51–60 of 153 posts
"Instead of paying taxes in money, every Incan was required to provide labor to the state. In exchange for this labor, they were given the necessities of life. Of course, not everybody had to pay labor tax. Nobles and their courts were exempt, as were other prominent members of Incan society." I find it fascinating that this article compares the labor system more to socialism than to slavery.
The book _1491_ is a great read to learn more about what the Americas were like before the European arrival. Recent archaeology is finding that the societies in the Americas were way more complex and interconnected than most of us understand. http://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-Colum...
Saw a documentary about Gauls where they reshaped the view on what was said to be a simple civilisation (~hunters) where in fact they had a non trivial economy based on manufacture of goods (amphoras) backed by recent discovery of burried factory remains.
Seems like a centralized economy does not have to be inefficient after all.
The extent to which the Incas did it is remarkable, but historically civil engineering had little to do with markets. The ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, Persians etc. pretty much built their infrastructure and monumental buildings with drafted, unpaid labor. The French monarchy, one of the most advanced states in the world, relied on the corvée to build roads up until 1789 [1]. The decisive turn in the situation took…
I think the key point is that they didn't have money at all .
One thing to remember about the Inca's though is that though they had no written language, they did have a record keeping system involving knots in string. Only a very few Incas knew how this system worked so it's possible that here was no efficient reckoning system available to the masses so large scale trade would have been impossible in a lot of ways.
Another thing to think of, is that when talking about the 'Incas' we should avoid conflating the Incas themselves, who were relatively few in number, and the vast number of peoples that they ruled over. The bulk of the Incas themselves were soldiers in the military and were provided for directly by the government, while the conquered peoples were reputedly pressed into labor and made to wear uniforms corresponding to their social statuses. It's possible that the various tribes traded amongst themselves before they were conquered by the Incas and had their societies radically transformed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually I remember a documentary were it stated that the Persians paid men and women for their skills working on projects. I can't remember the name of the documentary (probably from the discovery channel). A quick google search - http://hsc.csu.edu.au/ancient_history/societies/near_east/pe... And - "Men, women and children worked in ancient Persia to support a diverse economy. Workers were paid in wine and grain, w…
>Workers were paid in wine and grain That's not pay, it's logistics. Even on the worst forced labor projects they're still usually feeding the prisoners.
More exactly, once person A had worked for you for two days you had to pay back by working two days at her place, let's say helping her collecting potatoes or whatever, "number of days worked" was a sort of currency. And providing food to the hired workers was also part of the deal.
Obviously things have changed now, as even then (25 years ago) this practice was beginning to fade off.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually I remember a documentary were it stated that the Persians paid men and women for their skills working on projects. I can't remember the name of the documentary (probably from the discovery channel). A quick google search - http://hsc.csu.edu.au/ancient_history/societies/near_east/pe... And - "Men, women and children worked in ancient Persia to support a diverse economy. Workers were paid in wine and grain, w…
>Workers were paid in wine and grain That's not pay, it's logistics. Even on the worst forced labor projects they're still usually feeding the prisoners.
You are fully aware that you can offer work in exchange for things rather than gold or fiat money?
From the other link we'll find
>Free workers were even recruited from neighbouring satrapies at harvest time (Dandemaev and Lukonin, 1989: 157). Paid free-born labourers worked on the Babylonian canals, and free non-citizen farmers worked the land of the state, temples and the rich (Dandamaev and Lukonin, 1989: 152), and provided the corvee labour at such sites as Susa and Persepolis (Kent 1953DSf 22-58). They could not be sold, and so were not actually slaves, and could be considered non-citizen workers.
(my emphasis)
The discussion is more complicated than quoting a couple of random non-related articles on the Internet. But simply changing the meaning of a given statement and dismissing the entire counter argument is dishonest.
"Instead of paying taxes in money, every Incan was required to provide labor to the state. In exchange for this labor, they were given the necessities of life. Of course, not everybody had to pay labor tax. Nobles and their courts were exempt, as were other prominent members of Incan society." I find it fascinating that this article compares the labor system more to socialism than to slavery.
It certainly wasn't socialism, but it wasn't exactly slavery either. The "labor tax" was 2 years of labour (out of your entire life).
The main difference seems to be the centrality of supply distribution. With serfdom, the serfs were basically required to work for the lord/noble and then had to also do their own food growing/production to survive. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom)
Having a central authority ensuring no-one starves and everyone had all the essentials allowed for much better specialization and efficiency. Other cultures evolved into similar specialization via trade and offered distributed societies. The Inca-style state would have similar limitations to Soviet Union, where all goods that were not produced within its boundaries were virtually unattainable by the common people.
This also stifled innovation in areas that the state was not focusing on. Just look at the Soviet consumer car manufacturing sector - an automatic transmission was virtually unheard of until 90s imports started pouring in.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Workers were paid in wine and grain That's not pay, it's logistics. Even on the worst forced labor projects they're still usually feeding the prisoners.
Eh, you simply changed the meaning of the word; it clearly states "paid" and not "feed". You are fully aware that you can offer work in exchange for things rather than gold or fiat money? From the other link we'll find >Free workers were even recruited from neighbouring satrapies at harvest time (Dandemaev and Lukonin, 1989: 157). Paid free-born labourers worked on the Babylonian canals, and free non-citizen farmers…
A. Market based, in which a certain reward is provided for performing a certain amount of work. Workers are generally free to come and leave, and respond accordingly to variations in wages.
B. Command based, into which workers are essentially corralled by threats of force (explicit or implicit), and often provided with nourishment so they can keep laboring until their obligation is fulfilled.
It's possible to talk of "payment" under scenario B [1], but it cheapens the term and it definitely doesn't indicate market-based relations. Transfers of food and drink (which make for poor currency, especially in places that are already minting coins [2]) are on the contrary a good indication of the corvée system at work.
[1] See e.g. this Wikipedia entry: "Corvée [...] was unpaid labour imposed [...] by the state [...] The corvée was the earliest and most widespread form of taxation [... The] Medieval agricultural corvée was not entirely unpaid: by custom the workers could expect small payments, often in the form of food and drink consumed on the spot." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvee