Wallerstein’s coerced-cash-crop definition fails to distinguish slavery from serfdom

Evidence

Wallerstein wishes to distinguish between the economic and legal-political conditions of New World slavery and a capitalist “serfdom” (“coerced cash crop labour”) in eastern Europe and among “natives” of the New World (the encomienda) of the sixteenth century. His definition of “coerced cash-crop labour” (“a system of agricultural labour control wherein peasants are required by some legal process enforced by the state to labour at least part of the time on a large domain producing some product for sale on the world market” p. 91) would appear to serve as well as a description of slavery. The point is that alone it does not distinguish the presumably distinct forms of forced labor. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1470

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Walks through Wallerstein’s definition of coerced cash-crop labour and exposes its inability to differentiate forced-labor forms.

Related

• Scholarly distinctions between slavery and coerced labor dissolve under scrutiny (similarity 0.92)
• Scholarly distinctions between serfdom and slavery were blurred in practice (similarity 0.91)

Broader Connections

• Medieval slave and serf labor forms were not sharply distinct in practice #complicates (0.75)
• Plantation slavery combined capitalist and non-capitalist modes in dominance #complicates (0.70)
• Slavery’s meaning was psychological subjugation beyond mere economic exploitation #expands (0.50)
• Slavery exists wherever men are forced to follow others’ prescribed purposes #expands (0.50) — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 906
• Commodification of labor predated American slavery in Europe #qualifies (0.45)