Moneyball Slavery

Moneyball is a good movie – it is fun to see an underdog economist start a revolution somewhere. (Though I’d be more inspired if I could see more clearly how the world is better because of this revolution. Are fans happier now? Players? Who?)

Along the way, the movie vividly depicts profit-driven buying and selling of people, over which the people involved have little say. If traded, players must immediately move across the country, with little compensation. On the screen, it sure looks a lot like slavery. But I can’t find a single mention of slavery in any of the Moneyball commentary. It seems viewers don’t even notice the issue — even viewers who don’t know or care much for baseball, and doubt baseball makes the world a better place.

This supports the theory that we see “slavery” as low status by definition – so by definition anyone high status can’t be a slave. You may recall that in May I wrote:

Bryan is probably right – we don’t call conscripts slaves, but do call comfort women slaves, because the first is high status and the second low. … On reflection, the main effect here is probably that many people take “slavery is bad” to be part of the definition of slavery. So therefore by definition anything good cannot be slavery. (more)

Here is some detail on trading of baseball players:

Players eligible for neither free agency nor salary arbitration are very seldom offered contracts for much more than the league minimum salary, as the player has no recourse to try to obtain a better salary elsewhere. For this reason, in the first three major league years of their careers (except for the “Super Two” exception above), it is standard practice for players to accept comparatively low salaries even when their performance is stellar. (more)

Added 10a: It is possible to be sold into slavery, or to sell oneself into slavery, so up front compensation is consistent with slavery. The key is that while you are a slave you have little control over what you do. The “degree” of slavery is set by the size of the penalty if you don’t follow orders. A death penalty makes for a strong slave, while merely being fired from your current job with many similar jobs available makes for a rather weak “slave.” In baseball, the penalty is pretty big — never again working in your chosen profession and life-calling, and having almost no prospect for anything remotely as fun or profitable. For an analogy, imagine that if you don’t do what your boss says, you must to move permanently to a poor country where you don’t know anyone and have no unusually valuable skills.  That is a strong enough commitment that I’d be tempted to call it “slavery.” Even though you still have a choice.