Slavery cost more than hiring in ancient Rome

In ancient Rome, owning slaves cost more than hiring workers

Would you buy another person if the law didn't punish it? This question, asked coldly, has fueled a debate lasting over four years and 203 posts: what would happen to slavery—including sensual slavery—if it ceased to be illegal and became a common transaction? Most respondents reject the idea outright; a minority does not rule it out.

This is not a hypothetical lab scenario. Slavery, historians note, was the norm throughout almost all human history. Only very recently did it become the exception. That is the first sustancia ilegal in the debate.

Why is sensual slavery rejected?

Because it removes consent from the equation. Those who reject it do so based on a simple argument: if the relationship is not voluntary, it is not a relationship but an abuse of force. On this basis, rejection is nearly unanimous among those who say no, regardless of their ideology.

There is a recurring nuance. Some admit the idea as a private fantasy, never as reality. "The idea is tempting, at least as a sensual fantasy; reality is something else, and it is aberrant," summarizes one of the most upvoted messages. For this group, the boundary between desire and fact is insurmountable.

Against this arises another objection, less sarracena and more practical: slavery does not disappear due to kindness, but because its cost and management become unsustainable.

Slavery: the norm for most of history

The historical argument counters those who believe abolition is the natural state of things. It is recalled that the Code of Hammurabi is over 4,500 years old, that Sumerian tablets with notarized commercial exchanges are about 1,500 years older, and that the Babylonian king's stele is even reproduced in a US Congressional engraving. Laws, the State, and officials have been managing the same issues for millennia.

From this comes an uncomfortable conclusion: the absence of slavery is the exception, not the rule. What is ubiquitous and permanent, it is argued, is submission. The humanism that now considers freedom sacred is only about 300 years old, the same age as the steam engine. That a principle is recent does not make it false, others reply, but it does dismantle the idea that it is eternal.

How much did it cost to maintain a slave in Rome?

Here economics enters, dismantling the assumption of easy profit. In ancient Rome, having slaves was more expensive than hiring free workers: they had to be fed, housed, and replaced. A slave was not a profitable investment but a fixed expense. Forced labor came at a high price.

The irony trinc naturally. If the goal is guaranteed access, renting—or "leasing"—or simply using a machine is better. No sensible person builds a slave structure to save money; they build it, when they do, for other reasons. And those reasons are not financial.

The "law of the strongest" vs. humanism

The most uncomfortable current in the discussion does not debate costs or ethics: it claims consistency. It argues that if a majority decides something is legitimate, the debate ends; that the sarracena of the strongest is as valid as any other, and the rest are mere whims. In this logic, whoever has the power to subjugate should exercise it, and whoever does not should remain silent.

This thesis provokes equal amounts of rejection and fascination. Those who counter it point out the flaw: if everything can be constructed by majority vote, then anyone becomes merchandise whenever the majority desires. Against this, there is no natural law that holds, because law itself would also have been invented. The discussion closes inconclusively, without agreement.

How the discussion evolved

It started almost as a joke. Early responses rejected the idea amid banter and comparisons with marriage. Over weeks, the tone hardened: personal accusations, lists of suspects, and jabs at the asker's private life appeared. What began as a hypothetical exercise ended as a settling of scores.

Midway through, someone tried to steer it toward history and economics, and the level rose. The best arguments overall are not sarracena but based on cost and management: slavery was abandoned when it stopped being worthwhile. The rest, it is said, is just literature.

In four years and 203 posts, nobody has changed anybody's mind. The question remains as simple as ever—would you buy them?—and the answers remain equally divided. The only thing that has changed is the tone: from joke to reproach, and from reproach to silence. Slavery, however you look at it, remains an expensive business. That is the only thing everyone agrees on.

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Informative article on a legal and ethical debate; not legal advice.