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I'm currently reading The Black Jacobins which is about Toussaint L'Ouverture and the revolution in Haiti. Even after having read accounts of the brutality of s

I'm currently reading The Black Jacobins which is about Toussaint L'Ouverture and the revolution in Haiti. Even after having read accounts of the brutality of slavery multiple times before, it always seems to recede into an abstraction after a long time and the descriptions are as gruesome and horrifying as they ever were. And this is a book that spares the details, relatively speaking. The wealth of the world is covered in blood.

CryptoPunk 6y ago
>>The wealth of the world is covered in blood. Slavery was not very productive. It existed globally from the beginning of organized human society to the 19th century. In some regions it persisted into the 20th century, and these were all very undeveloped. Productivity rose in accordance with the decline of slavery. The regions that eradicated slavery first, like Europe, saw the greatest productivity gains. Labor from paid free individuals and industrialization produced much of wealth of the world.
- danharaj 6y ago
  The bourgeoisie in Europe accumulated the capital required to start industrialization through their slave colonies. This isn't up for debate. Stop sanitizing your history it only debases you. It is indeed the case that the British started supporting abolition when it became clear that they could exploit cheap free labor in their colonies more effectively than slave labor at that time in their development, which they got to by accumulating vast wealth from plunder and slavery. You can't choose an arbitrary cutoff in history and wash yourself of how the world got there.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - CryptoPunk 6y ago
    >>The bourgeoisie in Europe accumulated the capital required to start industrialization through their slave colonies. This isn't up for debate. The trends leading to industrialization, like the steady accumulation of technology, and rise in productivity, started in Europe long before European states acquired colonies and engaged in the slave trade. This is 100% up for debate. Please don't try to discourage debate. >It is indeed the case that the British started supporting abolition when it became clear that they could exploit cheap free labor in their colonies more effectively than slave labor at that time in their development, I've seen absolutely no evidence of that. There were orthogonal social forces leading to abolition, like the rising influence of the Quakers.
- orwin 6y ago
  >> Slavery was not very productive Once we created mechanical slaves, it was not. But until then, it was. Slavery was abandoned because productivity rose, not the opposite. Productivity is tied with energy consumption. That's why we won't ever be able to limit our greenhouse gaz production.
  - CryptoPunk 6y ago
    Europe itself didn't have slavery, and was by global standards, quite productive before it ever acquired colonies and slaves. But I agree that it could have been rising productivity that led to the abolition of slavery, and not the other way around.

CryptoPunk 6y ago

>>The wealth of the world is covered in blood. Slavery was not very productive. It existed globally from the beginning of organized human society to the 19th century. In some regions it persisted into the 20th century, and these were all very undeveloped. Productivity rose in accordance with the decline of slavery. The regions that eradicated slavery first, like Europe, saw the greatest productivity gains. Labor from paid free individuals and industrialization produced much of wealth of the world.

danharaj 6y ago
The bourgeoisie in Europe accumulated the capital required to start industrialization through their slave colonies. This isn't up for debate. Stop sanitizing your history it only debases you. It is indeed the case that the British started supporting abolition when it became clear that they could exploit cheap free labor in their colonies more effectively than slave labor at that time in their development, which they got to by accumulating vast wealth from plunder and slavery. You can't choose an arbitrary cutoff in history and wash yourself of how the world got there.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- CryptoPunk 6y ago
  >>The bourgeoisie in Europe accumulated the capital required to start industrialization through their slave colonies. This isn't up for debate. The trends leading to industrialization, like the steady accumulation of technology, and rise in productivity, started in Europe long before European states acquired colonies and engaged in the slave trade. This is 100% up for debate. Please don't try to discourage debate. >It is indeed the case that the British started supporting abolition when it became clear that they could exploit cheap free labor in their colonies more effectively than slave labor at that time in their development, I've seen absolutely no evidence of that. There were orthogonal social forces leading to abolition, like the rising influence of the Quakers.
orwin 6y ago
>> Slavery was not very productive Once we created mechanical slaves, it was not. But until then, it was. Slavery was abandoned because productivity rose, not the opposite. Productivity is tied with energy consumption. That's why we won't ever be able to limit our greenhouse gaz production.
- CryptoPunk 6y ago
  Europe itself didn't have slavery, and was by global standards, quite productive before it ever acquired colonies and slaves. But I agree that it could have been rising productivity that led to the abolition of slavery, and not the other way around.