the Jester
Legend
This thread is great and I love the historical information. 
Slave prices
- Thread starter Telperion
- Start date
d4
First Post
your Calastia sounds a lot like the practice of slavery in the medieval Islamic world.
Islam permitted slavery without really encouraging the practice. treating a slave well and even freeing a slave was considered virtuous. on the other hand, releasing a slave who had no training or skills with which to support himself once free was often illegal! according to Muslim law, the owner had an obligation to care for his slaves and to see that they were provided for.
a large percentage (perhaps even a majority) of slaves in the Muslim world were skilled workers, instead of unskilled manual laborers. these slaves often held a great deal of loyalty toward their masters. in fact, there was even an entire caste of slave-soldiers (the Mamelukes) who fought and died for their owners!
it was not uncommon for slaves to be able to buy their freedom, and their former owners would sometimes even help them out with some money or property to get them started as freedmen. slave owners also often freed all their slaves upon their deaths to show their virtue.
there was a prohibition against taking other Muslims as slaves. therefore, Muslim slave traders were forced to look outside the Dar al-Islam (the "world of Islam") for slaves -- and considering that at its height Islam spread from Spain to Indonesia, and from Central Asia to East Africa, this was not as easy as it sounds! However, a slave who converted to Islam was not automatically freed. i've not seen any direct evidence, but my assumption is that children of slaves who converted to Islam would not be considered slaves (since they were born Muslims), although i can't confirm that. however, the child of a slave and a free man was considered free (contrast this to the policy of the American slavery era).
according to the information in GURPS Arabian Nights (a very well written and well researched book on the era), a trained slave could vary in price from a few hundred to a few thousand dirhams. for comparison, the average day laborer earned about a hundred dirhams a month. in the Arabian Nights tales themselves, an 8-year old boy, with one small fault, sold for 800 dirhams, whereas the "cultured and beautiful slave-girls of the caliph's court" could cost up to 10,000 dirhams each!
Islam permitted slavery without really encouraging the practice. treating a slave well and even freeing a slave was considered virtuous. on the other hand, releasing a slave who had no training or skills with which to support himself once free was often illegal! according to Muslim law, the owner had an obligation to care for his slaves and to see that they were provided for.
a large percentage (perhaps even a majority) of slaves in the Muslim world were skilled workers, instead of unskilled manual laborers. these slaves often held a great deal of loyalty toward their masters. in fact, there was even an entire caste of slave-soldiers (the Mamelukes) who fought and died for their owners!
it was not uncommon for slaves to be able to buy their freedom, and their former owners would sometimes even help them out with some money or property to get them started as freedmen. slave owners also often freed all their slaves upon their deaths to show their virtue.
there was a prohibition against taking other Muslims as slaves. therefore, Muslim slave traders were forced to look outside the Dar al-Islam (the "world of Islam") for slaves -- and considering that at its height Islam spread from Spain to Indonesia, and from Central Asia to East Africa, this was not as easy as it sounds! However, a slave who converted to Islam was not automatically freed. i've not seen any direct evidence, but my assumption is that children of slaves who converted to Islam would not be considered slaves (since they were born Muslims), although i can't confirm that. however, the child of a slave and a free man was considered free (contrast this to the policy of the American slavery era).
according to the information in GURPS Arabian Nights (a very well written and well researched book on the era), a trained slave could vary in price from a few hundred to a few thousand dirhams. for comparison, the average day laborer earned about a hundred dirhams a month. in the Arabian Nights tales themselves, an 8-year old boy, with one small fault, sold for 800 dirhams, whereas the "cultured and beautiful slave-girls of the caliph's court" could cost up to 10,000 dirhams each!
d4 said:
So a cultured and beautiful slave-girl cost about 8 years' wages for an average day labourer. The small boy with a fault (he told calamitious and very destructive malicious lies, IIRC) sold for 2/3 of a years' wages for a labourer.
We are looking at anohter instance in which slaves seem very cheap.
Regards,
Agback
Telperion said:
Well, I doubt you can work a slave for fifty years. It would take good quality and expensive food and medical care to keep a person alive taht long under quasi-mediaeval conditions.
And don't forget that a slave not only has to be bought, he or she also has to be fed, clothed, housed, and given incentives for diligence and loyalty. All that has to be met out of his work output before you start to amortise his cost.
Not to mention that it is far more convenient to hire a worker when you need him, and let him go when you don't: you can't afford to stop feeding a slave when you have no immediate need for his work.
Regards,
Agback
Agback said:
1. This is D&D, so everyone pretty much lives close to 100 years. If your slave is not human you probably get even a longer life-span. The only real exceptions being disease, violence or stupidity.
2 & 3. Yes, we have covered this already. It is more practical to hire some workers to do the job than to buy, train and guard slaves while they do it. That would be why I'm think this is more of a richman's joy, than any practical alternative for workers.
And then there are those people, who simply have an obsession for owning things...
Telperion said:
How do you figure that?
Telperion said:
Then what's the problem? Depending on the availability of captives, slaves will cost something between 1 and 6 years' wages for equivalent workers. 36-220 gp for a labourer.
Telperion said:
That seems too strong a conclusion. What you say will be true in some industries and occupations, not in all.
Telperion said:
Sure. But they don't have to pay more than the market price. If the general conditions of slavery make slaves cheap, these obsessives will buy their slaves cheaply.
Regards,
Agback
Agback said:
1. By core rules your average human being will live 70 + 2d10 years. Should the slave be captured at the age of 20, and nothing happens to him, then he should be good for at least 50 years of work. In one form or another.
2. No problem really. Where did you come up with the suggested figures, btw? I'm thinking more along the lines of 20 - 30 years of wages. Let's say that you average worker earns 1 sp per' day. That's 400 sp per' year, or 40 gp. 40 x 20 or 30 would be around 800 - 1200 gp per' slave. Now, that is starting sound about right. Of course no one is assuming that your average slave will live for all those 70 or so years that he might live. It is, however, more probable to say that he will reach the age of 40 - 50 before dying, wouldn't you agree?
3. Yes, well I'm looking for answers into the environment that I described above. Although this thread could be useful as a guideline for other environments that is not my need at present.
4. True. It all depends on variables that the game world sets. Quite a lot of variables actually, as I have noticed...
Telperion said:
Before dying of old age, that is. Slaves are going to dying of disease, overwork, industrial accidents, harsh disciplinary action, being killed while trying to escape, etc. And I really don't see anyone forking out for Raise Dead.
Telperion said:
They are figures I turned up in research while trying to work out what slaves should cost in my setting Gehennum. The lower limit is set by the price of slaves in ancient Rome, where people could be rounded up very cheaply across the Northern border and where people customarily manumitted their skilled and household slaves in their early thirties. The upper limit was set by the price of slaves in the USA after the British put a stop to importation, so every slave had to be bred at his owner's expense, but slaves were worked until they dropped. I figure that slaves can't be any more expensive than under those conditions, because that is the cost of breeding and raising them.
Telperion said:
Yes. And you have to discount the stream of profits the slave produces for the fact that they are delayed. 36.5 gp to be paid in fifty years' time is not worth 36.5 gp now. Assuming a 4% chance per year of premature death, escape, or crippling disease or accident, the chance of the slave living fifty years is only 13%. And assuming an interest rate of 5%, 36.5 gp due in fifty years is worth only 3.2 gp now. The expected present value of the slave's work in his fiftieth year is only 0.4 gp.
A labourer does work worth 3 gp per month, but even 'self-sufficent' upkeep is 2 gp per month. The slave's net output is only 12 gp per year. Discount that at 9% per annum (4% risk plus 5% interest), and you end up with an NPV of 133.3 gp, or rather under four year's wages. And that is not taking into account incentives, rest days, declining vigour with age, and death through old age.
Regards,
Agback
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