The Servile State Hilaire Belloc (ebook reader macos TXT) 📖

The servile condition is present in society only when there is also present the free citizen for whose benefit the slave works under the compulsion of positive law.

Again, it should be noted that this word “servile” in no way connotes the worst, nor even necessarily a bad, arrangement of society. This point is so clear that it should hardly delay us; but a confusion between the rhetorical and the precise use of the word servile I have discovered to embarrass public discussion of the matter so much that I must once more emphasise what should be self-evident.

The discussion as to whether the institution of slavery be a good or a bad one, or be relatively better or worse than other alternative institutions, has nothing whatever to do with the exact definition of that institution. Thus monarchy consists in throwing the responsibility for the direction of society upon an individual. One can imagine some Roman of the first century praising the new imperial power, but through a muddleheaded tradition against “kings” swearing that he would never tolerate a “monarchy.” Such a fellow would have been a very futile critic of public affairs under Trajan, but no more futile than a man who swears that nothing shall make him a “slave,” though well prepared to accept laws that compel him to labour without his consent, under the force of public law, and upon terms dictated by others.

Many would argue that a man so compelled to labour, guaranteed against insecurity and against insufficiency of food, housing and clothing, promised subsistence for his old age, and a similar set of advantages for his posterity, would be a great deal better off than a free man lacking all these things. But the argument does not affect the definition attaching to the word servile. A devout Christian of blameless life drifting upon an ice-flow in the Arctic night, without food or any prospect of succour, is not so comfortably circumstanced as the Khedive of Egypt; but it would be folly in establishing the definition of the words “Christian” and “Muhammadan” to bring this contrast into account.

We must then, throughout this inquiry, keep strictly to the economic aspect of the case. Only when that is established and when the modern tendency to the reestablishment of slavery is clear, are we free to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the revolution through which we are passing.

It must further be grasped that the essential mark of the servile institution does not depend upon the ownership of the slave by a particular master. That the institution of slavery tends to that form under the various forces composing human nature and human society is probable enough. That if or when slavery were reestablished in England a particular man would in time be found the slave not of capitalism in general but of, say, the Shell Oil Trust in particular, is a very likely development; and we know that in societies where the institution was of immemorial antiquity such direct possession of the slave by the free man or corporation of free men had come to be the rule. But my point is that such a mark is not essential to the character of slavery. As an initial phase in the institution of slavery, or even as a permanent phase marking society for an indefinite time, it is perfectly easy to conceive of a whole class rendered servile by positive law, and compelled by such law to labour for the advantage of another non-servile free class, without any direct act of possession permitted to one man over the person of another.

The final contrast thus established between slave and free might be maintained by the state guaranteeing to the unfree, security in their subsistence, to the free, security in their property and profits, rent and interest. What would mark the slave in such a society would be his belonging to that set or status which was compelled by no matter what definition to labour, and was thus cut off from the other set or status not compelled to labour, but free to labour or not as it willed.

Again, the servile state would certainly exist even though a man, being only compelled to labour during a portion of his time, were free to bargain and even to accumulate in his “free” time. The old lawyers used to distinguish between a serf “in gross” and a serf “regardant.” A serf “in gross” was one who was a serf at all times and places, and not in respect to a particular lord. A serf “regardant” was a serf only in his bondage to serve a particular lord. He was free as against other men. And one might perfectly well have slaves who were only slaves “regardant” to a particular type of employment during particular hours. But they would be slaves none the less, and if their hours were many and their class numerous, the state which they supported would be a servile state.

Lastly, let it be remembered that the servile condition remains as truly an institution of the state when it attaches permanently and irrevocably at any one time to a particular set of human beings as when it attaches to a particular class throughout their lives. Thus the laws of paganism permitted the slave to be enfranchised by his master: it further permitted children or prisoners to be sold into slavery. The servile institution, though perpetually changing in the elements of its composition, was still an unchanging factor in the state. Similarly, though the state should only subject to slavery those who had less than a certain income, while leaving men free by inheritance or otherwise to pass out of, and by loss to pass into, the slave class, that slave class, though fluctuating as to its composition, would still permanently exist.

Thus, if the modern industrial state shall make a law by which servile conditions shall not attach to those capable of earning more than a certain sum by their own labour, but shall attach