Looking at The Slavery of Our Times

As I've stated before, my initial introduction and interest in Leo Tolstoy actually came from his later religious and political thought rather than his fiction. And, I still honestly find those ideas interesting and worth engaging. I recently listened to The Slavery of Our Times (Librivox link here) and thought it would be interesting to go through the book and discuss some of the big ideas in a post here. I'll tie some of the ideas to War and Peace, but for the most part, I'm just going to try to look at the ideas put forth in the book and discuss its relevance to today. I've decided the easiest way to do this is to just block quote the book in parts, going chapter by chapter, with a little commentary on some of the passages and ideas (all quotations are from the Alymer Maude translation, which you can read here). 

But first, a note. For Americans (and I apologize for the Americentrism, as I know all readers will not be from America, but America is what I know best, so comments on my own culture are going to be stronger and, one would think, more informed than comments on the world or other nations) today, "slavery" is either a very loaded word or a word that has a very specific meaning. Because of the specificity of race-based chattel slavery that accompanied the founding of the country and has informed much of the nation's history, we are, for the most part, very cautious of using the word slavery to discuss anything other than the race-based chattel slavery of our history (and it absolutely colors any mention of the word slavery in any context). Russia's history of slavery and serfdom is different (a subject for another time) and Tolstoy has some rather unorthodox (for the lack of a better word) views on the history of American slavery, some of which will be discussed below. 

Chapter 1: GOODS-PORTERS WHO WORK THIRTY-SEVEN HOURS

The book opens with the absurd-ist (true) story about the goods-porters in Russia who worked in 36 hour (with the extra hour being the travel to the job) shifts. Tolstoy uses this as the jumping off point (the Author's Preface sets up the book as a secular sequel to What Must We Do Then?) for the book by asking: how does this happen? And why do people agree to this?

""But why work thirty-six hours on end? Cannot the work be arranged in shifts?" "We do what we're told to." "Yes; but why do you agree to it?""We agree because we have to feed ourselves.' If you don't like it, be off.' If one's even an hour late, one has one's ticket shied at one, and are told to march; and there are ten men ready to take the place.""

Because of scarcity and the allocation of power, people are forced to work jobs they do not like for hours beyond what seems physically possible. They need to eat and the competition is between the workers, or at least between those who want to be workers:

"It was true, that for a bare subsistence, people, considering themselves free men, thought it necessary to give themselves up to work such as, in the days of serfdom, not one slave-owner, however cruel, would have sent his slaves to. Let alone slave-owners, not one cab proprietor would send his horses to such work, for horses cost money, and it would be wasteful, by excessive thirty-seven-hour work, to shorten the life of an animal of value."

The claim that slave-owners would not work their slaves to the point of death seems suspect, but from a rational point of view, with the horse analogy tied to it, the connection of workers to property at least causes a connection between master and slave, with the master losing something if the slave dies, the horse gets injured, or the machinery breaks down. However, the boss loses nothing if a worker breaks down if there is competition in the marketplace of workers, with one replacing the other with no real cost to the boss (of course, the line of thought that leads to "but at least slavery..." should always make us uncomfortable). But Tolstoy is still searching for why this kind of slavery exists.

Chapter 2: SOCIETY'S INDIFFERENCE WHILE MEN PERISH

First, let's look at how the difference between workers (slaves) and bosses (masters) causes a difference in quality and length of life:

"And what of the waste of lives among those who are employed on admittedly harmful work : in looking-glass, card, match, sugar, tobacco, and glass factories; in mines, or as cesspool cleaners. There are English statistics showing that the average length of life among people of the upper classes is fifty-five years, and the average of life among working people in unhealthy occupations is twenty-nine years."

While both sets in the United States today are both higher, the difference between poor and rich Americans life expectancy is still 12 to 20 years, so there is still relevancy here. Whether or not this has to do more with the difference in working environments or access to healthcare, for a few different reasons, Tolstoy doesn't look at. 

The first culprit, rather than attacking the bosses themselves, for why these conditions exist is well, us. People make use of what is created in the exploitation, so no matter what we actually believe, our complicity lies in our role in consumers, which is going to help us understand the conclusions Tolstoy makes towards the end of the book.

"But the fact is that we well- to-do people, Liberals and Humanitarians, very sensitive to the sufferings not of people only but also of animals unceasingly make use of such labour, and try to become more and more rich, i.e. to take more and more advantage of such work. And we remain perfectly tranquil...we only shrug our shoulders and say that we are very sorry things should be so, but that we can do nothing to alter it ; and we continue with tranquil consciences to buy silk stuffs, to wear starched shirts, and to read our morning paper."

Our passivity and unwillingness to change our lives or consuming habits lie at the heart of the continuation of the problem. For the workers to continue to be the slaves of the bosses and dispensed as worse than property, society must accept this arrangement. It accepts this arrangement because it is easier to continue with our lives than change our habits (in which we should not confuse Tolstoy's "non-resistance" with "passivity" in which Tolstoy does not call for fighting society, nor doing nothing, but radically changing our lives to change society)

Chapter 3: JUSTIFICATION OF THE EXISTING SYSTEM BY SCIENCE

The first thing we should notice is that "science" was a much broader term in the 19th century (though technically the writing/publishing date for the book is 1900) and for Tolstoy, it is very much a loaded term. When he talks about science in this book, he mostly means what we might call economic theory or economics in general. But, just as chapter two attempted to demonstrate how society/middle class complicity causes the preservation of the boss/worker system, chapter three tries to show how intellectuals defend the system:

"It was demonstrated that God created different sorts of people: slaves and masters; and that both should be satisfied with their position. It was further demonstrated that it would be better for the slaves in the next world ; and afterwards it was shown that although the slaves were slaves, and ought to remain such, yet their condition would not be bad if the masters would be kind to them. Then the very last explanation, after the emancipation of the slaves, was that wealth is entrusted by God to some people in order that they may use part of it in good works; and so there is no harm in some people being rich and others poor. These explanations satisfied the rich and the poor (especially the rich) for a long time. But the day came when these explanations became unsatisfactory, especially to the poor, who began to understand their position. Then fresh explanations were needed. And, just at the proper time, they were produced. These new explanations came in the form of science: political economy...Only the one fundamental position of that science is acknowledged by all, namely, that the relations among men are conditioned, not by what people consider right or wrong, but by what is advantageous for those who occupy an advantageous position."

In the past, religion and cultural myths were used to preserve slave/master systems but as those religions and cultural myths became unpalatable for culture, science was substituted for these religions and cultural myths. This is actually the positive story of the enlightenment turned on its head, with "science" replacing religion, but instead of re-imagining society, it is just a new form of enslavement, a new preservation of the old master/slave system. Progress, and this is one of the themes of the book, has just been an illusion, a continuation of the master/slave dynamic, a complete rejection of the Hegelian/Marxist interpretation of history as progressing necessarily towards something and revolutionizing societal structures (and this will lead to his problems with socialism and Marx, but as we will see, it is not his main problem with those philosophies). 

The intellectual class, which unsurprisingly, is made up of the rich/master class, creates a philosophy, a "science", to defend the system in which they oppress the poor/slaves. This is something that still has some resonance today with donor backed think-tanks and free market economic schools propped up by or primarily participated in by the wealthy who have something to gain from the preservation of the current worker/boss system (though our intellectual class definitely has a fair share of anti-capitalist thinking).

Chapter 4: THE ASSERTION OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE THAT ALL RURAL LABOURERS MUST ENTER THE FACTORY SYSTEM

While Tolstoy doesn't use the word "industrial" in the book, Tolstoy sees the boss/worker structure caused by what we would call the "Industrial Revolution", the factorization of the economy, and most importantly for him, the urbanization of society. 

"science replies, that these people are in this condition because the railway belongs to this Company, the silk factory to that gentleman, and all the foundries, factories, printing shops, and laundries, to capitalists ; and that this state of things will come right by workpeople forming unions, co-operative societies, strikes, and taking part in government, and more and more swaying the masters and the government, till the workers obtain first, shorter hours and increased wages, and finally, all the means of production into their hands ; and then all will be well. Meanwhile all is going on as it should go, and there is no need to alter anything."

This is the firm rejection of Hegel/Marx, as well as the rejection of reform movements. It is wrong, for Tolstoy, to believe that history is progressing towards something (he of course embraces fatalism and incomprehensibility in history in War and Peace). It is also wrong, in what will probably seem like a paradox, to actively try to give the workers more power in the boss/worker dynamic (though of course some strands of Marxism/communist/anarchist thought agree with this as well, finding reform movements delaying or postponing necessary revolutions to break down the worker/boss dynamic). The reason for this, according to Tolstoy, is because it misidentifies the problem:

"that the cause of the miserable position of the workers cannot be found in the seizure of the means of production by capitalists. The cause must lie in that which drives them from the villages. That in the first place. Secondly, the emancipation of the workers from this state of things (even in that distant future in which science promises them liberty) can be accomplished neither by shortening the hours of labour, nor by increasing wages, nor by the promised communalisation of the means of production."

Here of course it should be noted that Tolstoy conflates all economic "science", whether it is Marxist or capitalist, but the problem itself is not necessarily capitalism or the Industrial Revolution, but instead, they are the results of people losing the ability to subsist in rural areas and having to move to urban areas (yes, Tolstoy is most likely being inconsistent in so easily connecting historical events/economic causes while rejecting the whole science in itself). And, while The Slavery of Our Times attempts to appeal to a secular and rational line of thinking, Tolstoy can't quite help himself appealing to his moralistic Christianity in determining why the urban life is more degrading to people than the rural life:

"Latterly the hours of labour have diminished, and the rate of wages has increased; but this diminution of the hours of labour and this increase in wages has not improved the position of the worker, if one takes into account not their more luxurious habits watches with chains, silk kerchiefs, tobacco, vodka, beef, beer, etc. but their true welfare, i.e. their health and morality, and chiefly their freedom....spend all they earn here, chiefly on dress, drunkenness, and vice. The diminution of the hours of work merely increases the time they spend in the taverns."

Tolstoy makes a good observation here on why reform movements fail to really produce happiness and then follows it up with an observation that is...much less good. Increased pay and reduced hours has not broken the boss/worker dynamic and has not increased happiness because a) people want freedom and do not want to be subjected and b) this combination of idle time and extra money have not been spent on happiness (now, as a digression, this can lead to a dangerous line of thought that Tolstoy sometimes seems guilty of, particularly in sections of War and Peace, in believing that economic security and happiness have no relation at all, which can slide right into a cynical conservatism that doesn't attempt to improve the lives of anyone. To Tolstoy's credit, this is not the conclusion he draws in the book, but I think it relates to the next sentence). However, the last sentence of the above quotation is extremely unfortunate and uncomfortable in the worst way. It is when Tolstoy's moral fixations work counter to his purposes, as that sentence reads as if to serve the purpose of the master/boss class. The point is that the urban life is morally decaying and that no amount of reforming will solve this problem, which is a very debatable point (I'd like to look at Tolstoy's city/country dichotomy in more detail in a future post, especially in comparison with W.E.B. Du Bois's thoughts on the subject). 

"the Government and society, influenced by the affirmations of science, do all that is possible to improve the position of the factory population at the expense of the country population."

It is hard to comment on this too much because it may have more relevance with the policies of late 19th century Russia, but I am not sure how much we can comment on its applicability today, since rural society tends to breed conservatism, becoming a somewhat self-fulfilling prophecy, with the rural societies refusing help and/or change, making it impossible for future societies to continue the lives of their fathers/mothers of rural living. 

"The misery of the position of a factory hand, and in general of a town worker, does not consist in his long hours and small pay, but in the fact that he is deprived of the natural conditions of life in touch with nature, is deprived of freedom, and is compelled to compulsory and monotonous toil at another man's will." 

So the problems with the city life are two-fold here. It is "unnatural", whatever that really means ("naturalism" plays a huge role in Tolstoy's thought, but he seems to fail to define it, instead equating it with the lives of ancestors, which fails as a very good argument, sounding only like an un-argued conservatism). And connected to this idea is that city and factory-work life is not free. People, like the goods-porters in chapter one, are forced to work to live and are living a life of moral degradation when their working conditions are actually improved through reforms. Below, Tolstoy lays out the cause of these problems, in which he actually, kind of, deals with and agrees with Marx. 

"First the country people were deprived of land by violence, says Karl Marx, were evicted and brought to vagabondage ; and then, by cruel laws, they were tortured with pincers, with red-hot irons, and were whipped, to make them submit to the condition of being hired labourers. Therefore the question, how to free the workers from their miserable position, should, one would think, naturally lead to the question, how to remove those causes which have already driven some, and are now driving, and threatening to drive, the rest of the peasants from the position which they considered and consider good, and have driven and are driving them to a position which they consider bad. Economic science, although it indicates in passing the causes that drove the peasants from the villages, does not concern itself with the question how to remove these causes, but directs all its attention to the improvement of the worker's position in the existing factories and works, assuming as it were that the workers' position in these factories and workshops is something unalterable, something which must at all costs be maintained for those who are already in the factories, and must be reached by those who have not yet left the villages or abandoned agricultural work."

Like "slavery", the word "violence" for Tolstoy has a very broad meaning that is explored throughout the book. It is not through just lack of opportunity or demographic shifts, or even the desirability of emigrating into the city for culture (which Tolstoy rejects absolutely as shallow), education, or job opportunities, but "violence" that has caused people to move away from rural areas to urban areas. And of course, all "scientists" overlook what Tolstoy sees as the big problem:

"economic science affirms that all the country people, not only are not injured by the transition from the country to the town, but themselves desire it, and strive towards it"

Everyone misses the point and only Tolstoy sees the real problem (one could note and give Tolstoy some credit, though by doing so perhaps hurt the current relevance of the book, by pointing out that life in cities at this time was much much harsher than it is today. Improvements in environmental and housing regulation have made city life much more tolerable for the vast majority of citizens over the last 100 plus years). At least according to Tolstoy (to be fair, he does have a point, both in his time and place and ours, small groups of people own the majority of land, causing densely populated areas and large areas with almost no population density. There is an interesting point to be explored here, but Tolstoy doesn't bother, only dealing superficially with the reasons for the problem of land distribution and its effects on demographic shifts. Of course, Tolstoy seems to believe that "science" has already dealt with this, so may not have felt the need to explore this further). 

Chapter 5: WHY LEARNED ECONOMISTS AFFIRM WHAT IS FALSE

So as discussed previously, here is why the "scientists" uphold the boss/worker capitalistic dynamic:

"those who have formulated, and who are formulating, the laws of science, belong to the well-to-do classes, and are so accustomed to the conditions, advantageous for themselves, in which they live, that they do not admit the thought that society could exist under other conditions. The condition of life to which people of the well-to-do classes are accustomed, is that of an abundant production of various articles, necessary for their comfort and pleasure; and these things are only obtained thanks to the existence of factories and works organised as at present. And therefore, when discussing the improvement of the workers' position, men of science, belonging to the well-to-do classes, always have in view only such improvements as will not do away with this system of factory production, and those conveniences of which they avail themselves."

This desire to uphold the current consumption of goods and services creates a serious problem for the socialists for Tolstoy:

"According to their (socialist) theories, the workers will all join unions and associations, and cultivate solidarity among themselves by unions, strikes, and participation in Parliament, till they obtain possession of all the means of production, as well as the land; and then they will be so well fed, so well dressed, and enjoy such amusements on holidays, that they will prefer life in town, amid brick buildings and smoking chimneys, to free village life amid plants and domestic animals; and monotonous, bell-regulated machine work to varied, healthy, and free agricultural labour. Though this anticipation is as improbable as the anticipation of the theologians about a heaven to be enjoyed hereafter by workmen in compensation for their hard labour here, yet learned and educated people of our society believe this strange teaching, just as formerly wise and learned people believed in a heaven for workmen in the next world."

The socialists promise a heaven on earth, which is just a variant on the old religious dynamic that promises a heaven after life if the people accept the religion and current societal structure, continuing Tolstoy's belief on the enlightenment-science being a continuance of the old religious dynamic. This is a really interesting part of Tolstoy's thought in which he believes in Jesus's teachings of non-resistance, but rejecting the after-life and miracles, while also rejecting (most) utilitarian or pragmatic solutions to the world's problems. This is actually a rather serious issue with accepting his teachings, as he believes, like Jesus, that you should not resist, but not for the reasons that Jesus himself argued that they should not resist. But for Tolstoy, the socialists are intellectually dishonest, believing that mass production of what you might call "unneeded" goods will continue under socialism, without force (this is an interesting problem that he raises and discusses throughout, perhaps understanding what became of communism in the 20th century, that is, the veer towards absolute authoritarianism), because they want these goods to continue to exist.

"they must see that all that they make use of in their lives, from railways to lucifer matches and cigarettes, represents labour which costs the lives of many of their brother- men, and that they, not sharing in that toil but making use of it, are very dishonourable men; or they must believe that all that takes place, takes place for the general advantage, in accord with unalterable laws of economic science."

Socialists will reject this argument as similar to conservatives claiming that socialists who use iPhones are inconsistent but it does bring up an interesting point. Are socialists/communists/radicals willing to forgo many items that are considered normal for the middle-class to have because they come from materials that are created using foreign slavery, worker subjection, and the boss/worker dynamic (more on technological advances below)?

Chapter 6: BANKRUPTCY OE THE SOCIALIST IDEAL

That's a rather provocative title, especially from something that cannot remotely be called a capitalist work. 

"It is undeniable that under the present state of things most varied articles are produced with great economy of exertion, thanks to machinery, and thanks especially to the division of labour which has been brought to an extreme nicety and carried to the highest perfection; and that these articles are profitable to the manufacturers, and that we find them convenient and pleasant to use. But the fact that these articles are well made, and are produced with little expenditure of strength, that they are profitable to the capitalists and convenient for us, does not prove that free men would, without compulsion, continue to produce them...How are these people to be made to participate in the production of such articles ?...it may be said that there will be people to whom power will be given to regulate all these matters. Some people will decide these questions, and others will obey them."

That final sentence of the quotation is essential. Capitalism is based on the boss/worker dynamic and that is how we get the economy we have today. Without that dynamic, how do we get not only the economy, but the basic social structure and utilities (who paves the roads in 100 degree heat? Who takes out the trash)? "Some people will decide these questions, and others will obey them." This is a problem that can seem defeating to the point of a passive nihilism that ends up justifying the current social structure. If no matter what, having freedom and the luxuries that are basically considered necessities for the modern human are contradictions that seems impossible to resolve (something that Tolstoy doesn't seem to discuss because it may not have been relevant to his time, but in our time, most people's jobs are not "necessary", especially financially if capitalism were to be transformed or removed, and can be done away with, so many people work to eat and contribute to society just to be contributing, making something that isn't necessary and no one would use in a better structured society). Tolstoy will try to solve this with volunteerism, which isn't quite the solution Tolstoy wants it to be, as we'll explore later. 

"Division of labour is undoubtedly very profitable and natural to people; but, if people are free, division of labour is only possible up to a certain, very limited, extent, which has been far overstepped in our society...such division of labour as now exists, can only exist where there is compulsion...If people decide to make a road, and one digs, another brings stones, a third breaks them, etc. that sort of division of work unites people. But if, independently of the wishes, and sometimes against the wishes, of the workers, a strategical railway is built, or an Eiffel tower, or stupidities such as fill the Paris exhibition; and one workman is compelled to obtain iron, another to dig coal, a third to make castings, a fourth to cut down trees, and a fifth to saw them up, without even having the least idea what the things they are making are wanted for, then such division of labour not only does not unite men, but, on the contrary, it divides them....So that the supposition that when the Socialist ideal is realised, everyone will be free, and will at the same time have at his disposal everything, or almost everything, that is now made use of by the well-to-do classes, involves an obvious self-contradiction."

Simplicity, primitivism, and agrarianism are Tolstoy's answers. Only the things that can be agreed upon by the people who will do the actions will actually come about. This, as we'll see in the next chapter, will have a massive effect on the way people will be able to live and completely upend the standard of living in society. In a way, in Tolstoy's fear of moral degradation, this is the point, not just the massive change, but the giant step backward, the retreat into the woods (Maude explicitly references Thoreau three times in the introduction and we'll look at taxes below) is what Tolstoy wants. Environmentalism, especially as we know it, didn't exist in the humanistic-romanticism of Tolstoy's time and Tolstoy doesn't have a lot to say about environmentalism, especially in this book. But, perhaps Tolstoy has something to say for environmentalists, especially for those willing to embrace primitivism. 

Chapter 7: CULTURE OR FREEDOM

As the chapter title suggests, we have a rather clear choice. The moral bankruptcy of the liberal, those who do not forgo the culture but suggest minor changes to it without upsetting the entire boss/worker structure, is on display for Tolstoy because they are always slightly behind the times. 

"the majority of well-to-do people to-day advise employers to look after the well-being of their workpeople, but do not admit the thought of any such alteration of the economic structure of life as would set the labourers quite free. And just as advanced Liberals then, while considering serfdom to be an immutable arrangement, demanded that the Government should limit the power of the owners, and sympathised with the serfs' agitation, so the Liberals of to-day, while considering the existing order immutable, demand that Government should limit the powers of capitalists and manufacturers, and they sympathise with unions, and strikes, and, in general, with the workers' agitation."

We can't straddle between the two sides. Either the boss/worker structure is wrong or it is right. Because Tolstoy has rejected reforms on deontological and essentialist (that is, humans should be free and humans telling others what they ought to do limits freedom) grounds, we are left with an either/or choice. One can certainly argue that this either/or isn't necessary and reforms would improve the plight of the worker class, which would be better than nothing. Tolstoy is going to continue to argue against this throughout the work and I think here we see how the "advanced Liberals" (another one of Tolstoy's phrases that demonstrate contempt and categorization of ideas that are automatically wrong) are behind "progress" (which isn't real for Tolstoy, as we have seen) and are most importantly, hypocritical and prejudiced (that is, biased), like the well-to-do intellectuals. 

"The existing economic order is by the men of science, and following them by all the well-to-do classes called culture; and in this culture: railways, telegraphs, telephones, photographs, Eontgen rays, clinical hospitals, exhibitions, and, chiefly, all the appliances of comfort they see something so sacrosanct that they will not allow even a thought of alterations which might destroy it all, or but endanger a small part of these acquisitions."

For Tolstoy, "liberals" would generally like good things to happen to the oppressed, but not at the price of their current social order. The difference, at least for Tolstoy, between Tolstoy and the "liberals" is that the liberals are not willing to part with their culture, goods, or social structure. This essentially equates the conservatives, the bosses, the well-to-do intellectuals, and the liberals.

"Electric lights and telephones and exhibitions are excellent, and so are all the pleasure-gardens with concerts and performances, and all the cigars, and match-boxes, and braces, and motorcars but may they all go to perdition, and not they alone but the railways, and all the factorymade chintz-stuffs and cloths in the world, if to produce them it is necessary that 99 per cent, of the people should remain in slavery, and perish by thousands in factories needed for the production of these articles. If in order that London or Petersburg may be lighted by electricity, or in order to construct exhibition buildings, or in order that there may be beautiful paints, or in order to weave beautiful stuffs quickly and abundantly, it is necessary that even a very few lives should be destroyed, or ruined, or shortened and statistics show us how many are destroyed let London and Petersburg rather be lit by gas, or oil; let there rather be no exhibition, no paints, or materials only let there be no slavery, and no destruction of human lives resulting from it. Truly enlightened people will always agree to go back to riding on horses and using pack-horses, or even to tilling the earth with sticks and with their own hands, rather than to travel on railways which regularly every year crush a number of people, as is done in Chicago, merely because the proprietors of the railway find it more profitable to compensate the families of those killed, than to build the line so that it should not kill people."

This is probably the strongest passage in the book. Primitivism and a tempered Luddism is the new-enlightenment for Tolstoy. Technology marching forward comes at the price of human suffering. Of course, it is easy to argue that technology actually alleviates suffering, but Tolstoy is not interested in those arguments and is also more focused on the suffering that is caused by the creation of this technology, which certainly still applies to our time. 

Chapter 8: SLAVERY EXISTS AMONG US

Similar to War and Peace's nobility, the boss class does not do anything of any use and relies on the work of the peasant/work class so they can continue to avoid work:

"a small number who have clean white hands, and are well nourished and clothed and lodged, do very little and very light work, or even do not work at all but only amuse themselves, spending on these amusements the results of millions of days devoted by other people to severe labour; but other people, always dirty, poorly clothed and lodged and fed with dirty, horny hands toil unceasingly from morning to night, and sometimes all night long, working for those who do not work, but who continually amuse themselves."

And this is tied to the myth of progress for Tolstoy. The boss class continues to control society, so anything that looks likes the worker/slave class gaining more power is simply an illusion or just a product of the current arrangement being no longer convenient and in the need of reform. This makes the "advanced liberal" class simply pawns, as they support the reforms that only really benefit the boss class but claim to improve the worker class. This can lead to some unfortunate views:

"A thing that helps people to-day to misunderstand their position in this matter, is the fact that we have, in Russia and in America, only recently abolished slavery. But in reality the abolition of serfdom and of slavery was only the abolition of an obsolete form of slavery that had become unnecessary, and the substitution for it of a firmer form of slavery, and one that holds a greater number of people in bondage...(The Northerners in America boldly demanded the abolition of the former slavery because, among them, the new monetary slavery had already shown its power to shackle the people. The Southerners did not yet perceive the plain signs of the new slavery, and therefore did not consent to abolish the old form.)...One form of slavery is not abolished until another has already replaced it...In this enslavement of the larger part of the people by a smaller part lies the chief cause of the miserable condition of the people. And therefore the means of improving the position of the workers must consist in this: First, in admitting that among us slavery exists, not in some figurative, metaphorical sense, but in the simplest and plainest sense; slavery which keeps some people the majority, in the power of others the minority; secondly, having admitted this, in finding the causes of the enslavement of some people by others; and thirdly, having found these causes, in destroying them."

The argument that the North also had slavery in the United States is a white supremacist argument today and its place here somewhat furthers Tolstoy's "unorthodox" interpretation of American slavery and the American Civil War. Most likely, this interpretation has to do with Tolstoy's lack of fixation on race, which is absolutely essential to understanding American slavery. This is where the broad use of the word slavery hasn't transferred well across cultures and time. And for Tolstoy, this definition of slavery, where economic progress for the slaves/workers has been nothing of a delusion, is absolutely impossible to separate with the solution to the problem workers face. 

Chapter 9: WHAT IS SLAVERY?

But how did this slavery come about? It is obviously the "violence" that has driven people from the rural areas and into the city and the wealth of the boss class. But how does this come about? 

"The two first conditions the lack of land and the taxes drive man to compulsory labour, while the third his increased and unsatisfied needs decoy him to it and keep him at it..., one cannot even imagine a position of things under which more and more luxurious, and often harmful, habits of life would not be adopted among the rich, and that these habits should not, little by little, pass to those of the lower classes who are in contact with the rich, as inevitably as water sinks into dry ground, and that these habits should not become so necessary to the workers that, in order to be able to satisfy them, they will be ready to sell their freedom....Workmen living near rich people always are infected with new requirements, and only obtain means to satisfy these requirements in so far as they devote their most intense labour to this satisfaction. So that workmen in England and America, receiving sometimes ten times as much as is necessary for subsistence, continue to be just such slaves as they were before...one way or another, the labourer is always in slavery to those who control the taxes, the land, and the articles necessary to satisfy his requirements."

We are here introduced to Tolstoy and many of the anarchists' of the late 19th century obsession with taxes, which is not a sticking point for modern liberals and leftists, who actually encourage heavy progressive taxation. Of course, the 19th century contained a lot of regressive taxation and that is going to color a lot of the talk about taxes (though why you couldn't just make an argument that the rich/bosses should be heavily taxed and the poor/workers shouldn't be taxed at all is a good question of course, though Tolstoy would think taxation as a matter of principle is some sort of slavery, which again is where the deontological ethics get into the way of preventing human suffering). Additionally, Tolstoy's problems with taxes is where the tax money goes, which is war, which, especially in the United States, still stands today. 

But more importantly, we see how the life and desires of the rich/bosses trickles down to the poor/workers. The poor/workers desire to be like the rich/bosses and the morals and consumerism of this latter class infect the former class, not only transforming this lower class of people's culture, but also making it harder to subsist and putting them further into debt, which they are then blamed for. Tied to the moralism of Tolstoy is the desire of goods, which the "natural peasant" does not desire, but the city-dwelling poor do in order to be like the rich/bosses. The workers are caught in an infinite game of catch-up, finding themselves unable to fully satisfy their desires as the bosses continue to move the goalpost of what is a desirable life and what goods are necessary for a "normal" life. One need not fully embrace primitism or Luddism to understand Tolstoy's idea that the culture of consumerism drives the poor into further poverty. 

Chapter 10: LAWS CONCERNING TAXES, LAND, AND PROPERTY

"The German Socialists have termed the combination of conditions which put the workers in subjection to the capitalists, the iron law of wages, implying by the word "iron" that this law is immutable. But in these conditions there is nothing immutable; these conditions merely result from human laws concerning taxes, land, and, above all, concerning things which satisfy our requirements, i.e. concerning property. Laws are framed, and repealed, by human beings. So that it is not some sociological "iron" law, but ordinary man-made law, that produces slavery."

No surprise when reading Tolstoy that the Germans are evidently very wrong. Again, societal laws and rules are nothing but social constructions and there is no real reason for things to exist the way they do. I think this is much more obvious to a postmodern reader that has no attachment to conservative ideology and systems, but at the end of 1800's, with the enlightenment coming to an end and existentialism and postmodernism starting to emerge in different ways, social structures as absolute constructions rather than products of science and historical necessity was a rather progressive and forward-looking idea. So while Tolstoy's rejection of society and the usual solutions to societal progress can lead to some despair or nihilistic pacifism, he views, and one can view, his ideas as rather optimistic. Slavery can be abolished and it should be. There is no reason, in Tolstoy's view, for it to exist, but one of the key reasons it does is because of the protection of property by governments. 

"It is said that this legislation is instituted because landed property is an essential condition if agriculture is to flourish, and if there were no private property passing by inheritance, people would drive one another from the land they occupy, and no one would work or improve the land on which he is settled. Is this true? The answer is to be found in history, and in the facts of to-day. History shows that property in land did not arise from any wish to make the cultivator's tenure more secure, but resulted from the seizure of communal lands by conquerors, and its distribution to those who served the conquerors.... History shows that taxes never were instituted by common consent, but, on the contrary, always only in consequence of the fact that some people having obtained power (by conquest or by other means) over other people, imposed tribute, not for public needs, but for themselves. And the same thing is still going on. Taxes are taken by those who have the power to take them. If nowadays some portion of these tributes, called taxes and duties, are used for public purposes, it is, for the most part, for public purposes that are harmful rather than useful to most people. For instance, in Russia one-third of the peasants' whole income is taken in taxes, but only one-fiftieth of the State revenue is spent on their greatest need, the education of the people; and even that amount is spent on a kind of education which, by stupefying the people, harms them more than it benefits them. The other fortynine-fiftieths are spent on unnecessary things, harmful for the people, such as equipping the army, building strategical railways, forts, and prisons, or supporting the priesthood and the court, and on salaries for military and civil officials, i.e. on salaries for those people who make it possible to take this money from the people. The same thing goes on not only in Persia, Turkey, and India, but also in all the Christian and constitutional States and democratic Republics...(we know how Parliaments are made up, and how little they represent the will of the people)...people have established laws that men may not use land that is considered to belong to someone else, must pay the taxes demanded of them, and must not use articles considered to be the property of others and we have the slavery of our times."

Again, property and taxes, in most ideologies two separate and often contradictory portions of the social machine, are linked in Tolstoy. Property only exists because of governments and conquerors. The historical background Tolstoy suggests this idea is based on is...debatable and reductive at the very least, but the point that private property is protected by government authority stands (and works for discussing American slavery). The taxes taken from the worker class are not used to help the workers but instead are used to further enslave them by being spent on authority to help protect the private property of the boss class. And this is how Tolstoy ties together the ideas of property and government to slavery. 

Chapter 11: LAWS THE CAUSE OF SLAVERY

And this connection with government and slavery, as with the early arguments against the socialists having to do with compulsory labor, lies at the heart of Tolstoy's continual attacks on socialism. 

"Those who like the Socialists in theory, wish to abolish the legalisation of property in land and in means of production, not only retain the legalisation of taxes, but must, moreover, inevitably introduce laws of compulsory labour i.e. they must re-establish slavery in its primitive form."

As the Gilded Age and Industrial Revolution are drawing to their close, Tolstoy's historical fatalism and absolute cynicism when it comes to progress, rejects that factory conditions could be getting "better" or people could become more free from legislation:

"Even the abolition of all three groups of laws together, will not abolish slavery, but evoke a new and previously, unknown form of it, which is now already beginning to show itself and to shackle the freedom of labour by legislation concerning the hours of work, the age and state of health of the workers, as well as by demanding obligatory attendance at schools, by deductions for old-age insurance or accidents, by all the measures of factory inspection, etc. All this is nothing but transitional legalisation preparing a new and as yet untried form of slavery. So that it becomes evident that the essence of slavery lies not in those three roots of legislation on which it now rests, and not even in such, or such other, legislative enactments, but in the fact that legislation exists that there are people who have power to decree laws profitable for themselves, and that as long as people have that power there will be slavery."

This radical skepticism or utter rejection of differentiating whether government policy could at any time be good has some troubling implications (as a modern person might argue The Civil Rights Act, The Great Society, The New Deal, or government healthcare cannot be good things, despite their attempts at alleviating human suffering, just out of principle). To get to the point Tolstoy arrives at here, one has to completely reject the idea of a social contract or any sort of collected interest. 

Chapter 12: THE ESSENCE OF LEGISLATION IS ORGANISED VIOLENCE

"According to science, legislation is the expression of the will of the whole people; but as those who break the laws, or who wish to break them and only refrain from doing so through fear of being punished, are always more numerous than those who wish to carry out the code, it is evident that legislation can certainly not be considered as the expression of the will of the whole people."

While much of Tolstoy works an affirmation of Rousseau, especially in comparison to Hobbes (a subject I'd like to explore further in a future post), Tolstoy completely rejects the idea of a national will (something that here seems to run counter to War and Peace, where a national will plays a huge role in the the results of the Napoleonic Wars). Laws, because people break them or want to break them, are not what everyone, or even the majority, wants (and as mentioned earlier, democratic republics are extremely corrupt and do not, or have not at least, worked). Most people would like to break the law, but don't do so out of fear. This view can be extremely problematic for a couple of reasons, the first being the basic assumption itself, which can take a very dim view of humanity. Do most people refuse to murder because there are laws against it? Does legality really inform humanity's morals so dramatically? And just as importantly, if it is true that laws shape human behavior so drastically, then doesn't that prove that the laws and thus society's current construction works? Surely it is an argument against the radical freedom Tolstoy argues for so strongly if the current setup is actually effective (another possible, but frightening, counterargument is that laws, including laws that call for violence against those who cannot defend themselves, actually do reflect the national will and the people as a whole, that, whether through conditioning or free will, people actually do want the laws that seem to enslave them). But then again, Tolstoy deals in deontology rather than pragmatism. 

"Many constitutions have been devised, beginning with the English and the American and ending with the Japanese and the Turkish, according to which people are to believe that all laws established in their country are established at their desire. But everyone knows that not in despotic countries only, but also in the countries nominally most free England, America, France, and others the laws are made not by the will of all, but by the will of those who have power, and therefore always and everywhere are such as are profitable to those who have power: be they many, or few, or only one man. Everywhere and always the laws are enforced by the only means that has compelled, and still compels, some people to obey the will of others, i.e. by blows, by deprivation of liberty, and by murder. There can be no other way. It cannot be otherwise. For laws are demands to execute certain rules; and to compel some people to obey certain rules (i.e. to do what other people want of them) can only be effected by blows, by deprivation of liberty, and by murder. If there are laws, there must be."

And this is where the line of thought leads Tolstoy straight to anarchism and volunteerism, not as the best society, but as the only possible moral society. If there are rules and laws, they have to be enforced by violence (they cannot be enforced through positive reinforcement?). So if you're following the train of thought: slavery is caused by property which is propped up by government which is propped up by violence. This connect is further explored before Tolstoy proposes his solutions to the problems. 

Chapter 13: WHAT ARE GOVERNMENTS? IS IT POSSIBLE TO EXIST WITHOUT GOVERNMENTS?

"The State organisation is extremely artificial and unstable, and the fact that the least push may destroy it, not only does not prove that it is necessary, but on the contrary shows that, if once upon a time it was necessary, it is now absolutely unnecessary, and is therefore harmful and dangerous. It is harmful and dangerous because the effect of this organisation on all the evil that exists in society is not to lessen and correct, but rather to strengthen and confirm, that evil. It is strengthened and confirmed, by being either justified and put in attractive forms, or secreted."

The statement that the state organization is flimsy and on its way to being destructed is the end of the 19th century optimism that certainly didn't play out the way Tolstoy imagined it could have. Tolstoy also, for all his emphasis on sincerity, also pulls one of what I like to call his insincere hypotheticals in "if once upon a time it was necessary", which Tolstoy just doesn't believe. Tolstoy was of course wrong in the state being unstable and ready to be pushed over (though the Russian Revolution may count as a proof he was right, though just as he predicted, one evil was replaced with another evil) but he was right in the justifications for strong states proving to be extremely deadly in the 20th century. 

"read the papers and know that no one is threatening to attack us, and that it is only you who govern us who for some objects, unintelligible to us, exasperate each other, and then, under pretence of defending your own people, ruin us with taxes for the maintenance of the fleet, for armaments, or for strategical railways, which are only required to gratify your ambition and vanity; and then you arrange wars with one another, as you have now done"

The baffling and nonsensical reasons for why nations go to war are explored in detail by both the characters and in the philosophical narrations in War and Peace and again become extremely relevant less than a decade after Tolstoy's death with the start of World War I, an incomprehensible and irrational war as any war in human history and in a grand scale only surpassed by World War II (though the reasons for the latter war are much easier to grasp). Taxes lead to money placed in instruments of violence, which governments find reasons to use precisely because they have them. 

"Why think that non-official people could not arrange their life for themselves, as well as Government people can arrange it not for themselves but for others? We see, on the contrary, that in the most diverse matters people in our times arrange their own lives incomparably better than those who govern them arrange things for them...there is no reason to suppose that people could not, by common agreement, decide how the land is to be apportioned for use...just as little is this ensured by inheritance, or the whole machinery of promotions in rank, or the elections in constitutional countries. On the contrary, power is always seized by those who are less conscientious and less moral."

This is one of the libertarian strands of Tolstoy's arguments, in which private association works more efficiently and in a much more moral way than government. Of course, one shouldn't mistake this for capitalist organizations or anything resembling a free market, but it is difficult to see how Tolstoy's plan would actually do anything to remove the power of the boss class, which would presumably still hold the majority of resources, making the worker class continually dependent on them. Without violence or governmental redistribution, how would the worker break the need for the boss? This isn't really explained, but Tolstoy looks at the inherent contradiction of governments and some people ruling over others:

"One of two things: either people are rational beings or they are irrational beings. If they are irrational beings, then they are all irrational, and then everything among them is decided by violence, and there is no reason why certain people should, and others should not, have a right to use violence. And in that case, governmental violence has no justification. But if men are rational beings, then their relations should be based on reason, and not on the violence of those who happen to have seized power. And in that case, again, governmental violence has no justification."

So at least abstractly and on a moral level, governments should not exist and boss/worker relationships should not exist. But of course, one of Tolstoy's most famous beliefs is his unwavering commitment to non-violence. 

Chapter 14: HOW CAN GOVERNMENTS BE ABOLISHED?

"All attempts to get rid of Governments by violence have, hitherto, always and everywhere resulted only in this: that in place of the deposed Governments, new ones established themselves, often more cruel than those they replaced."

Again, this has quite a bit of prescience. 

"Apart from outbursts of revenge or anger, violence is used only in order to compel some people against their own will to do the will of others. But the necessity to do what other people wish, against your own will, is slavery. And therefore as long as any violence, designed to compel some people to do the will of others, exists, there will be slavery."

The problem with violence such as revolutionary violence is that it is a collection of violence by a group that claims to represent an even larger group and then that group gets to decide what the larger group will do. This cannot represent the collection of wills for society and why a social contract, which also can't be established by those who are born into it, cannot be established via revolution or the act of a group of people representing others. It is actually, especially considering that Tolstoy views history as organic and almost animalistic, an extremely individualistic viewpoint that requires direct and constant volunteerism because people can't represent other people and society cannot compel others to act in a way they do not wish (again, raising the question of how the wealth that is necessary for the people to be truly free and not have to rely on working for the masters is to be extracted from the masters, though Tolstoy's answers may be complete and utter primitivism and retreat from society, a self-reliance that honestly cannot and will not work for the majority of people, especially the most vulnerable of people, which really comes off as condescending in the next quotation). 

"There are a lot of you, but you are stupid and uneducated, and cannot either govern yourselves or organise your public affairs, and therefore we will take those cares on ourselves: we will protect you from foreign foes, and arrange and maintain internal order among you; we will set up courts of justice, arrange for you, and take care of, public institutions: schools, roads, and the postal service; and, in general, we will take care of your well-being; and in return for all this, you only have to fulfil certain slight demands which we make; and, among other things, you must give into our complete control a small part of your incomes, and you must yourselves enter the armies which are needed for your own safety and government." And most people agree to this, not because they have weighed the advantages and dis-advantages of these conditions (they never have a chance to do that), but because from their very birth they have found themselves in conditions such as these....the criminality of the aims of Governments. Discipline is the suppression of reason and of freedom in man, and can have no aim other than preparation for the performance of crimes such as no man can commit while in a normal condition."

As in Orwell about half a century later, the government suppresses reason and limits thinking by limiting freedom and in doing so, people are conditioned by their governments to do acts that they normally wouldn't do like go to war, kill people, and oppress others. People are born into subjection and continue the subjection into the next generation because their thinking has been limited to the lack of freedom that they are used to. In Tolstoy, as with some of his other expository writings, this comes off as a little arrogant, as if he is the prophet giving the reader information that they would not be able to come up with on their owns. 

Chapter 15: WHAT SHOULD EACH MAN DO?

This next quotation is really helpful in understanding how Tolstoy viewed his own failure to emancipate his serfs, which is reflected in Pierre's failed reforming of his serfs in War and Peace, many years after the fact. Reforming not only doesn't work, doesn't go far enough, or doesn't solve the problems it attempts to solve, but is a blatant misunderstanding of the reformer's role in society. The reformer views themselves as doing good for others by attempting to lighten the burden of the worker, while in reality, this very action places the reformer in a self-diagnosed ruler status, self-justifying their power and making it appear, at least to them, that they deserve the role they have over the worker class. 

"People of the well-to-do classes are so accustomed to their role of slave-owners that when there is talk of improving the workers' condition, they at once begin (like our serf-owners before the emancipation) to devise all sorts of plans for their slaves, but it never occurs to them that they have no right to dispose of other people; and that, if they really wish to do good to people, the one thing they can and should do is to cease to do the evil they are now doing."

Ceasing to do the evil they are doing is of course by ceasing to partake in the goods that are created by the worker class, removing the need for the boss/worker relationship. So, we see in this primitivism and Luddism the path to ending the violence. The boss/worker capitalistic relationship rests on the need by the well-to-do classes and liberals' need to consume goods. Rather than attempting to remove the bosses or pass legislation to replace or disempower the bosses, Tolstoy advocates for the masses to refuse the goods and services that are created in the boss/worker relationship. 

"The working people are also so perverted by their compulsory slavery that it seems to most of them that if their position is a bad one, it is the fault of the masters, who pay them too little, and who own the means of production. It does not enter their heads that their bad position depends entirely on themselves, and that, if only they wish to improve their own and their brothers' position, and not merely each to do the best he can for himself, the great thing for them to do is themselves to cease to do evil."

Again, as Tolstoy steams through his conclusion, he is less interested in critiquing the bosses (interestingly, Tolstoy offers scathing criticisms of the boss/master system and the suffering caused by this system, but does not offer strong criticisms of the bosses or their motives themselves. There could be many reasons for this such as fear of censorship, desire to avoid violence, or perhaps, in a less charitable interpretation, as a count, sympathy for his own class) and more interested in what the normal person should do. People should retreat from society and refuse to serve. Just as in the famous essay that opens up book 3 in War and Peace, the cause of events and the cause of the existence of the system is not the bosses and rulers, but the regular corporals who decide to continue to serve and the workers and consumers who accept the boss/worker relationship. 

"in order not to do the evil which produces misery for himself and for his brothers, he should, first of all, neither willingly, nor under compulsion, take any part in Governmental activity, and should therefore be neither a soldier, nor a Field-Marshal, nor a Minister-of-State, nor a tax-collector, nor a witness, nor an alderman, nor a juryman, nor a governor, nor a Member of Parliament, nor, in fact, hold any office connected with violence. That is one thing. Secondly, such a man should not voluntarily pay taxes to Governments, either directly or indirectly; nor should he accept money collected by taxes, either as salary, or as pension, or as a reward, nor should he make use of Govern- mental institutions supported by taxes collected by violence from the people. That is the second thing. Thirdly, a man who desires not to promote his own well-being alone, but to better the position of people in general, should not appeal to Governmental violence for the protection of his possessions in land or in other things, nor to defend him and his near ones; but should only possess land and all products of his own or other people's toil, in so far as others do not, claim them from him...the fact that not everyone can so arrange his life as not to participate, in some degree, in Governmental violence, does not at all show that it is not possible to free oneself from it more and more."

Tolstoy does a good job of starting with the ultimate goal (volunteerism and rejection of what is gotten from violence) and working down to the practical goal, freeing ourselves from governmental violence as much as possible. Again, people should not try to reform the government by participating in it, as Prince Andrei does in the novel when he attempts to work with Speransky, but rather they should reject it and find happiness in themselves and in trying to avoid doing evil to anyone, such as Andrei does after the death of his wife and then again after his rejection of Speransky (though Andrei is too restless of a soul and it never quite works for him and his re-entrance into the military leads to his death). 

The Slavery of Our Times is a really great book when trying to understand the political thought of Tolstoy because of its rather short length and its level of accessibility (it is accessible, but not as overbearingly simple as some of his late work can be). The worth of the ideas in the book will depend on the reader's beliefs on reform and the role of government. It is a great expression of Tolstoy's particular brand of nonviolent anarchism, which is an ideal that would certainly avoid violence, but perhaps at the price of improving the lives of those stuck in the system and boss/master relationship with no hope of escape or alleviation without radical reform.