Back when Europeans first started to conquer the new world, the world was still firmly in the Malthusian Trap, where populations were up against carrying capaci

Back when Europeans first started to conquer the new world, the world was still firmly in the Malthusian Trap, where populations were up against carrying capacity constraints (at the extent technology levels). I think this had pernicious effects on societies. Excess population made people expendable and callous. It would not have been easy to try to convince people to allow Others their rights. I don't think it's a coincidence that this flowering of democracy and liberalism occurred in a context where conquest had opened up land to expansion and had at least temporarily relaxed the Malthusian constraints.