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>But in practice it seemed to go the other way around. Once the industrial revolution came, slavery was out-competed by automation. Only after it was invented
by shiroiushi 2y ago
>But in practice it seemed to go the other way around. Once the industrial revolution came, slavery was out-competed by automation.
Only after it was invented and successfully deployed. To get to that point, someone needed a reason to go to the expense and trouble of inventing that stuff. The slavery-dependent economies weren't going to do it: why would they need to?
- jcranmer 2y agoRather famously, the cotton gin really jumpstarted slavery in the US south when it had been in a slow decline. I don't think that slavery is as much a barrier to automation as people think it is. We're biased by the main exposure to slavery being the US experience, where there's a noticeable difference between (free) mercantile north and (slave) agrarian south. Agriculture isn't particularly amenable to automation--not in the early 19th century at any rate--and it's not like the postbellum south suddenly found a renaissance in manufacturing.
- Log_out_ 2y agoThere is a ton of stagnant societies out there were slavery is still around. Once the "make somebody else make it go away" bizarr results appear. Dhubais medieval cannalisation comes to mind..