The Extent and Significance of Debt Slavery
R. franc, social, 43, Supplement, 2002, 173-204 Alain TESTART The Extent and Significance of Debt Slavery Abstract The phenomenon of debt slavery has either been greatly underestimated or, on the con trary, overestimated through confusion with other ways of dealing with the debtor, like pawn ing, for instance, or the possibility of reimbursing debt through labor. After carefully defining debt slavery, the article shows how widespread it has been, and explains its social- significance as follows: inequalities between rich and poor, already present in most primi tivesocieties, may be redefined in terms of masters and slaves. The transformation, or threa tened transformation, of a debtor into a slave considerably strengthens the power of the dominant. The article concludes with a hypothesis about the origins of the state. For reasons that will not be elucidated here, the extent of debt slavery, par ticularly in primitive societies, has been seriously underestimated. (1) We much too readily take for granted the idea that war was the main, if not exclu sive, source of slaves, and slavery. The following two examples should enable us to free ourselves of this notion. In the case of the Yurok Indians living in what is now northwestern California, war slavery was so infrequent that Kroeber himself, our main authority on this population, denied its existence. (2) He did point out another type of "slavery" (further on I shall examine whether this is the appropriate term), well-known among these people, and resulting from insolvent debt. After application of a highly developed system of fines, whoever had broken a taboo, especially rel ative to mourning, or offended a man, accidentally caused a fire, or destroyed wealth, had to provide compensation in the form of appropriate payment; if he was unable to do so, he was put into a form of bondage to the injured party.
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