The "Bondman" in More's "Utopia"

I've been reading Sir Thomas More's Utopia, because I thought I oughta. And there I was cruising along, trying to decipher the very thick prose, when suddenly I came upon the word "bondman."

What! There were slaves in the perfect state of Utopia? I had no idea.

Actually, I have two translations of Utopia. One is a chatty translation by Paul Turner in 1961, and the other is the original translation from the Latin by Ralph Robinson in 1556. I've been reading the original translation, but I think that the Sixties version is easier to understand. Here is the start of the original:

They neither take bondmen of prisoners taken in battle, unless it be in battle that they fought themselves, nor of bondmen's children, nor, to be short, of any such as they can get out of foreign countries, though he were there a bondman.

But let us look at the original Latin. That I just downloaded, old chap. And you can too! The paragraph begins:

Pro servis neque bello captus habent.

So, More is using the Latin "servus" that Robinson translates as "bondman." It's interesting that Google Translate has two synonyms for "servus:" "mancipium" and "famulus." Let's write these up with Google's suggested meanings:

Servus -- servant, slave, bondman 

Mancipium -- slave, property, manicipation, possession, bondman, thrall 

Famulus -- servant, slave, house slave, housecarl, valet, varlet

See, what I experience here is that back in the good old days there were all kinds of gradations in subordination. And we, who have so nobly cast slavery aside -- Commie socialist paradises excepted -- really don't know what we are talking about when it comes to human bondage.

Of course, by the Sixties we call a slave a slave. Here is the modern version from Turner:

By the way, the slaves that I've occasionally referred to are not, as you might imagine, non-combatant prisoners of war, slaves by birth, or purchases from foreign slave markets. They're either Utopian convicts, or, much more often, condemned criminals from other countries, who are acquired in large numbers, sometimes for a small payment, but usually for nothing.

The reason for slaves in Utopia is that they don't have any of your modern prisons of which we are so proud. Whaddya do with the antisocial, anyway? Put 'em in jail or put 'em to work?

Both types of slave are kept hard at work in chain-gangs, though the Utopians are treated worse than foreigners. The idea is that it's all the more deplorable if a person who has had the advantage of a first-class education and a thoroughly moral upbringing still insists on becoming a criminal -- so the punishment should be all the more severe. 

Hmm. Compare the following with our current illegal immigration and work-under-the-table economy: 

Another type of slave is a working-class foreigner who, rather than live in wretched poverty at home volunteers for slavery in Utopia. Such people are treated with respect, and with almost as much kindness as Utopian citizens, except that they're made to work harder, because they're used to it. If they want to leave the country, which doesn't happen often, they're perfectly free to do so, and receive a small gratuity.

Now, the thing to remember about Utopia is that it is hard to be sure when More is serious and when he is joking.

But I would say that our present notion that slave equals negro slave equals Middle Passage equals the crime of the ages equals white supremacy equals systemic racism is desperately adolescent.

Slavery is part of a continuum of domination and hierarchy, and subordinate status in human society. There are all kinds of gradations in human freedom and human subordination. (Was there ever a slave more abject than the Soviet prisoner in the Siberian Kolyma gold mines?) 

And there are all kinds of different people. Some people want to be free and a bird and damn the torpedoes; others want security, whatever it costs. Most of us want to be free and expect to be protected. Ain't we all stinkers, as Bugs Bunny put it?

What made plantation slavery scandalous in our age, I suspect, began with the fact that, for a while, plantation slavery was very profitable for enterprising men that were not out of the top drawer, especially in the production of cane sugar, from Cyprus to the Caribbean. It was especially annoying when they brought their wealth back to England and built Mansfield Park and bought baronetcies and went into Parliament.

It is interesting that More's bondmen were not conquest slaves; the Utopians were done with that. But it is fascinating that "immigrants" from poor countries were put to work as slaves, and no doubt thought themselves better off than in their previous life. And it is interesting that the immigrant slaves were given a bonus if they decided to leave Utopia.

See, in my view the American immigrant story is not that different. Many peoples that have immigrated to the US had to start out working very hard for meager wages, under near slave conditions in those famous "sweat-shops" of which we've heard tell.

And in my view the union worker is working in a kind of quasi-slavery, the creature of his union boss and his corporate boss who both play power games using the helpless worker as a pawn. Like many a slave, they were cast out when they were no longer useful.

In my view, the gubmint worker with lifetime employment and a pension is not exactly a free person.

Nor is the employee of a corporate colossus.

And what is the status of the current American citizen that must contribute 30-40 percent of his earnings to the government? Is he a free-man? A serf? A bondman? A "famulus?" You tell me.