The Liberation of the Serfs: The Economics of Unfree Labor

81 Pages·2012·1.027 MB·English

by  Jürgen Georg Backhaus (auth.), Jürgen Georg Backhaus (eds.)

The European Heritage in Economics
and the Social Sciences
Series Editor:
Jürgen Georg Backhaus
For further volumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/5902

Jürgen Georg Backhaus
Editor
The Liberation of the Serfs
The Economics of Unfree Labor
Editor
Jürgen Georg Backhaus
University of Erfurt
Krupp Chair in Public Finance and Fiscal Sociology
Nordhäuser Strasse 63
99089 Erfurt, Germany
ISBN 978-1-4614-0084-4 ISBN 978-1-4614-0085-1 (e-book)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-0085-1
Springer New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012931932
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Contents

1 Introduction ............................................................................................... 1
Jürgen Georg Backhaus
2 Sold Soldiers .............................................................................................. 3
Jürgen Georg Backhaus
3 The Brandenburg Triangle....................................................................... 7
Gerhard Scheuerer
4 Some Short Thoughts on “The Economics of Slavery” ......................... 15
Thomas Straubhaar
5 Emancipation of the Peasantry in Lower Austria: The Economists’
Views, the Role of the Estates, and the Revolution of 1848 ................... 19
Günther Chaloupek
6 Liberation of the Serfs: The End of Forced Labour? ............................ 33
Hans A. Frambach
7 More Than Just a Production Factor: The View of Labour
in the Works of the Norwegian Economist
Torkel Aschehoug (1822–1909) ................................................................ 43
Clara Mathilde C. Fasting and Sylvi B. Endresen
8 Forced Labor Under the Gulag Regime (1918–1990) ............................ 65
Nicholas W. Balabkins
Index ................................................................................................................. 73
v

Contributors
Jürgen Georg Backhaus University of Erfurt, Nordhäuser Str. 63,
99089 Erfurt, Germany
Nicholas W. Balabkins Department of Economics, Lehigh University,
Bethlehem, PA 18015, USA
Günther Chaloupek Chamber of Labour, Prinz-Eugen-Straße 20-22,
A-1041 Vienna, Austria
Sylvi B. Endresen Institute for Sociology and Human Geography,
University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1096, Blindern 0317, Oslo, Norway
Clara Mathilde C. Fasting University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany
Hans A. Frambach Department of Economics, M. 14.33,
University of Wuppertal, Gauss-Strasse 20, 42119 Wuppertal, Germany
Gerhard Scheuerer University of Erfurt, Nordhäuser Str. 63,
99089 Erfurt, Germany
Thomas Straubhaar Hamburgisches WeltWirtschaftsInstitut (HWWI),
Heimhuder Straße 71, 20148 Hamburg, Germany
vii

Chapter 1
Introduction
Jürgen Georg Backhaus
The Liberation of the Serfs was already decided in 1806 in Prussia to be effective in
1810 two centuries ago. (In the new model kingdom of Westphalia, it was made
effective a little earlier.) More generally, unfree labour is, of course, still with us:
The traffi cking of domestic labour (girls with a complete high school education and
a second negative aids test fetch US $10,000), e.g. from Kenya to Arabia, is fl our-
ishing. The largest transaction in unfree labour ever recorded occurred in Yalta;
more than 6.5 million prisoners of war were handed over to Russia and France,
making Roosevelt the biggest slave trader in recorded history.
The central hypothesis offered in this book is nevertheless that forced labour in
general and slavery in particular is never effi cient and can only be feasible if the work
performed is simple or mechanistic as cotton ginning or battle in strict formations.
After Ely Whitney had invented the cotton gin in 1793 and battle in strict forma-
tions had become obsolete with the battle of Jena and Auerstaedt in 1802, forced
labour had likewise become obsolete.
Serfdom, of course, is a much milder form of forced labour essentially just tying
the labourer to the land. Still, the reform taking effect in 1810 was a precondition
for industrialization, which required the mass migration of workers to their factories
in the cities.
This book has a straightforward chronological structure. Jürgen Backhaus starts
with a discussion of the trade in soldiers by some (by no means all) German princes.
When and if they survived the war against the US army for the British, they could
become American citizens; in this case, they had been sold into freedom. Most
returned home. Gerhard Scheuerer describes the Brandenburg triangular trade, the
second leg of which involved bringing African slaves to America. Thomas Straubhaar
offers some short thoughts on the economics of slavery. Günther Chaloupek analy-
ses the late emancipation of the peasants in lower Austria in 1848. Hans Frambach
J. G. Backhaus (*)
University of Erfurt , Nordhäuser Strasse 63 , 99089 Erfurt , Germany
e-mail: [email protected]
J.G. Backhaus (ed.), The Liberation of the Serfs: The Economics of Unfree Labor, 1
The European Heritage in Economics and the Social Sciences,
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-0085-1_1, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012