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But due to the free market, anybody trying to generate and sell cotton who was NOT using colonialism to make it cheap, was a loser. The industrial revolution hy
by JoeAltmaier 4y ago
But due to the free market, anybody trying to generate and sell cotton who was NOT using colonialism to make it cheap, was a loser. The industrial revolution hyped up the exploitation machinery to a new fever pitch. It became necessary, to compete.
- stametseater 4y agoIndustrial revolution increased the demand for raw materials and thereby increased the profitability of colonialism. But that's not the same as colonialism being a prerequisite for industrialization. Industrialization also made chattel slavery in America much more profitable, but it would be an error to claim that chattel slavery in America was a prerequisite for the industrial revolution. The demand for resources that industrialization created would have been met one way or another. It exploited both colonialism and slavery, but didn't specifically rely on one or the other. Even if there had been no other choice but to pay all the cotton workers fairly, the demand of industrialization was strong enough that it would have supported that. The distribution of wealth would have changed at least somewhat, but industrialization certainly would have occurred anyway.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoRight. So we'll relabel colonialism and slavery as 'inevitabilities' of industrialization. And be in the same place.