I hadn't heard that he was anti-slavery. I have heard of him being for the advancement of civilization even if it ruthlessly wipes out indigenous cultures (which sounds awfully familiar . . .).
It's because those things don't necessarily make you good - they are the bare minimum requirements to not be evil.
Turns out that the other thread is here, and James Jacobs has weighed in over there multiple times.
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Okay, this is really weird -- the other thread of the same name seems to be locked and have had a bunch of posts deleted, but has no moderator post saying what happened (and I never saw any particularly nasty posts in there).
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Abadar is now also the God of ninja editing.
For some reason, I find this terrifying. A god of both merchants and ninja editing? The moment you sign a merchant agreement, certain sections suddenly disappear without warning and it is still considering legally binding. I'd be scared to sign anything in such a setting.
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Re: Other thread. In addition to economic / slavery talk - some of the final posts were starting to take a hostile tone which may have contributed to everything getting purged. I was actually sitting on a longer response because I was unsure exactly how to reply to some of that without things escalating.
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Abadar is pro-social, but not good. He wants orderly, healthy civilizations, but he is disinterested in individual charity. It's not a neutrality of perfect balance; it's a neutrality of indifference. Abadar sees a man starving on the street and thinks, "society has failed to use this man effectively".
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Something viewed as bad economics should also be viewed from the standpoint of the economic situation of the people being mistreated, not just from the standpoint of the group of people doing the mistreatment for their economic interests. If it is bad economics for the group being mistreated, then it is a bad overall economic idea as disadvantaging people for the gain of a small group leads to extremely bad overall economic outcomes for entire nations and peoples.
To tie this in with Abadar as the God of Commerce, for commerce and business to do well, then as many people prospering as possible in a lawful aka stable environment is the best outcome for his particular areas of control.
Negative business outcomes for large numbers of people reduce prosperity for large numbers of people, create instability and conflict, and would not be in the best interests of a Lawful Neutral deity like Abadar.
Lawful may not be good all the time, but lawful is often stable. Which is why even a Lawful Evil society can survive a long time, but a Chaotic Evil society wouldn't even get off the ground. Lawful in general leads to fairly good outcomes for large numbers of people and might lead to better outcomes than a good society that focused less on lawful like stability and more on disruptive goodness.
From an Abadadrian standpoint, lawful neutral policies and beliefs may well lead to what would be considered goodly outcomes while not actually caring whether they are doing good or not such as clear, fair, and stable laws that lead to a clear, fair, and stable society.
You can generally trust a lawful person, even lawful evil if you make sure the contract is very, very good and both of you are benefitting.
I think I sum it up with Abadar is concerned with the 'good' of the many as opposed to the 'good' of the individual. I think there is a pragmatism there that likely conflicts with either extreme of the 'good/evil' spectrum.
The idealism of Abadar, is that a functioning society is 'best' for everyone. Even if that society is flawed, people are still working together, making things that raise the quality of life for everyone, and mutually protected from a harsh world. Yes, these flawed societies rules/leaders should be better, but that's not a reason to tear everything down and start over.
I think this is why in basically every major city across Golarion, good or evil, you will find some instance of Abadar worship, or his organizations.
Also, when societies clash, innocents typically get hurt. But I think Abadar might view some War's as the end justifies the means.
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Something viewed as bad economics should also be viewed from the standpoint of the economic situation of the people being mistreated, not just from the standpoint of the group of people doing the mistreatment for their economic interests. If it is bad economics for the group being mistreated, then it is a bad overall economic idea as disadvantaging people for the gain of a small group leads to extremely bad overall economic outcomes for entire nations and peoples.Would Abadar walk away from Omelas?
I suspect he wouldn't. He just has to figure out how to stop hinging everything on that one kid.
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Also, when societies clash, innocents typically get hurt. But I think Abadar might view some War's as the end justifies the means.
This actually makes me wonder how Abadar views war in general.
On one hand, as a god of merchants and wealth, wars tend to be very profitable. Armies need supplies, and the person in charge generally can't afford to be cheap if they want to win - so merchants who help provide necessary supplies and materials can get a good deal for their efforts. Plus it seems like he encourages charging fees for acting as a neutral negotiator, so hey, more profit.
On the other hand, as a god of cities, wars frequently involve damage to city walls and structures during the conflict that require costly repairs afterward. I can't imagine Abadar would be very happy about that, nor like the fact that war tends to be rather chaotic.
Overall, I get the feeling he probably likes wars that just decide to fight in a field somewhere without getting the city/citizenry involved - and wars against "the uncivilized" for the purpose of reforming the barbarians by incorporating them under new rule (since he "encourages the expansion of ordered society" according to Gods & Magic).
Would Abadar walk away from Omelas?
Never heard of Omelas before looking this up, so thanks for the interesting tidbit!
That said, I suspect Abadar would hate Omelas for completely different reasons than the moral debate the story is intended to provoke. Omelas is described as having "communal (rather than private) resources" - which would mean no need for merchants, no free trade, and no opportunities to expand individual wealth. That is about half of Abadar's portfolio being outright denied. Even without considering the child's situation, I image Abadar in the best case scenario would fiercely argue that the city would be better off if only they privatized everything so that trade and competition could be encouraged. In the worst case scenario, he'd probably label the city communist and suggest that they should be taken over and reformed to the "correct" system of an ordered society.
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I believe that the objective of companies (ie, keep on existing by making profits) is orthogonal to that of individuals. The companies on the whole do not care about making people happy (Good), nor unhappy (Evil). Just on making more money than they spend. Hence Neutral.
I see Abadar as the deity of companies (among other things).
NB : I believe the talk about RL economics (including those of slavery) is what sunk the other thread. We should try and avoid using alignment labels on RL people or groups of people.
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I believe that the objective of companies (ie, keep on existing by making profits) is orthogonal to that of individuals. The companies on the whole do not care about making people happy (Good), nor unhappy (Evil). Just on making more money than they spend. Hence Neutral.
I see Abadar as the deity of companies (among other things).
And the same can be true of economies as a whole. Abadar can have a role even when "companies" aren't really a thing. The country is prosperous as a whole and growing more so. The elites are rich. The peasants are poor, but some of the prosperity trickles down to them, so their lot isn't as bad as it could be.
{. . .}
I have a technical correction to make here. The peasants are poor, but some of the prosperity tinkles down to them . . . .