Comment Re:Really? (Score 1) 123
So ancient societies without slaves didn't and couldn't exist? Say, the Incas? The Harappan civilization? None at all? *eyeroll*
Incan society is IMHO really interesting. It's sort of "What if the Soviet Union had existed in the feudal era", this sort of imperial amalgam of communism and feudalism. There was still a heirarchy of feudal lords and resources tended to flow up the chain, but it was also highly structured as a welfare state. People would be allocated plots of land in their area of specific size relative to their fertility, along with the animals and tools to work it, including with respect to the family status (for example a couple who married and had more children would be given more land and pack animals). Even housing was a communal project. The state would also feed you during crop failures and the like In turn however all of your surpluses had to go to the state (and they had a system to prevent hoarding), and everyone owned a certain amount of days of labour to the state (mit'a), with the type of work based of their skills. It was very much a case of "each according to his ability, each according to his needs" - at least for commoners.
The Incans saw their conquest as bringing civilization and security to the people under their control, as a sort of "workers paradise" of their era. Not that local peoples wanted to be subdued by them, far from it, but the fact that instead of dying trying to resist an unwinnable war, they could accept consequences of a loss that weren't apocalyptic to them, certainly helped the Incan expansion. They also employed the very Russian / Soviet style policy of forced relocations and relocation of Incan settlers into newly conquered territories to import their culture and language to the new areas while diluting that of those conquered within the empire.
The closest category one might try to ascribe to "slaves" is the yanacona, aka those separated from their family groups. During times of high military conquest most were captured from invading areas, while during peacetime most came from the provinces as part of villages's service obligations to the state, or worked as yanacona to pay off debts or fines. These were people that did not continue to live in and farm their own villages, but rather worked at communes or on noble estates. But there really doesn't seem to be much relation beyond that and slavery. Yanacona could have high social status, even in some cases being basically lords themselves (generally those who were of noble descent) with significant power, though most were commoners. But life as a yanacona is probably best described on most cases as "people living on a commune". There was no public degradation for being a yanacona, no special marks of status, they couldn't be randomly abused or killed, there were no special punishments reserved for them, they had families just like everyone else, etc. Pretty much just workers assigned to a commune.