Slavery

[VoiD]

Just wondering, is there any real point to it or is it just a hinderance?

I haven't done any extensive tests or anything but it is my subjective opinion that slavery has no worth and it holds back the nations I've played with them, the moment you end slavery and pops start working for regular wages, getting better lives and consuming more the economy gets a huge boost.

Slave pops need to be maintained anyway, so they aren't "free" labor, but they don't generate demands for several goods, so they don't help any of your businessess, is there a practical reason to use slavery or is it just a cancer every country should get rid of ASAP?

[Northern_Gryphon]

Just hit one of the historical arguments on the head.
Potentially helps the owner get a bit richer. If they're the only ones active politically, that can have advantages, but it's really minimal for the massive tradeoffs.

[KFC-AI]

Slavery is the same as serfdom, serfs do provide you with some taxation and the landowners pays a lot in Russia or Qing. But they are nothing compared to workers in factories.

For this reason, unless you really want to be a a-hole, you should abolish slavery and serfdom asap.

HOWEVER, landowners can be real radicals when you try to do that too quickly.

[Zero, Dark Knight]

Historically, it was a tool of the oppressors to make money out of the oppressed, it's universally bad unless you're one of the oppressors.

I guess this game doesn't really showcase it accurately or fairly - and I understand why (modern day politics.) but why then include it at all if it's just a pure 100% drain? I don't think any player who cares for market expansion cares so much that they're 'freeing the people', they're just exploiting them (Ironically what slaves being freed is supposed to stop.) in another, different way.

At least if slaves didn't get annual wages you could kinda have an argument for keeping it, but if then they had no income to buy goods they'd drag your country down. :/

So yeah, in-game, just free them, so you can tax them.

[SteelBear]

slave states can buy slave pops from provinces outside your country. So if you have a big shortage of laborers in resource workplaces, its more reliable way to get workers than hoping for an immigration wave. At least in mp, in sp AI doesnt really compete for immigration.

But might still be better to have higher SoL and more fertility. Not sure how quickly they bring in slave pops.

[VoiD]

Originally posted by SteelBear:

slave states can buy slave pops from provinces outside your country. So if you have a big shortage of laborers in resource workplaces, its more reliable way to get workers than hoping for an immigration wave. At least in mp, in sp AI doesnt really compete for immigration.

But might still be better to have higher SoL and more fertility. Not sure how quickly they bring in slave pops.

I'm not sure how it works, the current patch seem to want to nerf it?

But I've had states where they seemed to buy slaves instantly, before the patch, getting thousands of people to fill the slots in farms where they could work.

But I've had some states too where they just can't populate farms and can't seem to import slaves either, so it looks kinda unreliable.

[Roadie]

In pure GDP reckoning "magic spirit of a country" terms it's pretty much net negative, but the game does a real bad job of representing the entrenched interests that should force you to be stuck with it until you can manage to change it. I feel like that's why it seems like a real headscratcher, as even start game USA can dump slavery really easily.

[Alehkra]

There's a reason that the Southern US was a lot poorer for so long, and the Roman Empire stagnated economically once it ran out of fresh conquests. Slave based economies just really aren't all that efficient; by their very nature slaves don't have much purchasing power, while free workers have to try to compete with such a cheap workforce, so their earnings are usually depressed as well.