groups, there was often little to distinguish slaves from
other workers in terms of the labor they performed or the
rights immediately available to them. But where slavery
came to be a recognized and important institution, it was
the lack of ties to the family, to kin, and to the community
which finally distinguished slaves from all other workers.
It was in fact, their lack of kin, community, and land
which made slaves so desirable in the pre-industrial
world. True slaves were persons without the bindings and
linkages common to even the lowest free persons, and
who were thus completely dependent on the will of their
masters. Masters could use their slaves at far less cost in
reciprocal obligations than any other labor group in their
societies.

Although many pre- 15th-century societies held slaves,
in most cases such slaves were only a minor part of the
labor force and were not crucial producers of goods and
services for others. Most complex societies rested upon
the labor of settled village agriculturalists and of part-time
artisanal specialists in manufactures, who equally shared
the peasant status. These two groups were the primary
producers, and slaves were relegated to very specialized
work for the elite--domestic service in the better house-
holds--and sometimes very hazardous state enterprises,
such as mining, to which even obligated peasants could
not be assigned to work. Sometimes conquered warriors
were enslaved and used in special public works activities,
but in most societies it was the peasants who performed
most of this labor.

Thus while slavery was an institution known to many
complex societies, slavery as a system of industrial or
market production was a much more restricted phenom-
enon. Most scholars now date its origins for Western
society in the centuries immediately prior to the Christian
era in the Greek city-states and the emerging Roman
empire of the period. It is now argued that for slavery to

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