奴隸的通性有三：一、奴隸是屬於主人的、可以買賣的「物」和「動產｣ , 不具有人的權利與義務；二、奴隸與原來所屬的種族、邦國、宗教、家族的關係完全已被根拔；三、奴隸永是社會的「外方人｣。只有依靠奴隸爲生產主力的古今社會，才能被稱爲奴隸社會。以上列奴隸三個基本特徵與商周考古及文獻資料相核證的結果是：佔商代人口極大多數的「衆」和佔周代人口極大多數的「庶人」都是享有室家的平民，都不是奴隸；即使周代被認爲「卑賤」的「阜、隸、圉、牧｣ 也還各有家室，都是下級的職事人員，不是奴隸。在商代只有被擄的「羌」和其他異族的人是奴隸；在周代只有「罪隸｣ 和異族戰俘是奴隸。眞正的奴隸在全人口中旣微不足道而且很少從事生產，商周社會決無法被認爲是奴隸社會。附錄扼要指出何以商周奴隸社會說的指導理論——馬克思的「亞細亞生產方式說」——幾乎完全没有史實根據，所以不能成立。

To be duly regarded as a slave, one has to possess the following characteristics. 1. Being in the nature of a "thing" (res) or "chattel", he is devoid of human rights and obligations. 2. A slave is the one whose relationship with his original race, state, religion, kinship and family has been completely uprooted. 3. From the society's standpoint, a slave is always an "outsider." A critical examination of relevant archaeological and literary data of the Shang-Chou period, based on these three criteria, leads to the fol­lowing conclusion: the overwhelming majorities of the Shang-Chou pop­ulations, being "chung衆'' and "shu-jen庶人" respectively, all enjoyed ordinary family and  kinship relationships and  were therefore common people rather than salves; the scattered and numerically insignificant groups of slaves were either war captives or criminals. Ancient China never underwent a "salve-society" stage. The appendix explains succinctly how and why Marx's theme of "the Asiatic Mode of Production," which has inspired the formulation of the Shang-Chou slave-society theory, is not borne out by historical evidence and must be declared invalid.