M N D K B
Slavery is Bad for Business
S/S
2013
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as jus cogens, a norm from which no derogation is ever permitted. As an illegal
economic activity, it is restricted, at least nominally, in all nation-states. On a
moral level, no rational politician would condone slavery today. Indeed, nor-
matively, the twenty-rst century is an age in which it is socially fashionable to
wear T-shirts or display bumper stickers that promote the antislavery movement.
On the other hand, contemporary slavery, like its historical antecedent,
yields certain economic benets, albeit for a very small portion of the global
economy. e ILO estimates that about $44 billion USD per year is made in
slavery-derived prots. Although this is a drop in the bucket of global economic
output, valued at $74 trillion, it suggests that, at least for illicit markets, there
are incentives to perpetute slavery.
7
e prots of slavery ow primarily to
slaveholders, who benet from global markets and global prices. For example,
a criminal who uses slaves to produce a cotton crop will sell his cotton at the
same price as his neighbor who does not exploit slaves. ey both receive the
market price, one which is ultimately set in the global commodity exchanges.
While both farmers receive the same price for their cotton, the slave-using farmer
will have a higher prot margin due to his much lower labor cost, amounting
to bare subsistence for his workers. With a guaranteed market price, he has no
incentive to sell at a lower rate. As with many other criminal enterprises such
as drug tracking, the estimated prot margins found in contemporary slavery
are sometimes astoundingly high.
8
Prot margins vary in contemporary slavery. At one end of the spectrum
is the commercial sexual exploitation of enslaved women. Such an illegal—and
extremely brutal—working-class brothel business has been found to generate
prot margins in the order of 850 percent in the booming economy of ailand,
a locality with high levels of demand.
As Table 1 shows, the monthly prots from slavery in a working-class
brothel in a small town in western ailand are about $72,000. Annually, this
yields a net prot of $864,000. Brothels serving richer clients or sex tourists
might be expected to fare better. e fact that there are dozens of brothels in
this small town alone suggests that enslavement for sexual exploitation is a
multimillion-dollar business in the region.
At the other end of the spectrum are traditional forms of enslavement that
tend to be part of a country’s local economy. Brick kilns that rely on slave labor
in rural Pakistan, for example, generate around 25 percent prot, compared to
10–15 percent for those kilns that pay their workers. At the same time, hereditary
forms of collateral debt bondage with similar prot margins, practiced in agricul-
tural slavery in northern India, remain extensive.
9
Adding to the protability of
rough estimate of how many slaves exist in the world today (21 to 27 million),
scholars and policy makers know little about the risk factors—let alone the busi-
ness impact—that contemporary slavery has on the global community.
2
Indeed,
most extant research, athough useful, is qualitative, not allowing for statistical
models.
3
To what extent is slavery empirically bad for business? For whom is
the business of slavery protable, and for whom is it economically burdensome?
is article, using a novel dataset, demonstrates that slavery is empirically
bad for business. Building upon the work of Robert Smith, our analysis exam-
ines the relationship between the prevalence of slavery in a country (in terms of
the proportion of the population enslaved) and several economic measures (the
United Nations Human Development Index,
growth domestic product in terms of purchas-
ing power parity, access to nancial services,
and the Gini coecient).
4
In each instance,
controlling for alternative explanations, greater
levels of slavery are associated with a decline in economic growth and human
development. e ndings imply that beyond the morality of the issue, slavery
is objectively harmful for total economic output and social development. is
article begins with a discussion of how slavery is protable for slaveholders and
then proceeds with a discussion of how it undermines social and economic
output at the macro level.
conteMPorary slavery: ProfitaBle for slaveholders
A signicant amount of historical and economic research has examined the
slavery of the past and clearly demonstrates its protability for slaveholders.
5
As a legal enterprise, slavery in the past generated ancillary economic activity in
the form of insurance, transport, advertising, loans, credit, mortgages, and so
on. Governments could also tax proceeds from slave-trading and slave use and
regulate the activities and procedures of slavery. Although a moral evil, histori-
cally slavery was good for business.
6
Contemporary slavery, primarily due to its universal illegality, is a far dif-
ferent creature. e fundamental nature of slave work has not changed dramati-
cally; it is still dirty, dangerous, and demeaning. Most slaves work in agriculture,
mining or other such extractive industries, assembly, food processing, manu-
facturing, or what might be called “personal (forced) services” such as domestic
service or commercial sexual exploitation. It is a type of work that tends to be
hidden because it is illegal in all countries and condemned in international law
Slavery is objectively harmful
for total economic output
and social development.