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In addition to slavery, American businesses have been behind exploitation and despotism in Latin America and Africa. American capitalism has certainly been brut

In addition to slavery, American businesses have been behind exploitation and despotism in Latin America and Africa. American capitalism has certainly been brutal.

throwaway94857 7y ago
All business, regardless of home country, exploits 3rd world labor. American companies are actually some of the most humane when it comes to this. But let's just keep bashing America since it's the cool thing to do, right?
manfredo 7y ago
I think the issue is the erroneous claim that slavery was a product of capitalism. This is patently untrue, slavery predates capitalism by millennia. Not only that, a strong argument can be made that capitalism ended slavery. The American South was an agrarian society, with an economy based on crops. The North was a capitalist society with industry forming a much larger portion of the economy. It was the industrialist, capitalist North that voted an abolitionist President into office and defeated the South's subsequent rebellion. This pattern holds true across global history. Agrarian societies have almost always had some mechanism to lock large segments of the population into agricultural or manual labor: caste systems, serfdom, slavery all filled this role with some variation in their implementation. Abolition movements predominantly occurred in the time range from 1750 to 1900, and in the same time period many countries began to industrialize.
- mcguire 7y ago
  I think you're confusing the difference between capitalism and industrialism.
  - manfredo 7y ago
    The two largely go hand in hand. You need capital to start new industries. Industrialism, in turn, generates lots of capital that people are going to want to invest thus leading to more capitalist activity. Industrialism without capitalism has been attempted in the USSR and PRC, both of which ended up adopting capitalism. No industrial society managed to remain non-capitalist for more than 50-60 years which is incredibly short in the context of global history.
    - aflag 7y ago
      You also need capital to start new plantations. Which, in turn, also generates lots of capital that people are going to want to invest thus leading to bigger and more plantations. Industrialism did make slavery obsolete and, where still needed, easy to offshore. Which I think is what described ended slavery in the US
      - manfredo 7y ago
        No, you don't need capital to start plantations. You just need land and labor. People were running farms and plantations thousands of years before coinage was invented. Plantation owners are capitalists in the same vein that Romans were capitalists when they conquered neighbors and cultivated this newly annexed land. This is perhaps correct in a very abstract sense of capitalism, but it is an alternative definition that is not shared by most people and most people will say you are wrong if you try to claim that this is capitalism.

In addition to slavery, American businesses have been behind exploitation and despotism in Latin America and Africa. American capitalism has certainly been brutal.

throwaway94857 7y ago

All business, regardless of home country, exploits 3rd world labor. American companies are actually some of the most humane when it comes to this. But let's just keep bashing America since it's the cool thing to do, right?

manfredo 7y ago

I think the issue is the erroneous claim that slavery was a product of capitalism. This is patently untrue, slavery predates capitalism by millennia. Not only that, a strong argument can be made that capitalism ended slavery. The American South was an agrarian society, with an economy based on crops. The North was a capitalist society with industry forming a much larger portion of the economy. It was the industrialist, capitalist North that voted an abolitionist President into office and defeated the South's subsequent rebellion. This pattern holds true across global history. Agrarian societies have almost always had some mechanism to lock large segments of the population into agricultural or manual labor: caste systems, serfdom, slavery all filled this role with some variation in their implementation. Abolition movements predominantly occurred in the time range from 1750 to 1900, and in the same time period many countries began to industrialize.

mcguire 7y ago
I think you're confusing the difference between capitalism and industrialism.
- manfredo 7y ago
  The two largely go hand in hand. You need capital to start new industries. Industrialism, in turn, generates lots of capital that people are going to want to invest thus leading to more capitalist activity. Industrialism without capitalism has been attempted in the USSR and PRC, both of which ended up adopting capitalism. No industrial society managed to remain non-capitalist for more than 50-60 years which is incredibly short in the context of global history.
  - aflag 7y ago
    You also need capital to start new plantations. Which, in turn, also generates lots of capital that people are going to want to invest thus leading to bigger and more plantations. Industrialism did make slavery obsolete and, where still needed, easy to offshore. Which I think is what described ended slavery in the US
    - manfredo 7y ago
      No, you don't need capital to start plantations. You just need land and labor. People were running farms and plantations thousands of years before coinage was invented. Plantation owners are capitalists in the same vein that Romans were capitalists when they conquered neighbors and cultivated this newly annexed land. This is perhaps correct in a very abstract sense of capitalism, but it is an alternative definition that is not shared by most people and most people will say you are wrong if you try to claim that this is capitalism.