Slaves generally come from prisoners of war, aborigines in occupied areas, debtors and criminals, and people who are sold to the slave market from Africa and other places. Slavery generally appears in agricultural society.
The most typical slavery in ancient times was the Roman Empire. In addition, ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, Babylon, China before the Zhou Dynasty, the southern United States before the Civil War and some former British, French and Russian colonies all belonged to slavery. However, is the slave society a necessary stage for any nation in any region? This view is still controversial.
Slavery comes from the legal ownership and control system of one person to another under the socio-economic conditions that can produce surplus products. In a typical slave society, the law recognizes that slaves are the private property of slave owners, who have the right to kill and seize, and can enslave, buy, sell and kill at will. Slaves have no independent personality, freedom and rights, and their descendants are slaves from generation to generation. The early slaves mainly came from foreign prisoners of war. It is customary to forbid members of this tribe to enslave other members. Later, after the establishment of the system that people outside the tribe can be slaves, sometimes some members of the tribe also become slaves, but often as a punishment, such as debtors who are unable to pay their debts and people who plead guilty. Hobhouse, a British sociologist, believes that slavery does not exist in the primary stage of cultural evolution, such as in the lower hunting tribes. Only when technology develops to the point where a laborer can produce more surplus wealth than he needs can he use slaves effectively, so the emergence of slavery is often limited to a fairly developed agricultural society.
The origin of slavery
Slaves generally come from prisoners of war, aborigines in occupied areas, debtors and criminals, and people who are sold to the slave market from Africa and other places. Slavery generally appears in agricultural society.
China
There are no slaves in western history in the history of China. Slaves in China have personal attachment to their masters, but they also have legal personality. Although the legal personality of slaves can not be compared with that of lovers or masters, lovers and masters still have to bear certain legal responsibilities for killing slaves, unlike in the west, which is only regarded as infringement of property.
In ancient China, farmers and freelancers dominated agricultural and industrial production, and slaves were not widely used in economic life. Therefore, some people think that there is no so-called slave society in China, such as Huang Xianfan and Zhang Guangzhi. 1979 Professor Huang Xianfan published the article "Discussion on the Slave-free Society in the National History of China". The article points out: "I insist that there is no slave society in the history of our country, neither does the Han nationality, nor does the vast majority of ethnic minorities." The transformation of Greece and Rome in Europe from a clan society to a slave society is not the law of the development of human society, nor the universal law of the world, but a special historical case. After the article was published, it was supported by Hu, Hu, and others. And there are more and more supporters. "... (1) As Professor Zhang Guangzhi, former president of Qinghai Normal University, clearly pointed out:" ... The relaxed academic environment in the new period of reform and opening up has prompted some scholars to re-understand and examine the stages of ancient history in China, that is, is there a stage of slave society development in China history? If it doesn't exist at all, wouldn't it be absurd to argue about the stages and boundaries between slave society and feudal society in China? Since the new era, scholars who advocate the development stage of China's slave-free society have Huang Xianfan, Hu, Hu, and so on. " Zhang Guangzhi: The ancient history of China has been discussed by stages for 70 years, as Professor Zhao Guangxian pointed out in the fifth issue of Knowledge of Literature and History 1986. Now people are paying attention again, and the number of supporters seems to be increasing, which is a flooding phenomenon. On the contrary, "China's slave society theory" has few sympathizers and lacks originality, and is strongly challenged by the deniers. "
There are many kinds of slaves in China, and the causes are also very different. The general trend is that the personal attachment of slaves has been weakening since the Zhou Dynasty, but it was not until the establishment of the Republic of China that slaves were legally eliminated.
During the Xia, Shang, Zhou and Qin dynasties, slaves were mostly produced in wars. Civilians captured by the enemy became slaves, and some were demoted to slaves because of crimes, including official slaves and private slaves. Slaves in Han Dynasty mainly came from private ownership formed by land annexation. In addition, at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, people turned to big manor owners and became private ownership in order to escape the war. During the Han and Tang dynasties, there were obvious differences between good and bad in law. For example, a tune (a slave) killed a lover, and a lover killed his own tune. Regardless of whether the song is guilty or not, it is only sentenced to imprisonment and can be redeemed with money. Having committed treason, the whole family and even the whole nation are not official slaves. Before the Song Dynasty, people who were employed for a long time were not as good as lovers, but also slaves. Since the Song Dynasty, the relationship between master and servant formed by employment relationship is no longer regarded as good or bad. But in fact, there are a lot of private slaves, but it is forbidden by law to sell lovers as slaves. In the Yuan Dynasty, because the Mongols practiced slavery themselves, official slaves prevailed. The Qing Dynasty abolished slavery in Yongzheng period.
The untouchability system in ancient China was different from slavery. Musicians, craftsmen, posthumous children, dentists, prostitutes and even soldiers in the Song Dynasty are untouchable by law, but they are not slaves. It can be said that slaves are just a kind of untouchables.
/kloc-before 0/959, serfdom and slavery were practiced in Tibet. Serfs and slaves, who account for 95% of Tibet's population, are divided into three classes: poor, poor and rich. Chaba and Duihuan belong to serfs, have no personal freedom, and cannot be separated from the lords at will. Lang Sheng is a slave, and he works for the serf owner completely free of charge, which is the private property of the serf owner.
From 65438 to 0959, the People's Republic of China (PRC) government carried out democratic reforms in Tibet and abolished serfdom.
North Korea's Civil Service System
In the Korean dynasty, if an official was convicted of treason, his family would be used as official servants. The status of these officials and servants is very low, which can be said to be equivalent to the untouchables of the country. However, on the other hand, the state has also provided these officials and maids with the opportunity to turn over: if they are lucky enough to be admitted to the inner court to become doctors or medical women, they can be disqualified as untouchables.