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

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#71

Post by fallingknife » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 7:29 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #70

fallingknife wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bec…

Not true that there were only a few slave owners. https://socialequity.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/8.1...

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#72

Post by vondur » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 7:29 PM UTC

jrm4 wrote: post #69

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 perha…

Not entirely true. If you were one of the unfortunate slaves to be sent to work in the mines, it was basically a death sentence. Also, the Romans had 3 different large scale slave rebellions (called the Servile wars of which Spartacus was among them) I'm imagining that there was a very small minority of the slave population could earn enough money to purchase their freedom.

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#73

Post by fallingknife » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 7:31 PM UTC

evan_ wrote: post #64

fallingknife wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> 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

People who agree with you are open-minded. People who don't agree with you are close-minded.

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#74

Post by GoodJokes » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 7:38 PM UTC

jrm4 wrote: post #69

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 perha…

No post body was provided.

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#75

Post by libraryatnight » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 7:40 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #63

MisterTea wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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…

was there a pricing structure for buying one's freedom, or was it up to each master?

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#76

Post by cogman10 » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 7:42 PM UTC

fallingknife wrote: post #71

cogman10 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 bec…

Not true that there were only a few slave owners. https://socialequity.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/8.1...

> So, according to the Census of 1860, 30.8 percent of the free families in the confederacy owned slaves. That means that every third white person in those states had a direct commitment to slavery.

This is probably quibbling over numbers, but I'd point out that we are talking about 30% of the white people in states that had slavery. Not 30% of the population at large.

The states with slavery were underpopulated. The total population of the US in the 1860 was 31 million and the slave states had a population of 12 million (most of those slaves).

300k out of 31 million is, IMO, a few. Even if they are highly concentrated in a few states.

None of this really negates what I was saying. Owning slaves was expensive and only the wealthy could afford them. The fact that 30% of white people in slave states were wealthy enough to own slavery isn't a contradiction.

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#77

Post by legostormtroopr » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 7:42 PM UTC

jrm4 wrote: post #69

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 perha…

This seems like a twisted sickened version of American exceptionalism to position American slavery as exceptional worse than all other slavery, to maintain a monopoly on injustice.

It would be abhorrent to imply that American slaves were privileged because they had enough stability to become married or have children, in contrast to victims of Siberian gulags or Roman slaves worked to death in mines.

Like all of history, some people may have had better conditions than others, but on the whole anyone who could be classified as a “slave” throughout history suffered atrocities.

Slavery in all forms is violation of human rights, regardless of how history views it.

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#78

Post by sudosysgen » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 7:49 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #41

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,…

Slaves who worked in Roman households were effectively a highly-skilled and educated minority, who could indeed hope to earn enough to buy out their freedom. It goes without saying that this was not a meaningful possibility for the vast majority of slaves, who were forced to work under far more strenuous conditions.

Yep, they were basically the tech/finance/etc... workers of the time, in that they had the opportunity to buy their financial freedom.

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#79

Post by foobarian » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 7:56 PM UTC

libraryatnight wrote: post #75

inglor_cz wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

was there a pricing structure for buying one's freedom, or was it up to each master?

There was an advancement ladder, starting with individual contributor levels from junior to senior, moving on to roles with more responsibility starting with principal to senior principal. The last levels were the director and senior director levels, after which you crossed into the freedom levels with two letter titles. /s

Re: Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists?

#80

Post by vorpalhex » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 8:00 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

You aren't the only person making this mistake but don't assume Roman slavery was like American chattel slavery. Roman slavery was still slavery and still had abuses but it was not "slavery till death, for all your generations". Nor were slaves mere physical labor. Slaves often ran businesses, engaged in basically white collar work, and often times were skilled craftsmen who exceeded their masters skill.