Sunday, January 4, 2015

Some People Are Natural Slaves

"It is not advantageous for one to be held in slavery who is not a natural slave, Aristotle contends, claiming that such a condition is sustained solely by force and results in enmity." - Wikipedia on Aristotle

Aristotle wrote that, thousands of years ago. That observation goes back so far there must be truth to it.

People have two contradictory urges: the urge to be free, and the urge to be a slave - the urge to be taken care of. I suspect the reason slaves are no longer used is because of technology. It makes slavery obsolete.

Yet the urge to be a natural slave is still there. What to do with it?

The problem today with the natural slave is that they sink to the bottom and live on welfare. In other words, they do no work at all.

Think of the movie, Idiocracy.

I suppose we could completely cut off welfare and make them work. But that would require a robust economy - no Federal Reserve Bank, no inflation, 90% of regulations gone. There there would be jobs - lots of high-paying jobs.

And they certainly shouldn't be allowed to vote. It's the main reason democracy doesn't work - the smart are always outgunned by the stupid and lazy, and the productive are brought down by the parasites out of sheer envy.

It's more than a little unfortunate that some people can't handle freedom. And we're importing more and more of these people.

In the long-run, we're going to end up with a few nations within the U.S. - one for the smart and productive, and one for the Morlocks.

Neal Stephenson, in one of his novels, The Diamond Age, predicted this. Everyone joins a tribe according to their nature. Some are smart and productive, and some are as lazy and criminal as hell.

Of course, the smart and productive have defenses to keep out the undesirables.

Which, right now, we are lacking. For a little while longer.

"For Aristotle some people were naturally strong but weren't very bright and so weren't very good at organizing things for themselves and would only 'flourish' properly under the direction of another, of a benevolent master, such people are natural slaves." - Theophorus

8 comments:

Dan the Man said...

I would say that times have changed. Now the slaveholders are the government, not private individuals. The whip and the master has be replaced with prison and fines and the federal government. Most people, it seems are content, or oblivious with this arrangement. My understanding is that many slaves were like this in the south, pre-civil war. Many were allowed to leave the plantation to run errands and such and did not try to escape. A small minority were discontent and were able to escape. I look at my pay stub and see the taxes withheld, I know what my wealth is wasted on, and I'm filled with a burning rage. I guess I could be called an unwilling, unhappy slave, but a slave none the less.

Dan the Man said...

Bob, I was wondering if you could do a post on the quote by Ninon de L'enclos... "A man is given the choice between loving women and understanding them." You seem to have an understanding of the nature of women, have you ever been able to love a woman in spite of understanding their nature?.

Anders said...

Modern western society basically is a minimum security prison.

A.B. Prosper said...

Nicely said Anders.

I have to disagree with our host on one point though, no amount of deregulation or welfare cuts will ever create economic growth.

The natural process of technological improvement is making most of humanity obsolete.

If you want stability what you'll get is instead a regulated state arranged around distributionism with tight labor and trade controls.

And note too this set up is not new, its somewhat similar to high medieval feudalism where the church in that case enforced many many holidays and royal charters as well as guilds kept costs within set boundaries.

This stifled growth but it limited to a degree destabilizing influences.

The goal here being the same. More stability even at the cost economic liberty.

Now in theory a brutal reactionary state could do "pay for spay" but in the end if any combination of policy choices creates a birth rate of less than 2 and change (.1 or .05 depending on mortality) its over.

Also if you Morlock population gets past a certain amount, that society is over.

If you've played Starcraft you can see it this way

Dysgenic Classes are Zerg

Middle Class are Terrans

Upper Class are Protoss

Its often much easier to win the game with Zerg and even if they take 99% losses they can replace themselves fast.

The current society favors Zerg and while you can cut off their resources, they can also smash you if they wish. They like and tolerate a much higher level of disorder than you can.

You have to play tactically to win and that means starting with the The fact that so many jobs as diverse as accounting, travel planning and manufacturing are automated away.This starves your people of resources.

Worse the "rich" Protoss are also rivals not allies. They could and should be on the same team but for the most part many of them hate the middle and prefer to use the Lower against them (c.f immigration, wage arbitrage)

How you get a society with a strong middle, weak upper and lower is the real policy question and i suspect it requires dumping economic liberalism and social liberalism alike

Anonymous said...

The dumb and lazy are only a drag on society. As a matter of course it is the smart and active (and particularly the smart, active and evil)that do the real damage. It's these Clintons and Bushes and Madeleine Albrights with the high IQs and total lack of conscience who will have their own corner in hell. Personally, I'd think, per US military doctrine, that the best society or at least the best leaders would be made up of the smart and lazy.

Also weren't the morlocks the ones that did all the work and maintained the machines?

A.B. Prosper said...

I neglected this on the idea of more literal slavery

C.S Lewis of course

Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.”

Mindstorm said...

^
Scary, because it leaves the possibility of AI as the master.

Unknown said...

"The Day the Earth Stood Still."

Oops, Skynet just became self-aware.