Hacker News Reader

Comment by duxup | Hacker News Reader

Why would it seem that slaves would have had to be used?

People who are paid to do work they don't want to do don't believe in the existence of people who would do work they don't want to do for money.

(In reality the distinction between slave and employee is blurred over thousands of years and it's hard to use our words to talk about their setups. It's likely that both slave and non-slave labor (taking slave to be unpaid coerced labor) was used; just as our society uses both, either openly or discretely.)

I also would assume that the state and/or religion aspect may have resulted in citizens (skilled and otherwise) willing to volunteer as well.

The local church down the road from me can bring out a TON of people to work for free for various activities, and they're upset if they miss out.

It doesn't seem unimaginable that non slave locals in Egypt would be similarly motivated and even enthusiastic about working / being a part of it all.

I would also assume that good pay is a strong incentive, and public works have been used time and again as a form of welfare.

I can imagine a "3 squares a day" meal offering could possibly be a big draw.

Maybe for a slave.

> just as our society uses both, either openly or discretely.

"Prisoners with jobs" are becoming something more people know exist, as opposed to a niche dirty secret, which I think is probably a positive sign of reform rather than an indication of deeper normalization.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZHENHICSoE

I thought the consensus was that corvee labor was used, rather than outright slavery.

They were paid in grain and beer.

Enough just to feed them, or enough to actually be considered payment?

The concept of payment beyond present requirements may not have existed back then. People were payed in the resources their family needed to survive between the harvest seasons.

More than an ordinary laborer, much more than an agricultural slave, and you also had social esteem and a higher spiritual acclaim. This all means a LOT in a highly stratified society, like Ancient Egypt. You don't give such things to slaves.

The medieval cathedrals of Europe are known to have been built without slave labor because slavery wasn't practiced in Europe at that time, but they were built by serfs, which is not totally dissimilar. It's hard to describe past labor relationships with modern language since they had very different societies.

Agreed, and we really don't know / have any good information on how the locals felt about things then.

I imagine being common citizen back then is terrible, if only relative to my experience, but on the other hand they may have been enthusiastic to contention to an important religious activity. Really hard to know their circumstances / point of view.

In the modern world we have Qatar and other middle-eastern countries that trick migrants into coming in to work on their massive projects in the insane heat, seize their passports and basically have them "work or die".

They are paid but aren't they technically slaves at that point if they cannot quit?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/25/revealed-qatar...

What if pyramid workers were like that? Came and started to work, realized the insanity of it all and wanted to quit but if they did they would be killed, starved or blacklisted?

"Slave" cannot mean unpaid coerced laborer, especially since the society in question predated currency. In point of fact, there isn't a single set of conditions that uniquely define slavery, and historical labor relations were different to the point where using the term "slave" broadly is useless, especially across large differences in culture and time. I don't think the question of whether the Egyptians used slave labor is meaningful.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com