Genovese

[LeoCasey at aol.com]

Yoshie writes: 
<< Chattel slavery did not require the consent of the enslaved, and one may 
say that this absence of consent on the part of slaves distinguishes it from 
pre-capitalist slave societies.  >>

This is preposterous: no slave ever agreed to be a slave, regardless of the 
slave system. Enslaved peoples have always been taken as the booty of war, 
kidnapped or born into slavery. And Justin's point, taken from Genovese, is 
hardly that enslaved African-Americans agreed to be slaves -- this is a badly 
conceived argument against a straw man. There is also a Marxist literature of 
classical slavery, especially the work of Moses Finley, which should be 
consulted here.

Leo Casey
United Federation of Teachers
260 Park Avenue South
New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)

Power concedes nothing without a demand.
It never has, and it never will.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who 
want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and 
lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
-- Frederick Douglass --