakeholders in the system," "With slaves, however, who's stakes were forcibly held by others in the system," FTFY

Household slaves could buy their freedom from their masters. Then they became freedmen, still allied and somewhat subordinated to their former masters, but their children were already full Roman citizens.

The prospect of manumission was a huge incentive for the slave to work harder and smarter. Some freedmen became very rich. The slaveowners could theoretically renege on their promise, but rarely did so, because they would lose the profit of their slaves believing them and working harder.

Romans were pretty Machiavelistic when it came to incentives. Their methods usually worked, even though they could hardly be described as morally sound.

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#64

Post by evan_ » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 6:56 PM UTC

fallingknife wrote: post #55

evan_ wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you actually have to be close-minded to read this favorably, an open-minded reading would be to consider the "slaves" as people whose rights are being violated

All cultures have differing views on rights. So any culture will have elements that I see people whose rights are being violated. I guess I will have to avoid reading anything about them, unless the author takes an appropriately moralistic and judgmental tone, of course. I have to assume that I am right and everybody else is wrong. It's the only way to be open minded.

Wow, when you pretend I said something completely different than what I actually said, it sounds really bad

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#65

Post by jacquesm » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 6:56 PM UTC

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #60

jacquesm wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US (and Russian, by the way) appropriation of German scientists and Nazi party members post WWII is certainly controversial and there are plenty of people who strongly believe that they should have stood trial in Nuremberg instead of being given a new job with plenty of perks. As Tom Lehrer wrote: "Don't say that he's hypocritical, Say rather that he's apolitical. "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they co…

But, in your opinion, was it the right thing for US to do? Say you are Truman. You are responsible for US and how it fares on the world stage. What would be the right thing to do? Show trials in Nuremberg will satisfy the public. Useful heads and knowledge at the very least would be prevented from going to Russia, where who knows what they would work on. If Braun was truly apolitical, history timeline could have easi…

Utilitarian arguments and ethics rarely go together well, hence 'realpolitik'.

What my opinion is on the matter is irrelevant, history has run its course and here we are.

We're well into 'old man lost his horse' territory now, of course you never know what the utility of a particular event is in the longer term. The doctor that saves the baby's life may well have caused a mass murderer to live a long and productive life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_old_man_lost_his_horse

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#66

Post by lkrubner » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 6:59 PM UTC

The dates here are far too late for the title to be accurate. Especially when they are talking about the 1st century BC. This after the end of the Warring States period in China, in 221 BC.

One reason that the Chin were able to win the Warring States period is because they invented the concept of "total war", including the concept of every aspect of the economy being maximized so as to maximize the output for the war effort. The rulers of Chin ended up nationalizing quite a bit of the productive land, and then pressuring the appointed managers to maximize output, and those managers, in turn, maximized pressure on the peasants to maximize output.

A difficult but fascinating book about the political debate of the Warring States period:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1936166755/

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#67

Post by Spooky23 » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 6:59 PM UTC

atdrummond wrote: post #4

First management theorists or first recorded management theorists? I feel like there are similarly (or nearly as) advanced cultures in this approximate era for whom we unfortunately have significantly less recorded material - and often what we do have was created by other civilizations (such as Rome itself or Greek city-states) who interacted with said people. These persons surely had theories of management for their…

You always need to assume “recorded”. Humans have been around for 300,000 years and evidence for more complex culture and technology goes back about 60,000.

People have always been as smart as they are, and getting other people to do work for you is probably the second or third oldest profession. I’m sure some ancient chieftain of a long forgotten tribe expounded on management theory eons ago.

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#68

Post by zozbot234 » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 7:05 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #62

xeromal wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works the further out a historical event goes. US slavery is still very recent compared to Roman slavery. Once 1000 years has passed from the US slavery, historical takes will probably be different from what we have now.

Fair point. I'm more advising caution due to my background as an exmormon. "Product of their time" is used frequently by mormon apologists to excuse the racist or predatory behaviors of the founders of the religion. I also see it used for excusing the actions of the founding fathers or confederate generals. When I see someone say "we can't judge the romans for their actions" my mind instantly goes to thinking "Well,…

> my mind instantly goes to thinking "Well, what are their peers saying?"

The classical Greek and Romans were incredibly civilized by the contemporary standards of their vicinity. Basically everyone was keeping slaves back then, but the Romans were pretty unique in not sacrificing infants to Baal or Moloch, and not collecting the severed heads of their enemies as trophies of mindless cruelty. And even the whole slave-holding thing was in the process of being slowly reformed over centuries, thanks to the ascendance of Stoic philosophy with its ideal of equal God-given dignity for all humans - which by the way was ultimately a key influence on Christianity, and an important contributor to its early spread within the Roman elite.

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#69

Post by jrm4 » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 7:11 PM UTC

A thing we still need to work on when we tell history: We need to further distinguish Roman slavery from American Chattel slavery.

Roman slavery is more like a permanent version of "Indentured Servitude" that we learned here in the states, aka how poor white kids could make it in e.g. Revolutionary times.

And not much at all like the "Slavery" that looms bigger in our heads, primarily race-driven and -- this is perhaps the biggie -- "chattel oriented;" i.e. not only are you owned forever, so are your kids, who may be sold at will etc.

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#70

Post by cogman10 » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 7:21 PM UTC

fallingknife wrote: post #56

cogman10 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This works to an extent. You have to be careful to make sure you aren't just softening history with a "product of their time" argument. A good example is US slavery. You might mistakenly fall under the understanding that slavery was just a common and well accepted practice. Yet, from the founding of the US and earlier it was HIGHLY controversial. You can't just take the perspective of the slave owner, you must also c…

It was both a common and well accepted practice and highly controversial. They are not mutually exclusive, e.g. abortion.

> It was both a common and well accepted

Slavery was not common. There were few slave owners and the populations of slavery states was minimal. Slavery was, by it's nature, very expensive. Only the very wealthy owned slaves. You had to be able to house the slaves and have work for them to be productive (or enough capital that productivity didn't matter).

In fact, before the cotton gin, slavery was on it's way out because not enough people could afford it. The gin made it possible to harvest and process mass amounts of cotton without specialized training.