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Slavery engenders a culture of self-righteous laziness and entitlement in the slave owners and cynicism and internalized oppression (a “chip on their shoulder”)
by api 5y ago
Slavery engenders a culture of self-righteous laziness and entitlement in the slave owners and cynicism and internalized oppression (a “chip on their shoulder”) in the slaves.
Both of these persist for many generations post slavery. We are still dealing with them in the form of everything from police violence to far right and far left performative extremist ideologies re-enacting the drama.
I disagree with the people who say slavery is responsible for our wealth. We would be much, much wealthier and far less dysfunctional as a culture had it never existed.
One of the more intriguing ideas I’ve run across is that total slavery abolition is a major contributing factor to the industrial revolution by pricing all labor and incentivizing automation.
I wonder if Egypt and Rome would have industrialized and the solar system would look like the world of The Expanse now had slavery been abolished in the ancient world.
- hdhjebebeb 5y agoPretty sure slavery is the definition of external oppression
- pram 5y agoThe industrial revolution started a century before 'end' of slavery. I mean, cotton was pretty much the basis of most early industry. Where do you think it came from.
- api 5y agoThe industrial revolution mostly happened in England. American industrialization came later and was mostly imported at first via the same kind of industrial espionage plus protectionism that China is using today. (The USA was the China of the 19th century.) Slavery dwindled away in England around the same time and was abolished in 1833 right before the industrial revolution really went white hot. I should have mentioned the connection was a hypothesis. It's also possible that causation goes the other way and industrialization led to abolition by reducing demand for slaves. It's easier to make moral progress when it doesn't cost very much, which is why in our current society you see a whole lot of very inexpensive "corporate woke" virtue signaling but massive pushback if someone mentions the word "union" or "increasing the minimum wage."
- pram 5y agoEngland imported the cotton that was harvested by slaves in the new world. The fact that the manufacturing of finished goods was based on wage labor doesn’t change that the required raw inputs depended on exploitation elsewhere. Unless you think there were lots of wage based cotton plantations in England.