Bodin on Slavery and Primitive Accumulation
Bodin's antislavery opinions reflected the historical experience of most sixteenth-century Frenchmen delivered from personal servitude a century or more earlier. At the same time, Bodin's hostility to slavery was particularly marked by his view of the state. Far from a strong state entaili...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, Inc.
1994
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| In: |
The sixteenth century journal
Year: 1994, Volume: 25, Issue: 1, Pages: 53-65 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | Bodin's antislavery opinions reflected the historical experience of most sixteenth-century Frenchmen delivered from personal servitude a century or more earlier. At the same time, Bodin's hostility to slavery was particularly marked by his view of the state. Far from a strong state entailing servitude Bodin believed such a state to be a guarantor of personal liberty and private property. Indeed, slavery was not only unnatural and irrational, it represented a permanent threat to the stability of the state. The growth of slavery in the New World, and the ongoing violence of the French religious wars seemed to give impetus to the re-emergence of personal servitude. Bodin regarded the spread of wage labor free from the chains of servility as a positive alternative. Yet in Bodin's eyes wage labor itself was developing not through the free play of the market, but as a result of violence and heavy and unequal state taxation. Faced with the growth of wage labor and the apparent revival of servitude, Bodin held that both wage laborers and slaves should be given rights of citizenship in the interests of a stable commonwealth, while being excluded from political office. |
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| ISSN: | 2326-0726 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The sixteenth century journal
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/2542552 |