Talk:Slavery

Lead sentence

This edit deleted part of the lead sentence that said a slave “is someone forbidden to quit their service to another person and is treated like property.” The new language says a slave is someone who is “coerced into performing a work function by another person, a slaver, who also controls their location.” The edit summary by User:RickyBennison said this: “Replaced overly specific chattel slavery definition (which follows shortly afterwards) wor bith one which typically applies to a breadth of slavery definitions.” I disagree that the deleted language was a chattel slavery definition, given that it only said a slave is treated *like* property, instead of saying a slave *is* property. Moreover, I don’t understand the difference between *a work function* and *work* and *service* (it’s usually better to use one word than three). Additionally, the new language is potentially confusing because it’s not immediately clear whether the language “by another person” says who performs the work function or instead says who does the coercing. Finally, it’s unclear to me how a slaver could coerce a person to do work without controlling that person’s location. For these many reasons, I will revert to the previous version. Incidentally, an editor wisely said above that, “Going back to at least 2014, this article's definition has been that slavery = ownership of people. I think that is still correct, and any change should be with clear consensus supported by scholarly sources.” But replacing the equals sign with an approximately equals sign is a good compromise. Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:37, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

I believe that Wikipedia would be richer if this were its biggest page.--EKantarovich (talk) 12:26, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Lead section

I propose moving to the following language. Reactions/suggestions encouraged. I realize that this is a critically important article and therefore have not made the change as yet. Changes:

• Simpler
• removed "enslavement" as that is the state of an individual rather than a practice/institution.
• Focuses on the practice, not the individual, matching the article's title,
• Clarifies that slavery and enslavement are one thing (eliminate the "and")
• Noted hereditary slavery
• Copyedits
• 2/3 private sector

Slavery is the practice of owning people. Slavery has been practiced for millennia in most parts of the world. Individuals were typically coerced or born into slavery. Some chose voluntary slavery to pay a debt or obtain money. Enslavement was a typical outcome of military defeat, where the defeated soldiers and others were enslaved by the victors.

In chattel slavery, the enslaved person was legally the personal property (chattel) of an owner, who thus had the power to buy and sell them. The term de facto slavery describes the condition of unfree labour and forced labour without explicit ownership.

Slavery was once legal in most societies. It is now outlawed in every country, except as punishment for crime. Despite its illegality, in 2019 an estimated 40 million people were enslaved. More than 50 percent of enslaved people provide forced labour, some two-thirds in the private sector. In industrialised countries, slavery takes the form of human trafficking. In other countries, enslavement by debt bondage is the most common, appearing as captive domestic work, forced marriage, and child militias.

Lfstevens (talk) 21:47, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

@Lfstevens:, I'm troubled by the phrasing "It is now outlawed in every country, except as punishment for crime." Do any countries actually claim to enslave their criminals? Or is there a consensus among reliable sources that they do? I take it that slavery is commonly understood as the ownership of one person by another as property, sometimes de facto (illegally), as in modern cases of captive domestic work, etc. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 22:22, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

@Zloyvolsheb: That info was in the original. Lfstevens (talk) 22:42, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

The lead does need work, but there are some problems I think with the above. One problem is that it attempts a single definition for something there is no single definition of; the lead should clarify that the definition has evolved over time and place.  // Timothy :: talk  05:04, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

@TimothyBlue: Great to have your thoughts. Wish it had come during the several days I waited for feedback, rather than following a revert. Please suggest language that reflects your views. Am open to improvements of all kinds. Lfstevens (talk)

Definition

From Dictionary.com

• the condition of being enslaved, held, or owned as human chattel or property; bondage.
• practice or institution that treats or recognizes some human beings as the legal property of others.
• state of subjection like that of a slave:He longed to escape the slavery of drug addiction.
• severe toil; drudgery.

From Merriam/Webster

• the practice of slaveholding
• the state of a person who is a chattel of another
• submission to a dominating influence
• drudgery, toil

From Pocket Oxford

• the state of being a slave
• the practice or system of owning slaves.

Seems like they mostly agree that it's a practice/institution and a condition/state. Does the article need to reflect both? I prefer not to use the word "slave" in the definition as that makes it a bit circular. Thus, for our purposes, I came to "practice or institution that treats or recognizes some human beings as the legal property of others", which I reworded for brevity as above. What do others think? Lfstevens (talk) 20:06, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

• Reply: Slavery is a broad term; as a practice it has existed and evolved in form, purpose and motivation over different times and places.

It is often a blend of social institution, legal framework, the consequences of war, the results of debt, and an economic/labor system; sometimes it has religous as well as temporal dimensions; it has existed in legal, extralegal, and illegal forms; it has been used for a variety of purposes, such as extracting labor, as punishment, and for political, religous, and ideological coercion. It has been viewed as both a postive good and base evil at the same time, such as within Christian groups in the antibellum United States.

Slavery has included circumstances as broad as chattel bondage of blacks in the United States; Native American slavery in the Spanish colonies; children bound to work in African diamond mines; punishment in postbellum United States, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union; "sweat shop" labor in devloping nations; sex trafficing; domestic slavery; Jim Crow "slavery by another name" slavery; Islamic religious slavery; etc.

Characteristics of slavery have sometimes included (but are not limited to): the absense or loss of legal "personhood"; becoming the "property" of another; loss of the freedom to control your time, activities, way of life; being forced to perform activities against your will for the benefit or satisfaction of another; the loss of the legal rights, protections and priviledges normally accorded to "free" members of society.

I think the concept of "wage slavery" should be discussed in another article.

I think the dictionary definitions above reflect the broad nature of the term; definitions from secondary sources, governments, human rights groups, etc, will also reflect a broad definition of what constitutes slavery.

Pardon any ommissions or confusion above, I've haven't been feeling well recently. I don't intend any of the examples to be necessarily exclusive.  // Timothy :: talk  02:20, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Present lead sentence

The present lead sentence says, “Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave,[1][2] who is someone forbidden to quit their service for another person, while treated as property.[3]” I have no problem revising what comes afterward, but this lead sentence seems fine to me. It properly uses the word “slave” because that is the root word of both “slavery” and “enslavement” and yet the present lead sentence is not the least bit circular, in view of everything after the first comma. Moreover, the present lead sentence is fully supported by its three cited sources, and was the subject of considerable and lengthy discussion and compromise. If it ain’t broke, keep fixing it forever? Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:40, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Soviet Union

This section is about the inclusion of the GULAG without any citation to it being a slave camp. There's also no mention of «slave» on that article. @Vallee01:, post the sources here. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 05:40, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

BunnyyHop Sources and citations are already present. Des Vallee (talk) 05:48, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

@Vallee01:, that's not providing sources. «Present» where? BunnyyHop (^talk) 05:54, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

BunnyyHop Two things, first that ping of an old username doesn't work, Des Vallee does. Secondly the information was widely clear however:

See Gulag: Between 1930 and 1960, the Soviet regime created many Lagerey (labour camps) in Siberia. Prisoners in Soviet labor camps were worked to death on extreme production quotas, brutality, hunger and harsh elements. Fatality rate was as high as 80% during the first months in many camps. Hundreds of thousands of people, possibly millions, died as a direct result of forced labor under the Soviets.

References

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Des Vallee (talk • contribs) 05:57, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Labor camp is not exactly equal to Slavery, that's why there's a different article for it. Encyclopædia Britannica, for example, also doesn't describe them as such. See this. To describe your citations: The first one mentions it as forced labor, the second one is an [[[Austrian School]] academic journal 1, the third also describes them as forced labor, the fourth is from the Center for Independent Sociological Research. The point of this discussion is - should Forced labour be in the article, or not? BunnyyHop (^talk) 05:54, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

BunnyyHop The point is all citations refer to it as slavery. It's fits all definitions of Slavery and scholarly there is asoulte consensus of it as slavery. Moreover the link you provide to Britincia is considered a stub. You are bringing up your own position into this, not even going into the citations as they all are reliable. It is described as slavery because yes the definition of slavery. You are not even addressing the citations as you can't find any position to dispute them. You are bringing up your own person definition. Des Vallee (talk) 06:17, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Des Vallee Not quite, only two of them refer to it as slavery, the other refer to them as labour camps. Furthermore, the one of the Austrian School says «Gulag is an example of slavery in the absence of well-defined and enforced property rights in slaves. Inmates in Soviet forced labor camps are not slaves in the strict sense because they do not represent private property (...)». It's easy to find sources referring to them as labour camps:

1. https://books.google.com.br/books?lr=&id=tt2xCwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=%22gulag%22+%22labour%22+&ots=QKJenBf9Zp&sig=ykj6ASyGQ7aAkSAJc7HWuI3e_sQ#v=onepage&q=%22gulag%22%20%22labour%22&f=false
2. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09668138108411338?journalCode=ceas19
3. https://www.jstor.org/stable/131659?seq=1
4. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2501047?seq=1

--BunnyyHop (^talk) 06:30, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

BunnyyHop It seems you specifically cherry picked information to find this, I mean you literally went to Google Books and typed "Forced Labour" and "Gulag" here it can be seen you specifically are trying to cherry pick information. You clearly didn't check the citations as some of the citations you provide even either as most the citations you provide also has sections that describes the Gulag system as slavery that has to be embarrassing. So either you didn't go over the citations or you just ignored them, both which is not allowed. Des Vallee (talk) 06:46, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes, of course I did. We already have articles about forced labour, labour camps, unfree labour, and so on. The scope of this article doesn't include these, otherwise they wouldn't exist. Why is there an exception to this labour camp? BunnyyHop (^talk) 07:42, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

3O Response: The article lead and first H2 section mention forced labour as a form of slavery, so I feel that practices of forced labour camps (where of notable scale and historical importance) are within the scope of the article, regardless of whether sources call them "slavery" (calling them "forced labour" is just being more specific). I feel that GULAGs and Nazi forced labour are worthy of inclusion. It might not be bad to have the U.S. in there as well, as the country with the largest population in prisons, where involuntary servitude (another form of slavery) is constitutionally legal. Keep in mind that this article is a bit sprawling and 40% over the maximum recommended article size, so try to keep the summary brief when the subject has a main article. (There's nothing wrong with mentioning these things here; though they have separate articles, they are part of this broader subject and I feel this article would be incomplete without some mention.) This is a non-binding third opinion, but I hope it helps! –  Reidgreg (talk) 16:01, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

@Reidgreg: thanks for answering. I do agree that those two should be included, and replaced the source-less Soviet Union category with properly sourced and accurate information (as shown in the next diff), and also attached a section about forced labour in the US below it. This however prompted an editor to include cases of Human rights violations in China and North Korea, which is not in the scope of this article. Can you give me your opinion on this diff? This edit has been reverted twice for not «mention[ing] the Gulag system, this is whitewashing something you have a long history of» (sic!) and «For a section about Slavery you don't appear to ever discuss it as slavery». Thank you. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 04:42, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I feel that edit was an improvement. The text could possibly be made more concise, perhaps not mentioning all of those figures and/or examples. I might have focused on forced labour (rather than underpaid labour/sweatshop conditions) in US prisons. The main article for North Korea is human rights, bundling related issues together, but the section here mentions widespread forced labour and keeps the summary fairly tight. At some point, when there is consensus on scope and content, you might want to request a copy edit at WP:GOCE to make it a little more concise and bring the article size down. – Reidgreg (talk) 14:54, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

• I think latest version by Des Vallee is shorter and much better. Here is new version suggested by BunnyyHop. It has an obvious problem: it tells about Gulag, but it does not tell anything about Gulag as a variety of slave labor. That aspect needs to be emphasized in the version by Des Valle as well. There are many sources, such as "Notes on the Soviet slave labor reform" [1], this, etc. My very best wishes (talk) 18:42, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Reidgreg and My very best wishes, thanks for commenting. I completely agree with your points, what made the slave labour in the Gulag distinct from others must be emphasized. I'll try to make a synthesis out of the two materials and we might have just the right amount of everything. I, however, am finding trouble to understand this revert. The first paragraph is not directly related to unfree labour but to the laws of incarceration in China. The second one states what is described in the source as «In March 2020, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) published a report Uyghurs for sale: ‘Re-education’, forced labour and surveillance beyond Xinjiang, which identified 83 foreign and Chinese companies as allegedly directly or indirectly benefiting from the use of Uyghur workers outside Xinjiang through potentially abusive labour transfer programs. » as a fact. I copied from the original article since it's neutrally written and does proper attribution (hence not violating WP:NPOV), but our colleague seems to think that this feeds into a conspiracy theory. What are do you think about this? --BunnyyHop (^talk) 21:11, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Reidgreg, I agree that "[i]t might not be bad to have the U.S. in there as well, as the country with the largest population in prisons, where involuntary servitude (another form of slavery) is constitutionally legal." However, My very best wishes reverted here, stating "[t]hat one I think can be removed per talk because cited sources do not say 'slavery'. Welcome to revert my edit if such RS exist and can be provided." But it does mention "slavery." "In September 2016, large, coordinated prison strikes took place in 11 states, with inmates saying they are subjected to poor sanitary conditions, jobs that amount to forced labour, and that the system is a form of modern day slavery." What are your thoughts? Are there better sources that explicitly refer to it as "slavery"? Or was that text fine already? Davide King (talk) 23:15, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Forced Labour

There has been the addition of 4 countries in the topic History [of Slavery]. These are countries which have made use of Penal labour in Labour camps. I argue this is out of scope, and this is problematic especially since the article is 244.141KB wide, while the WP:TOOBIG maximum size is 100KB. Definitions of Forced labour:

«Forced labour, also called Slave Labour, labour performed involuntarily and under duress, usually by relatively large groups of people. Forced labour differs from slavery in that it involves not the ownership of one person by another but rather merely the forced exploitation of that person’s labour.»

Encyclopaedia Britannica

«This report uses a broader definition of ‘forced labour’ than the standard international definition discussed in the next chapter. We include work brought about by physical, psychological or economic coercion and recognise that, despite lacking the alternatives needed to defend against such coercion, workers’ frequently retain and exhibit agency when entering into coercive labour relations.»

Confronting root causes: forced labour in global supply chains by Genevieve LeBaron, Neil Howard, Cameron Thibos and Penelope Kyritsis; p. 5

«Forced labour is defined in international law as “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily”. The guardian of this definition, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), has further elaborated that the threat of penalty “can take various forms, whether physical, psychological, financial or other”.»

Idem, Ibidem; p. 9 Furthermore, forced labour is already mentioned in a summary style topic here. I suggest we move the United States, the Soviet Union, China and North Korea to this part of the article as examples of forced labour. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 20:37, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• I think we just need sources that explicitly say it was "slavery". Simply saying about large prison population (for example) is not enough. For example, Irving Howe did argue that Gulag was a form of slavery [2] (the camp's administration even occasionally barter prisoners with special skills). Solzenitsyn claimed the same. just as a lot of other people who studied Gulag. My very best wishes (talk) 20:59, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• Solzhenitsyn's work on the gulag is literature, it's a memoir, it's a testimony. His works are not exact recollections of events and, in any case, Solzhenitsyn often fell out with collaborators or ex-inmates over his interpretations. But this is part and parcel of primary accounts of anything. Overall, his experience of the brutality of the Gulag is certainly authentic, but Wikipedia is mostly guided by WP:SECONDARY sources. «Slavery» is a category, with its own definition of social relations, and we need academic sources that draw this connection between definition of slavery and the social relations of the Gulag. I couldn't find any. For example, the definition of slavery in Britannica is «condition in which one human being was owned by another. A slave was considered by law as property, or chattel, and was deprived of most of the rights ordinarily held by free persons». «There is no consensus on what a slave was or on how the institution of slavery should be defined. Nevertheless, there is general agreement among historians, anthropologists, economists, sociologists, and others who study slavery that most of the following characteristics should be present in order to term a person a slave. The slave was a species of property; thus, he belonged to someone else». This is the definition used by the article to present its history. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 00:13, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Look, we are not experts here. Solzhenitsyn is an expert and a Nobel Prize winner. Irving Howe is an expert. They say that was slavery. You need more ref? Fine, I can bring more. Note that EB say "Forced labour, also called Slave Labour..." My very best wishes (talk) 03:25, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

In «New directions in Gulag studies: a roundtable discussion», which gathers 5 scholars, it's only referred to as a «system of forced labour» and «soviet forced labour», and Steven Maddox even states «Studies which explore and analyze cultural events and programs in the camps show that the Gulag was not simply a system of forced labour that aimed to annihilate the prison population through back-breaking work, as Solzhenitsyn and others have argued». In «The Soviet Gulag: Evidence, Interpretation, and Comparison», the GULAG is defined as «an acronym for the Soviet state bureaucracy that administered Stalin’s corrective labor camps, colonies, and special settlements in the years between 1929 and 1953.» There wouldn't be a need of a Forced labour article if those were synonymous terms, but they are not, so there's no need to conflate them. This article is specially about slavery, the best we can do to keep things in scope is to briefly mention it at the forced labour section as examples of penal labour. BunnyyHop (^talk) 12:16, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• In cases like that one should check reliable tertiary sources because they summarize consensus on the subject in other sources. Here is a printed encyclopedia "Slavery in the Modern World" and it lists Gulag as an example [3], starting from page 292. As about your source, yes, sure, one of these guys seriously believes that the "inmates played competitive and recreational soccer, volleyball, and other outdoor sports when not at work" (this is like saying that Jews enjoyed playing soccer in Auschwitz, total bull...). Such is the legacy of Soviet propaganda. But actual Stalin's legacy is different, e.g. Stalin's legacy lives on in city that slaves built. My very best wishes (talk) 17:21, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• I think a RfC is better warranted here, because to me it seems like there's a mistake on your part about what's considered a reliable source or not, leading to the disregard of academics based on your personal opinion. See WP:NEWSORG and WP:SCHOLARSHIP. This is the biography of the academic «soviet propagand[ist]» (be aware of the other four scholars). The biography of the writer of that Guardian article is this. The book lists gulag as a «From the early 1920s, the Russians were using political and other prisoners as forced labor in gulags», «This was followed by the negotiation by the ILO of the Abolition of Forced Labor Convention of 1957, which outlawed forced labor for economic advantage, political repression, and labor discipline—a clear attack on the gulags», «Among its other duties, it ran the gulag (Main Administration of Camps) with its expansive network of correc-tive labor camps, corrective labor colonies, and special settlements». So your source refutes your own point. My proposal is to move those paragraphs to Labour camps and mention the Gulag in the Forced labour section. @Reidgreg:, I'm pinging because I'm curious about your opinion on this matter. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 05:48, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Your first source ([4]) simply does not say anything about slavery and therefore can not be used on this page. "The slave was a species of property; thus, he belonged to someone else." Yes, sure, but the "ownership" can be by the law (like in the old USA or serfs in Russia) or de facto. This is the reason human trafficking and forced labor appear on this page. As about Gulag, the camp administration occasionally trade (bartered) prisoners with specific skills, usually theater actors, but not only them. Should the subjects of forced labor and human trafficking be described a lot on this page? No, becaese we have separate pages. They should be only mentioned and briefly summarized here, and that is what this page does. My very best wishes (talk) 16:00, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

My very best wishes, exactly, it does not mention it as slavery, but as forced labour. Forced labour is another form of servitude (as said by the book you sent), but it's not slavery, hence why there's only a small paragraph on forced labour. The "History" section is about slavery, not servitude, hence why Labour Camps are out of scope. The page does not summarise this, it has a paragraph describing it, something you'd see at Labour camps. The way to summarize it would be to mention it at the forced labour paragraph in this page. So far, none of those academic sources describe it as a slave system, but as forced labour camps. BunnyyHop (^talk) 08:56, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh, no. As our page Unfree labor correctly tells, Unfree labour includes all forms of slavery, penal labour and the corresponding institutions, such as debt slavery, serfdom, corvée and labour camps. I agree that some forms of forced labor are not slavery, but some others have been described in multiple RS as a form of slavery, and this is one of such cases (for example, Forced labour under German rule during World War II was indeed described in many sources as a form of slavery, and there was a good reason for the article "Gulag" in the encyclopedia on modern slavery [5]). A source saying that it was forced labor (yes, it was!) does not disprove other sources saying it was also a form of slavery. My very best wishes (talk) 16:46, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

That book describes the Gulag, along with other forms of penal labour, as another form of "servitude emerged", not slavery. These terms don't mean the same thing, there's no need to conflate the two. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 20:17, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

On neutrality and possible original research

To sum up: is there any academic citation referring to what is within the «Soviet Union», «China» and «North Korea» sections as slavery? If not, they shouldn't be included. We may do a RfC to sort this out. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 22:48, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh no, there are sources, such as this or [this (one can easily bring more, cite Solzhenitsyn, etc.). And of course a chapter about Gulag is included to the "Slavery in the Modern World", so I do not see why it can't be mentioned on this page. My very best wishes (talk) 23:01, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

My very best wishes These are not reliable sources. So far, out of all academic works I (and you in "Slavery in the Modern World") brought here about the Gulag define it as a system of penal labour. I'm asking for reliable sources (not opinion pieces) who link it to slavery because then it would have a reason to be in this article. If it's not a very fringe view, it will be possible to find reliable sources that inform us what the academic consensus is. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 00:06, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• @BunnyyHop. I think your suggestion to remove this whole section is unacceptable. Not only sources are good, but you could easily find a lot more if you wanted. Consider this one, for example, by Marc Buggeln who authored Slave Labor in Nazi Concentration Camps. Want more? Check this, check references on page The Business of Genocide, check sources here. See this. My very best wishes (talk) 04:22, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• More semantic word games and POV pushing. Plenty of sources, actually those sections need expansion. 02:13, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

For the inclusion of those countries? If there's no academic works saying these were slave systems, it shouldn't be here. Simple as that. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 04:23, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

My very best wishes, great find. Now the text can be replaced with; «Historian Marc Buggeln argues that forced labour in the Gulag can be considered slavery, "[w]ith the exception of the legal definition, all the definitions thus far put forward would, in my opinion, indicate that concentration camp and gulag prisoners could be called slaves"». This could be contrasted with the last link you sent, which contrasts the definition of the gulag with slavery, «Valery Lazarev argues that "[i]n particular, the Gulag had no notion of capital markets that would have allowed for the cynical but accurate valuation of inmate-capital in the same way as slaves"» --BunnyyHop (^talk) 04:37, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

It should be noted that the to include the Gulag here is not to explain the Gulag, we already have an article for that, but to show why some scholars think it's to slavery, or not. This being said, the other ones still have no reason to exist. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 04:40, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Note that the Penal labour article describes the usage of prision labour in various countries. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 23:33, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

BunnyyHop You are currently posting fringe theories on the Gulag system something you have done multiple times, you know you are breaking Wikipedia policies by doing so, so stop. Your complete waffle of sources and POV sections aren't allowed. Des Vallee (talk) 00:40, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm just using My very best wishes' sources. If you think these are fringe sources, then the Gulag section should be removed altogether, which I disagree - I don't think the sources My very best wishes presented are fringe - although I might say the second one got me a little worried due to it being posted in a think tank. Any way, the onus is on you to prove these sources are fringe. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 00:45, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Des Vallee, it's funny you mention this, because out of all penal labour camps you decided to add those from socialist countries, which coincides with what I can only perceive as an anticommunist crusade. So far, you have not addressed anything, all these «whitewashing» justifications are no other than excuses for removing what you don't like, going as far as labeling MVBW's sources to justify the inclusion of the GULAG as fringe just because they put in question what I can only deduce as a dogmatic attitude that your opinion (i.e. that the Gulag were slave camps) is supreme. If the opinion of those academics are indeed fringe, then the GULAG section should be removed altogether. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 01:46, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

BunnyyHop trying to take a random Russian historian that I couldn't even find his PHD, lacks an article and try to jam his position into the article is front and center POV pushing, he is not a widely respected academic and isn't anything to justify having an entire section towards letting his quotes in favor of Wikipedia's voice. What you state is not a widely stated but as a random author giving undue weight. BunnyyHop your actions here justify a block, calling me on some type of "anti-communist crusade" is doing a couple things, it's assuming bad faith, it's a personal attack, it's partisan line taking, and poisons the well for discussion, and makes it clear your not here to build an encyclopedia. Des Vallee (talk) 01:57, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

1 2. A simple Google search tells us he has written for Slavic Review, the leading peer-reviewed scholarly journal in the field, so no, not a «Random Russian Historian». --BunnyyHop (^talk) 02:08, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I do apologize for being accusing you of such, and for being a WP:HOTHEAD. WP:LOVE must reign supreme. I'm opening a thread on dispute resolution to sort this out. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 02:20, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: I've added some sources to Gulag and will add more to others. The terms being discussed are often used as synonyms, or authors mix them because one does not preclude the other: eg Penal labor can involve slavery, slavery can be penal labor. There were many slaves in Nazi Germany who are called "foreign workers" in RS, this doesn't preclude them being slaves; it wasn't penal labor, but it was forced labor. Lenin and Dickens labeled western factory workers slaves. These terms are not exclusive.

Plenty of sources explictly call it slavery (and use other labels) and sources do not dispute the use of the word slavery, even if they use a different terms to describe it. All the sources describe what meets the definition of slavery.  // Timothy :: talk  22:46, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

TimothyBlue, can you list those sources that explictly call the Gulag slavery?

As we can see even in Forced_labor_in_Nazi_concentration_camps#Slavery_analogy, «[h]istorians do not agree whether forced labor in [Nazi] concentration camps was a form of slavery, an analogy made by survivors». Therefore, it's explicit these terms are not simple synonyms. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 18:05, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

The sources are in the article. I don't care what wikipedia says historians say, reliable sources state otherwise. I've sourced that it is slavery, along with being forced and penal.  // Timothy :: talk  18:25, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Here, in page 9, Wilson Bell says

Alexopoulos briefly compares Gulag prisoner labour to slavery in her book

Key word: Compares. The current text could be changed to «Between 1930 and 1960, the Soviet Union created a system of forced labor camps in Siberia called the Gulag. Historians such as [Anne Applebaum, etc.] have compared the the Gulag's forced labour to slave labour.» --BunnyyHop (^talk) 19:55, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

No, you are attempting to skew the article in favor of your POV again. The sources state this was slavery. Sources may also use other non-exclusive terms such as forced labor or penal labor, but this does not exclude slavery. The sources I've provided do not compare the institution to slavery, they call it slavery. Other sources do the same. // Timothy :: talk  21:18, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

The current source for labelling it a slave camp is Anne Applebaum, and two other authors in a book published by Hoover Institution Press Publication. I suggest the replacement of the latter by this one which is mentioned in that academic discussion and the author also makes a comparison between forced labour and slave labour. The terms are clearly not synonymous, and we already have an academic interpretation of these: It's a comparison, and attribution is necessary if we don't have anything to explain or to summarize the academic consensus (we do) --BunnyyHop (^talk) 22:35, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

What is wrong with Applebaum and Hoover? She is a Pulitzer-prize winning historian and a Senior Fellow at Johns Hopkins. Hoover is affliated with Stanford, Princeton and Yale. Both are gold standard sources.  // Timothy :: talk  23:33, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with using Applebaum, when I mentioned her name it was simply to reiterate what sources were being used. Hoover, however, was a gaffe on my part. I was mistaking the Hoover Institution for something else.

The point is, these cannot be stated without proper attribution. The academic consensus is that they were labour camps, not slave camps (which according to Bell, referring to Alexopoulos' book, is comparing Gulag prisoner labour to slavery). Even Applebaum herself writing to Victims Of Communism stated that «The Gulag was the vast network of labor camps which was once [...] But over time, the word has also come to signify the system of Soviet slave labor itself, in all its forms and varieties: labor camps, punishment camps, criminal and political camps, women’s camps, children’s camps, transit camps». --BunnyyHop (^talk) 23:46, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

So the existing sources are fine. Since you consider the above work important and authoritative, I will add the reference to Illness and Inhumanity as you requested and a quote.

I'm not going to keep addressing your opinions, but they will help at ANI.  // Timothy :: talk  00:02, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

BunnyyHop, I have added the source you requested and a quote from the book where the author states their conclusions about slavery and Gulag labor. I will also add the quote and reference you use above from Applebaum. // Timothy :: talk  00:24, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

• Question: The source BunnyyHop found, Illness and Inhumanity, brings up that slavery appears often in Gulag memoir literature. There are a number of English language academic anthologies of GULAG literature, I don't think they should be used as primary, but the commentary from the editors is secondary. Should we consider a short section on Gulag memoir literature?  // Timothy :: talk  01:20, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Sure, the most notable ones can be included. I have changed slave labor camps to forced labor camps per Applebaum; «The Gulag was the vast network of labor camps»; i.e., "Gulag" as a term for the camps themselves. Siberia was also removed per Applebaum; «from the islands of the White Sea to the shores of the Black Sea, from the Arctic circle to the plains of Central Asia, from Murmansk to Vorkuta to Kazakhstan, from central Moscow to the Leningrad suburbs». Applebaum uses Gulag with various meanings: to refer to the camps themselves; to refer to the system of repression; to refer to "the system of Soviet slave labor itself, in all its forms and varieties; Here we want to use the first one: «The Gulag was the vast network of labor camps which was once scattered across the length and breadth of the Soviet Union» --BunnyyHop (^talk) 01:47, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

The Applebaum quote clearly states: "the word has also come to signify the system of Soviet slave labor itself, in all its forms and varieties: labor camps, punishment camps, criminal and political camps, women’s camps, children’s camps, transit camps."" Slavery in all its forms = GULAG labor camps are a form of slavery. Stop twisting sources to fit your POV. I've added your sources, this is what they state.  // Timothy :: talk  02:15, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

The quote also states "The Gulag was the vast network of labor camps which was once scattered across the length and breadth of the Soviet Union". What the term came to represent (according to Applebaum's works) is discussed further below. Moreover, an astounding amount of sources refer to it as forced labour camps (Golfo Alexopoulos), (Applebaum), (Alexander Mikaberidze), and so on. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 02:42, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

You are intentionally ignoring the clear meaning of the sources and twisting them to fit your POV.  // Timothy :: talk  03:01, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

My apologies. I was reading Applebaum's preface in a wrong way. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 03:29, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, TimothyBlue is right. One should cite what source say specifically on the subject of this page, i.e. "slave labor", etc. My very best wishes (talk) 04:07, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

BH's statement My point still stands. I don't consider Anne Applebaum using it is as enough to label it as such in Wikivoice, especially since most scholars simply refer to it as forced labour camps. She's also a right-leaning journalist, according to this post on New York Times, so this is important to accord to WP:DUE. Most scholars refer to it as forced labour camps, even Alexopoulos does not label it as such. Applebaum's approach is also criticized by other scholars. «Anne Applebaum’s Gulag: A History (2003) is, aside from the introduction [BH: This is taken from the introduction!!!], a well-done overview of the Gulag, but it did not offer an interpretative framework much beyond Solzhenitsyn’s paradigms» --BunnyyHop (^talk) 20:52, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

• You continue making the same incorrect argument over and over again. Of course they were forced labour camps, no one denies it. But a significant number of RS also describes it as a variety of slave labor. Forced labour camps and slave labor are not mutually exclusive things, quite the opposite. In this example the same author describes them as forced labour camps AND slave labor institutions. There is no contradiction. My very best wishes (talk) 03:38, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm not constructing any incorrect argument, this is plain and simple - they all concur that these were forced labor camps, but largely disagree on the status of "slave". The introduction of Applebaum's book as been criticized by scholars as I showed above, Steven Barnes' work has been described by Miriam Dobson as «suggest[ing] an alternative, and provocative, interpretation». In The Economics of Forced Labor: The Soviet Gulag it's also not clear what the authors' position is: «From the perspective of the Kremlin, Magadan existed as the center of a domestic colony based on slave labor». This is distinctly a minority view in my opinion, and it should be further discussed whether this is better warranted here or as a section in the GULAG article itself. Anyways, it's utterly indispensable to change "forced slave labor camps" to "forced labor camps" if we don't want to infringe neutrality and due weight, and state clearly controversial stuff in wikivoice. there isn't any significant number of RS, only two (and a half? one of them doesn't even take a position on whether these were slave labour), and they are both contested by other scholars.--BunnyyHop (^talk) 04:15, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

You did not cite a single source so far which tells explicitly "it was not slavery". But many sources (see above) say "it was a variety of slave labor". Hence this is not a minority view. My very best wishes (talk) 05:37, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

I believe you should reread my response. I have placed the references within brackets (as a link), but those same sources can be found as citations in the disputed phrase, minus this one. It's a minority view because only two (Applebaum, Barnes) hold such a personal view, and both were criticized by other scholars (Dobson, Bell). Furthermore, most sources solely refer to it as forced labour camps, like the source you sent a while back to prove they were slave camps. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 07:58, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Everything you are stating, you have stated previously and it has been answered from the sources, you are making this a WP:BATTLEGROUND. You're again trying to insert your own POV about communism here, which is not what sources state and are playing word games to do this. Repeatedly stating that editors don't understand you or insisting they reread what you wrote, when in actuality they disagree with you based on the sources is WP:BATTLEGROUND. Your attempts to always skew language to fit your POV about communism needs to stop.  // Timothy :: talk  12:37, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

BunnyyHop You made your point, you lack consensus and you keep repeating yourself, stop posting walls of text to draw out the discussion. Please drop the stick. Des Vallee (talk) 19:45, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

TimothyBlue, maybe my point wasn't clear enough. I concur that Applebaum, as well as Barnes, labelled the Gulag as a slave camp. The conversation has developed since then. The point is that scholars have criticized it, especially Applebaum, and the criticism should be included in the article. But this also affects another point - if they criticise it, then their opinion can't be stated in WP:WIKIVOICE. Your response does not address this, because you didn't WP:AVOIDYOU. Furthermore, if the majority of the scholars refer to it as forced labour camps, and a minority refers to it as "forced slave labour camps", the majority's must be used, not the minority's. The term used on the wiki, «forced slave labour camps», returns a total of 1 result (citation) in Google Scholar. This is synthesis of material. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 22:00, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

TimothyBlue, thanks for this. I don't really have a big issue with this specific phrase, although I'd prefer if it had proper attribution, so discourse on this will ceaseapparently continues at ani. However, to increase WP:DUE, I'm requesting you to add these: Author: Wilson Bell Source: page 2 Quote: "Anne Applebaum’s Gulag: A History (2003) is, aside from the introduction, a well-done overview of the Gulag, but it did not offer an interpretative framework much beyond Solzhenitsyn’s paradigms" Source: idem, ibidem, page 9 Quote: "[S]ome of the recent research on Russian penal systems and exile in the pre- and post-Soviet eras is also either explicitly or occasionally comparative and shows certain similarities with the Gulag" --BunnyyHop (^talk) 01:41, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

• This is wrong search. You should do this, i.e. search for "slave" AND "labor camps" in Google scholar. It produces 13,000 hits. My very best wishes (talk) 03:53, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

My very best wishes, the correct query is "slave labor camps" and "gulag", otherwise it will search for documents that have the word "slave" and the words "labor camps" on it. It returns 432 results. But if we remove the "slave" and leave it only at "labor camps", it returns 5150. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 04:15, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

This thread (one that you started) is not about Gulag, but about all labor camps, including Nazi camps. My very best wishes (talk) 04:18, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

I apologize if that caused some confusion, but I was not disputing such, even though I said four other countries at the start of the discussion. Scholars such as Jan Burzlaff state that «[i]t is true that as public awareness of the Holocaust grew after the 1960s, equating slavery with the Holocaust found numerous advocates», although «such a scholarly comparison between the Holocaust and slavery warrants exploration», and continues the paper describing how the analogies between slavery and Nazi camps changed over the times, comparability, interpretations, etc. It's a difficult to evaluate relationship. Nonetheless, it would probably be better warranted if we c/p the short paragraph over at Forced_labor_in_Nazi_concentration_camps#Slavery_analogy.

There's three other countries in that section, and what I'm saying is that if there's no WP:REliable sources labeling it as slavery - it should not be included at all, otherwise it's pure original research. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 04:42, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

As someone previously uninvolved here, I agree with the gist of BunnyyHop's points. Neutrality requires adherence to WP:BALASP, a key component of NPOV: "An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject." Some authors may have compared systems of forced penal labor, such as the Soviet Union's, China's, etc. to slavery, but historical works generally do not, to my knowledge, describe it as slavery. I realize that exceptions to this may possibly be found. Some authors may refer to X system of forced labor as slavery in a figurative sense, when it does not meet the definition. You can find writers who discuss employment in a capitalist system as wage slavery, but I would not include a whole section on wage slavery in this article, as we are dealing with a different concept. Similarly, I'm sure you can find right-wing polemicists and even historians who label the Soviet penal labor system as slavery, much as left-wing polemicists and historians label the penal labor in America's private prison system as a new form of slavery, but neither represents the mainstream vocabulary of historical discourse.

Based on the sources found thus far, perhaps we can include a short statement in the article mentioning that systems of forced labor such as the Soviet Union's, Germany's, China's, and America's have been described as a modern-day form of slavery, but we should not have a separate section for any country unless a large number of scholarly sources present that country's forced labor system as slavery. That might be the case for Nazi Germany. However, I doubt that many scholars generally apply the slavery label to the USSR, China, or the United States.

Actually, the right approach seems to be this: as the topic of this article is slavery and WP:BALASP asks to review the "body of reliable, published material on the subject", we should look at what works about the subject of slavery generally include, and structure this article similarly. Anything outside of that should either be omitted or given a brief summary mention of 1-3 sentences, e.g. "systems of forced labor in Nazi Germany, China, the Soviet Union, and the United States have been described as a form of modern slavery, according to X", etc. (As this is a vast topic, perhaps we could examine works about "modern slavery" or "slavery in the twentieth century" etc.) That would fully comply with policy as given in WP:BALASP. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 08:06, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

I concur with your approach. I, on preliminary research, found the The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery, which returns 0 results for "Gulag". Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem returns 0 results related to this. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 14:01, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

• Sure, slavery is a huge subject, and a lot of sources on slavery do not mention Nazi or Soviet labor camps. But a lot of sources do. Here they are: [6]. My very best wishes (talk) 16:09, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

• MVBW, that doesn't look like a helpful search phrase. Since the subject is slavery, not "slavery and labor camps," you would need to look at the body of reliable sources about slavery to see if labor camps are generally included in those sources (if so, which ones), as opposed to trying to preemptively pick out those sources that may happen to refer to both "slavery" and "labor camp" somewhere in the text (often not even in the same section). Perhaps try "modern slavery", filter down the results to high-quality scholarship from, say, the last 20 years, and see what you get? Zloyvolsheb (talk) 23:27, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: This has been discussed before repeatedly. Sources use slavery/slave labor/slaves to describe this subject. Some sources use forced and slave labor as synonyms. Very few sources compare the two but when they do they show how they are equivlents (including two sources BH requested be included). This was shown in the existing sources, and in the sources I added. Sources do not state GULAG labor was not slavery, none state the two terms are exclusive or preclude the other, but if there were a few which did, due weight prevents a few opinions from being used out of proportion to their weight compared to the widely held view. We are not talking about an article title or search term, COMMONNAME doesn't apply and raw search results are useless in this context.

The consensus of editors supports this, and there is no consensus to remove the content from the article or soften its language. Bludgeoning to try and change consensus is DE and the entire above thread is TE.  // Timothy :: talk  00:05, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Let's admit that those are used interchangeably (which are not), but let's admit that "slave labor" and "forced labor" are the same (which are not), how many actually use it? According to Google Scholar, "slavery" in those documents that have Gulag in the title returns 96 results. Note that some are simply quoting Solzhenitsyn, others using it in a different context, etc., as Alexoupoulos said, «[t]he image of the slave appears often in Gulag memoir literature». "Forced labor" and "forced labour" return, combined 422 results. "slave labor" and "slave labour return, combined, 89 results. "prison labor" and "prison labour", 69 results. A more wide search, "forced" returns 497 results, while "slave" returns 152. Others are welcome to search for other terms, but there's a clear result here - "slave", "slavery" and "slave labour" are used much less frequently than their "synonyms", and this is just a search result analysis. Some of those are not comparing the Gulag to slavery, but rather quoting testimonies, etc. Those who compare the Gulag to Slavery cannot be disregarded, but that's what it is - a comparison, as evidenced here. We should state that some historians have made comparisons between forced labor in the Gulag, [and other labor camps, search needed] to slave labor, as suggested by Zloyvolsheb. If you believe that what we're trying to do here is "soften" the language instead of complying with the rules, maybe you need to think if you're having a WP:TE position on this matter. Local consensus has no weight over the WP:PILLARS, which includes WP:NPOV, a guideline which I believe is being violated here.

--BunnyyHop (^talk) 04:44, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Source gathering

As @Zloyvolsheb: said,

«[...] perhaps we can include a short statement in the article mentioning that systems of forced labor such as the Soviet Union's, Germany's, China's, and America's have been described as a modern-day form of slavery, but we should not have a separate section for any country unless a large number of scholarly sources present that country's forced labor system as slavery. That might be the case for Nazi Germany.»

«[...] as the topic of this article is slavery and WP:BALASP asks to review the "body of reliable, published material on the subject", we should look at what works about the subject of slavery generally include, and structure this article similarly. Anything outside of that should either be omitted or given a brief summary mention of 1-3 sentences, e.g. "systems of forced labor in Nazi Germany, China, the Soviet Union, and the United States have been described as a form of modern slavery, according to X", etc. (As this is a vast topic, perhaps we could examine works about "modern slavery" or "slavery in the twentieth century" etc.) That would fully comply with policy as given in WP:BALASP.»

The objective of this new section is to find sources that make comparisons between different countries' labour camps and slavery to include in a short phrase, as well as the «body of reliable, published material on the subject».

1. The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery 0 results on the Gulag.
2. Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem 0 results on the Gulag.
3. Slavery in the Modern World: A History of Political, Social, and Economic Oppression p. 0-15: «Forced labor was another form of contemporary slavery reported [...]» to the Anti-Slavery International. Mentions China, Myanmar, the US and Europe (just this preface, the Gulag is mentioned on page 292).

--BunnyyHop (^talk) 12:37, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

@BunnyyHop:, the sources you found do not mention the Gulag, though there are some references to the Soviet Union, its position on slavery, and its use of forced labor. I did not find any of these sources describing forced labor in the Soviet Union as slavery. It would be interesting to examine this in more detail, but I honestly have very little time to do this now due to a busy schedule. Hopefully, I will have a bit more time to do that over the coming weekend, but can't make a promise.

The approach I suggested, along the lines of WP:BALASP, was to try to get a sense of how scholarly sources discuss forced labor or penal labor in relation to slavery, and how many actually claim these as the same. Of course, this would also be time-consuming. One approach that could work would be to try to find sources in GoogleScholar or a similar engine about "modern slavery" or "twentieth century slavery" (neutral keywords covering the period in question), then limit those sources to those published in the last 20 years (to limit the number of sources to a more manageable number and use the most up to date sources -- we wouldn't want to use outdated sources or '50s Cold War propaganda), then look at how many of those sources (or a random representative sample of those, if still too many) also discuss the Soviet Union, China, Germany, America, etc. and in what context. I hope to have some time to do that, and would be glad to share my results here if I get a chance. In the meantime, I hope you, @TimothyBlue:, @My very best wishes:, @Des Vallee:, and any other editors who wish to weigh in tell me whether they would abide by or reject this (IMHO) neutral, objective approach. If any disagree, I would hope to hear why. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 02:18, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

4. Exploitation and Labour in International Law:

This Working Paper [for the International Labour Organisation in 2008] considers the various examples of exploitation laid down by the trafficking conventions while acknowledging that these are, ‘at minimum’, the types of exploitation which exist. This acknowledgment opens the possibility for considering the continuum of coercion which moves from free labour to exploitation; to abuse through servile situations including forced labour; and finally, to the most extreme type of coercion manifest as enslavement

During much of the twentieth century, international law dealing with forced labour, servitude, and slavery sought to address exploitation by States; yet today it is recognised that exploitation takes place primarily at the hands of non-State actors

Editor's comment: This book draws a clear line between forced labor and slavery. I think that we won't get a more authoritative answer than this, considering to whom the working paper was reported to - the ILO of the United Nations

5.The Legal Understanding of Slavery

6.Forced and compulsory labour in international human rights law (ILO)

The ILO’s standard setting process on forced labour is part of a broader institutional effort to address unacceptable forms of work. Forced labour, human trafficking and slavery are among the worst forms of human exploitation found in today’s labour markets

Editor's comment: These books use the ILO definition of slavery and forced labour, which draws a clear distinction between the two. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 06:40, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Slavery By Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II is the best book I've read about this topic in the US. Levivich ^harass/_hound 06:48, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Good suggestion. Thanks! Zloyvolsheb (talk) 16:13, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Zloyvolsheb, what do you think about this? Forced labor is clearly a distinct form of coerced labor from slavery as shown by the definition of the International Labour Organisation and the other sources, despite some groups such as the Anti-Slavery Society describing it as a «another form of contemporary slavery» - which already has its own article. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 23:02, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

BunnyyHop, that seems to make sense; I was not aware of the Anti-Slavery Society's position. There seem to be multiple uses of the term "slavery" - in the traditional sense that I assume most people are familiar with, slavery is the ownership of another person as property, as currently defined in the first sentence of the lede of this article. This typical definition obviously excludes state-mandated forced labor/penal labor. I am not familiar with the Anti-Slavery Society's position, though I do believe there have been some attempts to expand the definition recently. I'm not sure how widely such expanded definitions are accepted; perhaps the lede should provide information regarding that, but ONLY if it can be demonstrated that some expanded definition is also widespread. In either case, it would be probably be better to stick to the classic definition for most of the article, and use a separation section to discuss and exemplify any expanded definitions applied to modern phenomena such as forced labor, in proportion to such discussion in reliable sources. Unfortunately, I haven't yet had enough time to do the reading necessary to contribute anything meaningful yet, and probably won't in the next couple of weeks. I do plan to return to this page once I feel confident enough in my research to propose something more specific. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 01:31, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Zloyvolsheb, yes, but they use the term «contemporary form of slavery» so even if such were to be included, it would be in that page per WP:DAB. If editors believe that content from that article (non-WP:SS, which is happening here) must be included in this one, then they're also arguing that that article should be merged into this one. I think a RfC might be better warranted to solve this dispute. TimothyBlue, as a more experienced editor on these affairs, can you mediate this? --BunnyyHop (^talk) 15:09, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

'slave' vs 'enslaved person'

I am glad this article contains a section on the debate on which term should be used. However going by the various articles I have looked at, wikipedia itself already seems to have taken a stance on this, that 'enslaved person' is the correct term. I wonder if this can be justified; it seems to me the term 'slave' is far more common and well understood, while 'enslaved person' has only become more popular recently and only amongst certain people. It also implies that a slave was someone that at some point was actively enslaved, rather than say, being born into it or selling oneself into slavery, neither which requires any 'enslaving' action. Should we also use 'imprisoned person' rather than 'prisoner' and 'enserfed person' rather than 'serf'? Furthermore if the term slave is problematic, we should not really use it in composite terms, for example 'slave labour', which suggests the labour is done by 'slaves'. Instead we should use 'enslaved person labour'. Similarly we should talk of 'enslaved person plantation', 'enslaved person rebellion', 'George Washington was an enslaved person owner', etc. LastDodo (talk) 13:35, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

The reduction to absurdity is not useful. A person who is "born into slavery" is enslaved by their "owner" from birth; "enslavement" is both active (refers to the act of a creating a slave) and passive (refers to the status of enslavement). So the answer to your question is, "no." --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 18:18, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Mathieu Kerekou

change ((Mathieu Kerekou)) to ((Mathieu Kérékou)) 2601:541:4580:8500:2146:7265:20BD:DE4C (talk) 20:03, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

 Done, and thank you very much! P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 20:23, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Citation Edit

The page number for citation number 74, the article by James Harper, is 341. The full MLA citation from JSTOR is:

Harper, James. “Slaves and Freedmen in Imperial Rome.” The American Journal of Philology, vol. 93, no. 2, 1972, pp. 341–342. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/293259.

Cheers.

KevinMillerLegio (talk) 00:31, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

@KevinMillerLefio:  Done thanks Funandtrvl (talk) 23:54, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

I wish that the 10 Commandments were included in this article since they mention slavery.EKantarovich (talk) 11:09, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

@EKantarovich: the reference to the Bible is already in the article under "Early history", and there is a separate article at The Bible and slavery which goes into more detail. Funandtrvl (talk) 07:38, 14 February 2021 (UTC)