Reactions to the problem
of the slave trade47Treated as a mere commodity, bought, sold and exchanged, the slave still
provides the labour power needed for the production of colonial wealth.
Whereas the wage-earner sells his labour 'freely' (even if that freedom is
illusory), it is 'the labour-power itself which is sold' (by a third party) with the
body of the slave. Hence:
'The horrors of overwork, that product of civilization, serve to augment
the barbarity of slavery and bondage',^89 and the slave trade, prompt to supply
needs, makes it unnecessary to ensure that the individual slave survives. Only
his productivity counts. Slavery sanctions the slave trade, but the slave trade
sanctions slavery: this is the logic of the system which fostered the transition
to industrial capitalism. This, in turn, was to throw men-as-commodities on
to the market, perpetuating the trade in human flesh and the overwork resulting
from it. Although he denounces the atrocities of the slavery system, Marx
demonstrates the vanity of humanitarian idealism^70 which depicts the revolt
of the slave as a triumph of a certain concept of mankind. 'The rebellious
negroes of Haiti and the fugitive negroes of all the colonies' wanted to free
themselves, not mankind, and their fight becomes an example for all who are
exploited.^71 Nor is it possible to humanize an inhuman system; one must expose
its economic causes and the social relationships brought about by the cir-
cumstances of the quest for profit and by overwork;^72 the struggle against
menial work must be harnessed to the struggle against the exploitation of free
workers, and to the struggle against capital.
However, at the international level, liberalism had a useful role in carrying
on the combat against the wrongs of the system, until such time as the peoples
were able to throw off the colonialist yoke for themselves. But the problem lay
in knowing whether it was the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the
strict sense they were fighting for, or whether that included all forms of slavery
and the trade in human beings stemming from the exploitation of the African
labourers. An International Labour Office report published in Geneva in 1953
rightly recalls that even though the slave trade and slavery had been condemned
by conferences and conventions throughout the nineteenth century, there had
never been any mention of 'forced labour as an institution distinct from
slavery'. Hence the existence of some confusion both in terminology and in
people's minds. The 1890 Brussels anti-slavery conference condemned the
Arab-centred slave trade, the 1885 Berlin conference prohibited slavery and
the traffic in human beings. Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant
(1920) mentions together 'the prohibition of abuses such as the slave trade'
and the prevention of compulsory service in certain mandated territories.
The Temporary Slavery Commission placed slavery on a par with 'similar
forms of servitude'. It provided for compulsory repatriation in the event of
work involving the removal of a labourer from his usual place of residence,
thereby defining forced labour unequivocally as a form of servitude when the