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[GoblinCookie]

I imagine the society and law arc ("Starting Scenarios") will be when social positions for pops are added. Unless Toady suddenly decides they're essential for making villains work. But he seems to have that sorted now.

The thing here is that there are basically two ways slavery can work.  I call these Slavery-by-Default and Freedom-by-Default, both of these have a bearing on the way that social statuses work, since these are generally just various degrees of slavery-lite. 

Slavery-by-Default
This is based upon how slavery is so mechanically similar to the way that pets-livestock work.  Slaves are caged, slaves are chained, slaves work as directed by others without remuneration, slaves are trained to do tasks, slaves are traded and so on.  In this model of slavery, a slave is not a citizen with a status in the society, a slave is just another word for intelligent livestock.  If you belong to a site but you do not have a status in the site, that makes you a slave in you are intelligent and livestock/pets otherwise.

Freedom-by-Default
This is based upon how inferior and oppressed social statuses resemble slavery-lite.  In this model social statuses are defined by how restricted they are, slaves are a social status in which all restrictions variously applies to other social statuses apply at once.  Slavery is in this model simply the end of a continuum of slavery-lites, which are citizen statuses which place more and restrictions on characters the further down the go.   

[Azerty]

Freedom-by-Default
This is based upon how inferior and oppressed social statuses resemble slavery-lite.  In this model social statuses are defined by how restricted they are, slaves are a social status in which all restrictions variously applies to other social statuses apply at once.  Slavery is in this model simply the end of a continuum of slavery-lites, which are citizen statuses which place more and restrictions on characters the further down the go.

This might be a good way to simulate slavery, especially since it could make this institution vary between countries, with a country where, for exemple, slaves could own their own goods, albeit not real property, and the other place where their masters own everything they have.

[GoblinCookie]

This might be a good way to simulate slavery, especially since it could make this institution vary between countries, with a country where, for exemple, slaves could own their own goods, albeit not real property, and the other place where their masters own everything they have.

It works mechanically but is it a realistic depiction of slavery?  Does it matter if it is?  If so what is slavery even for? 

Slavery was generally not highly regulated by a central authority deciding what slaves could and could not do.  It tended to be the other way around, being a slave sucked precisely because nobody was regulating it in general terms, determining what slaves could or could not do. 

[Strik3r]

This might be a good way to simulate slavery, especially since it could make this institution vary between countries, with a country where, for exemple, slaves could own their own goods, albeit not real property, and the other place where their masters own everything they have.

It works mechanically but is it a realistic depiction of slavery?  Does it matter if it is?  If so what is slavery even for? 

Slavery was generally not highly regulated by a central authority deciding what slaves could and could not do.  It tended to be the other way around, being a slave sucked precisely because nobody was regulating it in general terms, determining what slaves could or could not do.

It works mechanically but is it a realistic depiction of slavery?  Does it matter if it is?  If so what is slavery even for? 

Yes it is realistic. It does not really matter if it is.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Allow me to paraphrase a famous video game quote: "A free man chooses. A slave obeys.". This is the purest distinction. Its not always about money or payment. It's about power over others. If someone is forced to work for the benefit of someone else, with no option to leave, they are a slave by definition no matter what the work may be or their rights. Even if they are paid for that work.
Depending on how it is implemented, its either just more background noise in legends/adventurer mode, or something that the player can come in contact and interact with in various ways. I'm only worried that when Toady does implement slavery in full, it'll be half-baked and half-assed with arbitrary limitations on gameplay.
(o noes, can't have the player be dragging slaves around in adventurer mode because that would be evil and it might offend someone. Orange man bad. It is terrifying. *Beep* *Boop*)

Slavery was generally not highly regulated by a central authority deciding what slaves could and could not do.  It tended to be the other way around, being a slave sucked precisely because nobody was regulating it in general terms, determining what slaves could or could not do.

I imagine the level of regulation would vary highly between civs.

In goblin civs for sure there would be no regulation and slaves shouldn't expect to live long, but then again goblin society has no laws to begin with.
In human however civs, and by extension modded civs, because human civs have highly variable values, it could range from "Just as bad as the goblins" to "Slavery in name only"
Heck, its not improbable that in certain cases, a civ might have multiple slave castes.

again:

It's a fun topic when properly executed, but i wouldn't expect much.

[GoblinCookie]

I imagine the level of regulation would vary highly between civs.

In goblin civs for sure there would be no regulation and slaves shouldn't expect to live long, but then again goblin society has no laws to begin with.
In human however civs, and by extension modded civs, because human civs have highly variable values, it could range from "Just as bad as the goblins" to "Slavery in name only"
Heck, its not improbable that in certain cases, a civ might have multiple slave castes.

The status of slaves is not normally determined centrally in history, it is determined in effect by the whim of their masters.  The government does not dictate which livestock are pets and which livestock are for eating, their owners do.  Granted that unless the fundamental economic system changes the government likely *is* the owner, so the problem does not exist. 

Historically why slavery is so bad is not that the government has given you less rights than certain others, it is that you have no rights guaranteed against others whims by the government.   

[Strik3r]

I imagine the level of regulation would vary highly between civs.

In goblin civs for sure there would be no regulation and slaves shouldn't expect to live long, but then again goblin society has no laws to begin with.
In human however civs, and by extension modded civs, because human civs have highly variable values, it could range from "Just as bad as the goblins" to "Slavery in name only"
Heck, its not improbable that in certain cases, a civ might have multiple slave castes.

The status of slaves is not normally determined centrally in history, it is determined in effect by the whim of their masters.  The government does not dictate which livestock are pets and which livestock are for eating, their owners do.  Granted that unless the fundamental economic system changes the government likely *is* the owner, so the problem does not exist. 

Historically why slavery is so bad is not that the government has given you less rights than certain others, it is that you have no rights guaranteed against others whims by the government.

You might want to try again.
And carefully re-read what i wrote, this time.

Allow me to give you a hint:
If causing serious bodily harm to your owned slaves was against the law, would you still do it? Don't worry, there would be plenty of people to snitch on you.

Of course you don't need to tell me you'd never own any slaves, that's what everyone says. This is just hypothetical.
Also don't bother telling me "That didn't happen in history"; DF is a fantasy game.

[GoblinCookie]

You might want to try again.
And carefully re-read what i wrote, this time.

Allow me to give you a hint:
If causing serious bodily harm to your owned slaves was against the law, would you still do it? Don't worry, there would be plenty of people to snitch on you.

Of course you don't need to tell me you'd never own any slaves, that's what everyone says. This is just hypothetical.
Also don't bother telling me "That didn't happen in history"; DF is a fantasy game.

This is somewhat a trick question, if I am legally prevented from harming my slaves they aren't really my slaves, they are my "something else". 

That of course is much of the basis for the Slavery-by-Default mechanics.  I can unless some government stops me coerce anyone weaker than me into doing what I wish.  It is the government giving individuals protection against stronger people that makes them not-slaves.  Without that protection everyone is a slave to anyone stronger than they are, it is only the guarantee of protection that makes someone free. 

[《monty》]

This is somewhat a trick question, if I am legally prevented from harming my slaves they aren't really my slaves, they are my "something else". 

This depends on the type of slavery. What we're used to imagining - chattel slavery - is partly because of ancient Roman law that defined slaves as "property that is human", thus meaning a slave was no more than human livestock. That's not the case in every slave system. In many, slaves retain some level of personal rights, especially relating to family connections, and it's not always a hereditary condition. From the later 18th century until gradual abolition in the 1830s, British slaves went from chattels to having limited rights. Hence the curious case of this slave "rebellion" in the Bahamas where the slaves had the law on their side: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41849104

I'm just bringing this up because I could imagine different DF societies having differing "degrees" of servitude based on their cultural values, or the slave's origins. You could have dwarves who end up in servitude because of poverty or crime, but still be much better off than some goblin war-captives.

[GoblinCookie]

This is somewhat a trick question, if I am legally prevented from harming my slaves they aren't really my slaves, they are my "something else". 

This depends on the type of slavery. What we're used to imagining - chattel slavery - is partly because of ancient Roman law that defined slaves as "property that is human", thus meaning a slave was no more than human livestock. That's not the case in every slave system. In many, slaves retain some level of personal rights, especially relating to family connections, and it's not always a hereditary condition. From the later 18th century until gradual abolition in the 1830s, British slaves went from chattels to having limited rights. Hence the curious case of this slave "rebellion" in the Bahamas where the slaves had the law on their side: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41849104

I'm just bringing this up because I could imagine different DF societies having differing "degrees" of servitude based on their cultural values, or the slave's origins. You could have dwarves who end up in servitude because of poverty or crime, but still be much better off than some goblin war-captives.

The process of abolition of slavery is not quite as simple as one day everyone figures out that slavery is wrong and it gets abolished.  When you get to the point that slaves can take their masters to court for mistreating them, slavery has in effect already been de-facto quasi-abolished.  They are kind of semi-slaves, not really free but not really enslaved either but somewhere in the middle; they are as I put it your "something else". 

Another rather relevant issue here is that a large amount of 'free' people in history are bound to superiors in a manner that is fundamentally similar to slavery, in the sense that they are compelled to obey them ultimately by fear of punishment.  In England it was legal until I think the 18th Century for masters (employers in modern terms) to beat their servants (employees in modern terms).  Part of the reason that I think the wrongness of slavery was not immediately apparent for most of history is basically that a good chunk of the free people are actually semi-slaves anyway.

That is ultimately because for most of history it is families that are paramount and individuals are considered property of their families. Families did lend, give or in extreme cases sell family members to each-other, actually much of medieval English economy basically worked on the basis of people with idle children loaning those children out to other families to work for them as servants, the families weren't normally paid for this but instead the master's family would take over the whole care of their borrowed children/servants, so they would feed and clothe them as they would their own children. 

These families are also heirachical, there is a defined ranking of all family members with the male, old and linear family members being favoured over the female, young and extended family members; according to a setup that is basically similar to a military command structure with 1st and 2nd in command and so on.  It is understand that it is the job of the superior family members to discipline the inferior family members; though the degree of violence that is acceptable to this end varies according to culture.

For most of history the difference between slave and non-slave is not that the former is considered property and the latter is not.  The difference is that the slave does not have any rank within the family he is the property of or any other family, while the free person has an established rank within a family.  That is why people in ancient times could sell their children into slavery, as a superior in the family hierarchy you could completely alienate subordinate family members from their own family without the buying family giving them any rank within their own family.  This is similar but different to the situation with servants where we give you our children but they retain their rank in absentia within our own family even if they lack a rank in yours. 

I think that Christianity made family relationships inalienable, that is to say families no longer had the ability to exile family members for their rank within the family, even if they were to give them to other families to work for and care for.  I'm not sure this is actually a possibly accidental consequence of the prohibition on divorce, husbands could no longer divorce/alienate their wives so by extension they were unable to do the same with their children. 

[VABritto]

I think your use of the word 'slave' creates more confusion than actually solves it. The term has been used throughout history to refer to a variety of legal conditions that were not merely being under the complete power of a master. Roman slaves had the right to own property and had legal defence against certain types of abuse. Ancient hebrew slaves had a series of protections against abuse to a point that slavery was de facto abolished among them when it became clear having a slave in the law had become a form of charity... And I am very confused by your assertion that being a slave means living outside the law. Slaves have always been taken into account in law to some degree or another and as I said there are a variety of laws and customs related to slave rights throughout ancient history... Limiting the word 'slave' to a person that is completely out of the law (in a sense more of an outlaw than a slave) doesn't help the argument much because we end up discussing what is a slave instead of what system to use in game to properly simulate them.

Also I like your Slave-by-default approach but again I wouldn't call it slave-by-default but Outlaw-by-default, in the sense that a person CAN kill and/or enslave you (an action, not something that you are by default because you could resist it and won't necessarily start obaying your random Citizen Joe just because he orders you to do something and you aren't a citizen there). This is a nice way of doing things because that opens the door for Treaties between civs to protect their citizens from abuse or even to permit civs to create such protections spontaneously depending on their ethics or population concentration (ancient peoples many times created seperate law codes for different groups of foreigners in their territories. An extensive example of that is the ancient roman leges barbarorum or the mesopotamian laws regarding the gigantic variety of peoples living there)

[GoblinCookie]

I think your use of the word 'slave' creates more confusion than actually solves it. The term has been used throughout history to refer to a variety of legal conditions that were not merely being under the complete power of a master. Roman slaves had the right to own property and had legal defence against certain types of abuse. Ancient hebrew slaves had a series of protections against abuse to a point that slavery was de facto abolished among them when it became clear having a slave in the law had become a form of charity... And I am very confused by your assertion that being a slave means living outside the law. Slaves have always been taken into account in law to some degree or another and as I said there are a variety of laws and customs related to slave rights throughout ancient history... Limiting the word 'slave' to a person that is completely out of the law (in a sense more of an outlaw than a slave) doesn't help the argument much because we end up discussing what is a slave instead of what system to use in game to properly simulate them.

Also I like your Slave-by-default approach but again I wouldn't call it slave-by-default but Outlaw-by-default, in the sense that a person CAN kill and/or enslave you (an action, not something that you are by default because you could resist it and won't necessarily start obaying your random Citizen Joe just because he orders you to do something and you aren't a citizen there). This is a nice way of doing things because that opens the door for Treaties between civs to protect their citizens from abuse or even to permit civs to create such protections spontaneously depending on their ethics or population concentration (ancient peoples many times created seperate law codes for different groups of foreigners in their territories. An extensive example of that is the ancient roman leges barbarorum or the mesopotamian laws regarding the gigantic variety of peoples living there)

I'm only creating confusion because the situation is very confused, an enslaved person who is truly outside of the law is a 100% slave, having some legal status and rights starts to undermine the purity of your slaveness and it's attendant horror.  The confusion consists of the fact that historically things are centered on households not individuals and the individuals are ranked basically into five levels.

1. Present head of the household.
2. Members of the nuclear household ranked heirachically.
3. Extended family members ranked hierarchically. 
4. People from other household that are 'on loan', which are generally called servants.
5. Slaves.

If we take as a basic definition of slave as person who is property+is compelled to work, then this fails flat because in ancient times people would sell their own family members into slavery and corporal punishments are a accepted part of most societies; one of the key developments is that Christianity seemingly made family status inalienable, possibly entirely accidentally by banning divorce.  Most people who aren't slaves are actually slaves by the definition we nowadays would normally use to define slavery, in that most people can be sold as property, loaned as property and compulsion is likely to be used should said individuals refuse to work when they are ordered to do by those superior to them in the hierarchy, which may be that of their loaned household.

If slaves go to law against their masters, we create a problem within the legal system.  By being able to go to law they have pretty much promoted themselves to category 4, since they now represent a separate legal entity that can contest against their masters household, which puts them in the same boat as servants.  A similar but lesser problem is created by any legal action against the superiors in the family.

I actually don't think the basic rights of slaves were actually guaranteed through litigation, I think the historical protections of slaves and indeed of most people were actually REGULATIONS not LAW.  The slave does not take the master to the court, the state takes the master to court for violating it's regulations on the treatment of slaves. 

[VABritto]

The problem with putting everyone without rights in the slave category is that it is not how we commonly or historically use the word 'slave'. It isn't even the technical meaning of the word 'slave'. A slave is someone that does forced labour of which he cannot choose to leave for some other labour (note that being a slave is not being forced to Have work, lest you make the word completely useless because that would make every single thing in the universe a slave in some capacity; it is specifically the instance of the person in question being forced by external forces to specific tasks). This presumes passivity. In the sense that you are not a slave until you accept your slavery to some degree (if you fight to the death when someone tries to capture you, you were never enslaved. It takes actually being captured or submitting to work to actually be a de facto slave). Human beings are autonomous creatures. We choose our actions. If I have no rights under the law that does not automatically make me a slave because that presupposes that I will go along with it. Which I can choose not to. The natural state of this individual is simply that of Outlaw. Of being outside of the law and thus without any guarentees. That means I CAN be enslaved. But I can also Not be enslaved. A man can be completely outside the law and live a normal life if nobody decides to force them to do something. It is this act of submitting to someone that is actively forcing them into service that constitutes their slavery.

[Strik3r]

I think your use of the word 'slave' creates more confusion than actually solves it. The term has been used throughout history to refer to a variety of legal conditions that were not merely being under the complete power of a master.

Limiting the word 'slave' to a person that is completely out of the law (in a sense more of an outlaw than a slave) doesn't help the argument much because we end up discussing what is a slave instead of what system to use in game to properly simulate them.

Absolutely, its a nice all-encompassing term. I mean i tried to make the exact same point: "there's various forms of slavery". While there may be some less general terms to refer to some conditions, "slave" still nicely encompasses all of it. It's about power over others and a lack of choice, how many rights a slave has is irrelevant. Also this entire post:

The problem with putting everyone without rights in the slave category is that it is not how we commonly or historically use the word 'slave'. It isn't even the technical meaning of the word 'slave'. A slave is someone that does forced labour of which he cannot choose to leave for some other labour (note that being a slave is not being forced to Have work, lest you make the word completely useless because that would make every single thing in the universe a slave in some capacity; it is specifically the instance of the person in question being forced by external forces to specific tasks). This presumes passivity. In the sense that you are not a slave until you accept your slavery to some degree (if you fight to the death when someone tries to capture you, you were never enslaved. It takes actually being captured or submitting to work to actually be a de facto slave). Human beings are autonomous creatures. We choose our actions. If I have no rights under the law that does not automatically make me a slave because that presupposes that I will go along with it. Which I can choose not to. The natural state of this individual is simply that of Outlaw. Of being outside of the law and thus without any guarentees. That means I CAN be enslaved. But I can also Not be enslaved. A man can be completely outside the law and live a normal life if nobody decides to force them to do something. It is this act of submitting to someone that is actively forcing them into service that constitutes their slavery.

Also I like your Slave-by-default approach but again I wouldn't call it slave-by-default but Outlaw-by-default, in the sense that a person CAN kill and/or enslave you (an action, not something that you are by default because you could resist it and won't necessarily start obaying your random Citizen Joe just because he orders you to do something and you aren't a citizen there). This is a nice way of doing things because that opens the door for Treaties between civs to protect their citizens from abuse or even to permit civs to create such protections spontaneously depending on their ethics or population concentration (ancient peoples many times created seperate law codes for different groups of foreigners in their territories. An extensive example of that is the ancient roman leges barbarorum or the mesopotamian laws regarding the gigantic variety of peoples living there)

This.

As for implementing slavery properly?
I think the game should move over to the proper, common usage of the word 'caste' and implement civ-level castes or "strata" if you've played Stellaris recently. "Status" works too. The word doesn't matter, what matters is a functional simulation of social hierarchy. Seriously, there is no single greater feature that this game lacks

[GoblinCookie]

The problem with putting everyone without rights in the slave category is that it is not how we commonly or historically use the word 'slave'. It isn't even the technical meaning of the word 'slave'. A slave is someone that does forced labour of which he cannot choose to leave for some other labour (note that being a slave is not being forced to Have work, lest you make the word completely useless because that would make every single thing in the universe a slave in some capacity; it is specifically the instance of the person in question being forced by external forces to specific tasks). This presumes passivity. In the sense that you are not a slave until you accept your slavery to some degree (if you fight to the death when someone tries to capture you, you were never enslaved. It takes actually being captured or submitting to work to actually be a de facto slave). Human beings are autonomous creatures. We choose our actions. If I have no rights under the law that does not automatically make me a slave because that presupposes that I will go along with it. Which I can choose not to. The natural state of this individual is simply that of Outlaw. Of being outside of the law and thus without any guarentees. That means I CAN be enslaved. But I can also Not be enslaved. A man can be completely outside the law and live a normal life if nobody decides to force them to do something. It is this act of submitting to someone that is actively forcing them into service that constitutes their slavery.

Your definition of slave as simply someone that is forced to do specific work by external compulsion does not work for reasons already mentioned, plenty of people throughout history that were not slaves have been forced to do work.  Take for instance conscripts in a war, they are not slaves but they are still compelled by the government to work as soldiers fighting their war.  Forced labour while a necessary element of slavery is not a sufficient condition, the other condition is that the slaves are property with economic value and/or the slaves products have an economic value.  To conscript your own people to fight a war is not slavery, but to conscript people to form a mercenary company that is hired by another party *is* slavery. 

The rest of what you are saying has echoes of Kayne West's slaves choosing to be slaves.  Slavery is not a choice made by the individual slave, slavery is a choice made by society over the head of the slave and the slave has no choice but to be part of the society in which they are a slave, because free people also have no choice but to be part of a society.  Under the Slavery-By-Default model, an Outlaw is very much similar to a slave, a Slave is what the Outlaw becomes if the Outlaw becomes part of a group but does not lose that status; conversely an outlaw is a slave that nobody owns (yet). 

Human beings are supposed to be social creatures, so an outlaw hiding from everyone in the wilderness is not living a normal life.  In fact the prospect of such a fate is nasty enough to most human beings to constitute a coercive mechanism to get people to do/not do things; in fact outlawing was an mechanism *of* the Anglosaxon law to punish particularly nasty criminals.  If I choose to accept the punishment rather than comply, this does not mean I am not being coerced; as the option to accept to be punished is simply the other side of the coin to compliance in any coercive system; you cannot choose not to be coerced unless you can evade the punishment. 

When both death and exile/ostracism into the wilderness are both punishments, slaves cannot choose to *not* be coerced since there is no option of evasion that exists here.  That I have a choice between a varying set of nasty punishments for not complying does not make my complying in any way voluntary. 

Also I like your Slave-by-default approach but again I wouldn't call it slave-by-default but Outlaw-by-default, in the sense that a person CAN kill and/or enslave you (an action, not something that you are by default because you could resist it and won't necessarily start obaying your random Citizen Joe just because he orders you to do something and you aren't a citizen there). This is a nice way of doing things because that opens the door for Treaties between civs to protect their citizens from abuse or even to permit civs to create such protections spontaneously depending on their ethics or population concentration (ancient peoples many times created seperate law codes for different groups of foreigners in their territories. An extensive example of that is the ancient roman leges barbarorum or the mesopotamian laws regarding the gigantic variety of peoples living there)

This.

As for implementing slavery properly?
I think the game should move over to the proper, common usage of the word 'caste' and implement civ-level castes or "strata" if you've played Stellaris recently. "Status" works too. The word doesn't matter, what matters is a functional simulation of social hierarchy. Seriously, there is no single greater feature that this game lacks

I am quite the Stellaris fan and I know what you are talking about.  I also play with Shared Burdens so all social strata are equal anyway for my civilization.   

Really the game does quite fine without social statuses, it seems to presently demonstrate their redundancy. 

The problem is fortress mode not adventure.  While if we are only one dwarf fortress controlled by a central government and there are many other fortresses, you could find yourself in a position of having to play along with the societies oppressive institutions because of laws/external regulation, but as the last surviving fortress and with the king as a member of your fortress, then there is no logic to why we would respect oppressive social orders at all.

The problem here is player freedom.  If the social distinctions being made are pointless and irrational, the player will only respect them if they are forced to do so by the game mechanics while if they are made purposeful and rational, the game is basically politically advocating *for* such a system.  In adventure mode this is no problem, you are only an individual/small group and having to live in a society that does not agree with you or make sense entirely is quite realistic.  When we are talking fortress mode however, we have the problem where we can really have enough political power to abolish slavery and any oppressive institution we do not like.

[VABritto]

You make some very good points, mate. I agree that defining slavery only as compulsory work is not enough and they must be also defined as property for the reasons you mentioned. But I would also have to enforce such rigor into your own vocabulary because the same reason that conscripts are slaves in almost everything except not being property, and yet still clearly are not slaves, thus we must also define outlaws as clearly not slaves. Neither carry the perfect prerrequisites of slavery, which we both defined as

1) forced labour being imposed on you
2) being considered property.

Both rigorously need to be true for a person to be a slave or else we enter into the problem of conscripts and outlaws.

That being said, with this definition we both agreed on, we cannot define a person with no rights as a slave because having no rights does not mean you necessarily are being forced to do labor or are seen as property. All it means is you do not have any guarentee that you will not be treated as such (that is what I meant by accepting it, in the sense that you are forced to it. There is a period before being forced to something in which you can choose to flee or resist and in which period you are not typically considered a slave). It might sound corny and Kanya West'y but it is pretty much a valid point in the sense that you really can't consider someone a slave if you haven't caught him yet or do you disagree?

With that said I still recommend calling the Slave-by-default the Outlaw-by-default, in order to maintain consistency on what we have agreed upon.