The Different Aspects Of Slavery And Its Abolition: An Analysis Using Critical Theory

To focus your essay, you will need first of all to identify one struggle to change the world that will be the ‘object’ to which you will apply critical theory.This can be one specific pattern of reality (e.g. transphobic violence) or a specific site of struggle (e.g. Extinction Rebellion). Whatever it is, make sure that it is not too broad, and you will first of all need to explain that reality clearly.

The task then is to take up themes that have been dealt and in particular in Part Three of the course (‘Changing the World’). You might focus your treatment of the course material by drawing more heavily on the themes addressed in weeks seven (what is possible), eight (what must be abolished) or nine (what can be hoped for). Even if you place more emphasis on one of these three weeks,

your essay should demonstrate familiarity with all lecture materials and readings for Part Three, and where useful, on readings and lectures from Parts One and Two. After presenting the example to which you will apply critical theory, the main body of your essay should be committed to showing how critical theory can help to formalise and clarify the particular struggle you are analysing.

You do not need to find ‘the truth’ hidden in your example, in the sense that your analysis would be complete and final. There is however an important way in which critical theory can help to bring to light some thing or things that would otherwise be concealed from view. It might be useful then to think of this writing assignment as a project of using critical theory in order to ‘unconceal’ something that is not immediately apparent in the way that it is usually understood.

History of Slavery

The topic of the following essay is to highlight on the different aspects of slavery and its abolition from the society. It is of no doubt that slavery is definitely one of the worst practices and it has been seen in different parts of the world for a long time now. The world history saw one of its worst periods when the practice of slave trade was on its full spring. This essay will look to focus on the history of slavery, the condition of slaves during those days and it is still prevalent in the contemporary society (Ray, 2018). The different aspects of slavery and its view through the application of theories will be discussed in this paper. The different aspects of slavery are quite important to discuss since it has deep connections with the well being of the people. As it is a curse of the society, people have always taken up the positive initiatives to abolish this phenomenon.

Racism is seen as one of the most important factors behind the advent of struggle against slavery. The discrimination among people because of slavery and intolerance among people have resulted in this scenario (Price, 2015). The negative effects of slavery have been felt by the United States of America in the ultimate manner. Frederick Douglass was the one person who stood up against the slavery and protested against it with all his influence and might (Ferguson, 2014). The curse was so immense within the society that the slaves had been put into the prisons and tortured to their death. Apart from the United States, slavery had also existed in New Zealand as well (Ray, 2018). It had a huge negative impact on the Maori tribal people (Hopkins, 2017). These people had been taken into prison for being racially inferior and were subjected to immense torture. The curse of slavery is taken as one of primary elements of the Maori society indeed. Therefore, tribal people in the region had to suffer from the pangs of slavery all through their lives.

In the lives of these Maori slaves, negative things always kept on happening. The condition of these slaves were very poor and it demanded them to live in a society where shortage of food was an obvious matter. Slave trade was an ongoing curse in the country and it was one of the most distressful events in the history of the country (Patterson, 2017). The area like Aotearoa was completely full of these slaves and the condition became to be worse due to several reasons (Ferguson, 2014). The ethical and theoretical concepts regarding the situation will have to be found out in this scenario. The Europeans used to keep the slaves and the struggle against slavery became an obvious output. Slavery in the society could be pointed out as an aspect directed towards the socio economic infrastructure of the country. Critics are of the opinion that this practice of keeping the individual people under the supervision of another person should not be supported at all (Ray, 2018). Human individuals are not at all the possessions of other individuals. This practice must be stopped for the well being of the future generations indeed.

Impact of Slavery on Society

The theories related to the slavery is directly associated with social aspects. These theories will definitely help out the people of the modern times to understand properly. The condition of the slaves was so poor that they were deprived of food, shelter and other opportunities. The theories that are indeed very important in this scenario are Nieboer- Domar hypothesis, social death theory and agency and race theory (Green, 2014). The proponents of these theories have set up the links between the slavery and its impacts on the society. Many people tried to stop this practice of slavery within the society since it never provided any good thing for the society. Law was the only thing left that could solve the problem in a forcible manner (Knox, 2016). The social awakening of the people should have responded to stop this evil practice. Otherwise, it would stop temporarily and increase after sometime again. These problems regarding social slavery are structural problems of the society. Apart from the socio economic perspectives, the psychological perspectives are quite crucial in this context (Ferguson, 2014). So, it is quite probable that the structural solutions should be applied only to bring this issue under control.

Some critics have also said that the voice of the slaves was the most crucial weapon to put an end to this practice. The suffering in the world should be stopped to provide equality to every human being. Many rich people used to keep the slaves at their disposal after the British colonists had arrived in the country (Pain & Staeheli, 2014). Though there were not much evidence of the slave practice in the regions like Aotearoa in New Zealand but the practice of keeping slaves became very common indeed. This notion of slave keeping was completely an American and European concept that came here by the influence of British colonists (Knox, 2016). The theories of slavery would be discussed in this section to understand the impact it could put on the entire scenario.

The Nieboer- Domar hypothesis explains the ways of the development of slavery as a social institution. According to the proponents of this hypothesis, slavery would increase in case the supply of labor is shortened. So, the labor becomes full of value and there is plenty of land. In this context, it becomes quite difficult to meet the demands of labor. This gives way for the rise of slavery in some societies (Pain & Staeheli, 2014). This connection can also be described as the ‘land-labor ratio’. The landowners came to be the labor owners as they did not work on their land rich environment. So, they had all the authority to dictate their labors to work as per their instructions. These labors did not even have the exit options as well (Cartledge & Konstan, 2016). Therefore, it became almost impossible for them to get out of their contracts since they were owned by these greedy landowners. Even they sold these individuals to other richer landowners for money as well. Thus it became a matter of social status for them to be a powerful person in the society. Still, many critics have come up with the criticisms on this model to be precise (Pain & Staeheli, 2014). This kind of concept is effective nowadays since it will be very easy for the landowners to hire the wage laborers and control them at their own will.

Theoretical Concepts

The critics have also responded to this theory and its implementation in slavery by saying that it is completely associated with the economic perspectives and availability of land in different regions of the countries (Cartledge & Konstan, 2016). The child labor or forcible labors are the newest forms of slavery in the modern times. As a matter of fact, it can be said that all the labor systems in the world are not dependent on the agrarian labor. Therefore, it has always been a huge challenge for the countries to implement the proper legislations to take up the positive steps to eradicate this social evil (Jonsson, 2015).

Social death theory is definitely one of the strongest theories that should be implemented while analyzing the causes and effects of slavery. The wide impacts of slavery can also be predicted by the implementation of this theory (Pain & Staeheli, 2014). The impacts of slavery can be best felt through the sociopolitical context rather than the economic one. In this way, the poor conditions of the slaves are reflected through the fact that they are being deprived of all the facilities in the society (Cartledge & Konstan, 2016). Mostly the war prisoners had been taken in as slaves since people thought these war prisoners had lost all their rights of personhood (Daniels & Kennedy, 2014). The dynamics of power in the human societies have evolved through the rise of slavery in the society. One example can be given in this context of the Atlantic slave trade. The historians have found out through their research work that the Portuguese slaves that were sold were mainly the war prisoners (Nudelman, 2015). Therefore, it suggests that the prisoners of war had to give up their individual identities and turn out be a mere object. The condition of the slaves began to improve very slowly in the postcolonial period. The system of slavery was predominantly the outcome of oppression created by the social, cultural and political norms. This completely caused the social death of these prisoners of war (Patterson, 2018). The potential balance within the society was thus completely lost. One of the proponents of the system Orlando Patterson confirmed that this slavery resulted in the alienation of these individuals from their families and communities (Acharya, Blackwell & Sen, 2016).

Moving on to the next section, the ways of highlighting the social evil of slavery will be discussed on the basis of the Marxist theory (Daniels & Kennedy, 2014). The views of Karl Marx regarding slavery should be outlined in this paper for a better understanding of the entire scenario. Karl Marx saw the growth of capitalism in the new world of slavery. According to Karl Marx, it is definitely very clear that the rise of capitalist movement gave birth to the concept of this slavery and it was the process of torturing the poor people within the society. Slavery was the best way of dominating the working class. Marx was quite skeptic about the enslavement in Roman and Arabian region (Patterson, 2018). Still he went on to see this slavery in the new times was something because of the rise in capitalism. The Europeans used to enslave the Africans and tribal communities of other regions to prove their supremacy (Marx & Engels, 1848). The concept of slavery had reached to the ultimate worst form in order to raise the capitalist production. Therefore, slavery became a matter of showing supreme power over the poor and oppressed people indeed (Acharya, Blackwell & Sen, 2016).

The Need for Abolishing Slavery

This concept became almost synonymous to the oppressions being laid on the Maori tribes in New Zealand as well. Marx has described this form of slavery as the mixture of two concepts. These two concepts are the ancient brutalism on the slaves and the modern idea of capitalist value productions. So, it was quite probable that this concept of slavery made poor people poorer and rich people richer. Throughout his writings, Karl Marx had made strong protests against this practice of slavery in the society as it gave way to capitalism (Daniels & Kennedy, 2014). The connection between the grasp of capitalism and slavery has been proven to be very deeply connected indeed. The concept of racism and slavery also existed in this context as well.

Therefore, it is quite clear as the critics have said that the struggle against slavery had changed the concept of the world. The practice of direct slavery on the tribal people in the world has been stopped because of the interference of United Nations. Still the concept of slavery still persists through its most modern forms (Harrold, 2015). However, the society should always focus on the well being of common poor people in the society because the economic growth of individual countries can only be achieved through the development of all the people in the society. Critics are of the opinion that abolition of racism and slavery must take place because it will ensure the well being of all the people belonging to different economic classes (Nudelman, 2015). If the rich people think the poorer section of society as their subjects or subordinates, it will be difficult to establish a proper sustainable society from both socioeconomic and sociopolitical aspects (Marx & Engels, 1848).

Apart from the physical torture or dominance, the epistemic violence is also one of the ways in which dominance over others can be exerted. Epistemic violence is the sort of violence that can be exerted through knowledge. In order to gain greater knowledge, one has to be able to gain access to education. In the older times, poor people in the society did not have any access to education and thus they were deprived of their knowledge. The implementation of the social construction theory can be found in this scenario (Badiou, 2015). The proponent of this idea of epistemic violence was the renowned author Gayatri Charaborty Spivak. The theories are completely absolutist and these theories should completely be very much important for the understanding about the impact of violence on people (Nudelman, 2015). Both the biological and psychological issues will hamper the proper development of people in the society. It will further alienate them from the mainstream society as well. Through different postcolonial theories, one would be able to identify the proliferation of knowledge and how it will hamper the equality of knowledge sharing within the society (Harrold, 2015).

Some critics have said that power should arise from knowledge and people belonging o lower classes have always been deprived of the enlightenment of knowledge. So, they do not realize their worth properly and kept only as subordinate people in the society. The concept of imperialism and sexism comes under the periphery of the epistemic violence as Spivak had meant it (Nisbett, 2018). Therefore, it is quite notable that the Marxism theory has been quite appropriate in discussing the effect of capitalism and imperialism on the society. The conditions of the poor people are exploited. Imperialism is also very harmful for the growth and development of the society as well. It completely depends on the formulation of knowledge so educated people are able to dominate the deprived sections of the society. Critics are of the opinion that this is also another form of subjugation and oppression (Nisbett, 2018). So, the concerns of the society will have to be dealt with the utmost priority here. In other words, it can be said that this is another way of oppression and the end result of this will be the social death of these people (Mutu and Jackson, 2016). So, it has become the need of the hour to look forward to it and mitigate these issues as soon as possible and bring back the equality among all the sections of the society.

On a concluding note, it can be said that the social structure is always dependent on the equality and violence has become an integral part of it. Although there are different types of violence, the social violence on the poor sections of the society and epistemic violence i.e. mainly caused because of the education and dominance through knowledge. The use of the Marxist theory has been the most useful one to discuss on the violence in the society. The rise of imperialism and capitalism has been the main reasons for the rise of the slavery in the society. Though the impacts of slavery can be best felt in America through the oppression on Africans, it has also left its mark on New Zealand in the regions like Aotearoa. Other theories like social death theory, Nieboer- Domar hypothesis and social construction theories have been discussed so it can highlight on the outcomes of slavery. 

References

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