Capitalism Wasn't Built On Slavery

[acesfull86]

The recent police incidents in this country have inevitably become a discussion about race relations which has inevitably resulted in me reading several articles from lefties suggesting that somehow America's capitalist society was built on slave labor in the pre-Civil War era. Nonsense. Slavery is a hindrance to capitalism. The system thrives on free people being able to exchange ideas in a free marketplace. When a party isn't free to engage in the marketplace, they can't participate in capitalism, not to mention the large amount of gov't needed to enforce and maintain a slave state, hardly the kind of gov't conducive to a society pushed forward by the invisible hand.

Slavery might have been a benefit to slave owners, but for those of us living in 21st century America (most of us descendants of immigrants who came here well after slavery had been abolished), we're living in a society that is poorer, not richer, than it otherwise would have been had slavery never existed. I'm not a "keep out the immigrants," "protect American businesses," "globalization is doing more harm than good" proponent - I think the more people trading and interacting with one another, here or abroad, the better. From that perspective, I say it's a great shame that the policies in this country essentially wasted generations of people who's ideas and innovations would have contributed to a capitalist society far more than their free manual labor did.

Furthermore, if slavery is such a spark to capitalism, why didn't it take off somewhere else sooner? America was hardly the first society to have slaves. The majority of societies across the world had slaves at some point or another. Why did it take thousands of years of slavery to finally boil over into evil old capitalism in the USA? ****, shouldn't Russia be the largest capitalist empire in the world at this point?

/end rant

[Julio3000]

American capitalism developed the way it did, and when it did, for a variety of reasons. That's a vague statement, but true enough, right?

Do you not believe that slavery was one of these reasons?

Capital flowed through the slave economy in a variety of ways. Fortunes were made from that capital by people who had never owned or possibly even seen a slave. Financial instruments that look very much like those of our era were devised to leverage the value of slave holdings, to mitigate the risk of the loss of slaves, or financial exposure to the boom/bust cycle in the cotton economy. Insurance companies sold slave insurance policies. Cotton was commodified, securitized, and traded on markets. SLAVES were commodified, securitized, and traded on markets—bonds backed by slaves as collateral were sold all over the world.

This is just scratching the surface of the issue. If you have a broader, more philosophical point to make about the highest expression of capitalism, that's fine. I don't think that "capitalism was built on slavery," per your formulation. Someone else may make that argument. But industrial-age American capitalism certainly had slavery as one of its pillars. That's not an abstruse economic question. That's just history.

[AerchAngel]

What the white Europeans did to the local natives was worse, but at least they got them corralled on their own lands, while they let blacks amassed in the hood fending for themselves until the government took them over and in some cases treated them as bad as the injuns, but the carrot they wield is mighty powerful.

And Aces, that rant is laughable. We were a commodity, traded just like an apple and people profited off it. That is capitalism and we were the capital, a human being used like as piece of schit. I can understand that mentality just like the Jews, it sticks in your brain and you get reminded of the crap we went through with your pathetic rant.

We are human just like you. Do not post crap like this, it is like a bitch slap to my face.

[Runnin]

Slavery surely is a hindrance to any fair form of capitalism, as are pyramid schemes, price gouging, monopolies, etc., but the greedy bastards who come up with these ideas aren't concerned with creating a capitalist utopia. They want more than they need and are clever enough to find a way to do it. It takes A LOT of government oversight to keep the Dr. Evils of the business world down.

A little off topic -

Speaking of slavery, it's beyond understanding how God-fearing men from "Christian" cultures, who some so diligently remind us are morally above torture and abortion, could have placed so little value on the lives of Africans, while at the same time seeing how profitable they could be. It's estimated that around 50% of captured slaves died during the capture, march and detention phases and of those who made it to the boat, another third or more would die either on the middle passage or awaiting sale. Forgetting completely the daily injustices in the life of a working slave, that's a big, big, ugly trail of dead bodies to ignore. How could one do it? Answer -- money.

I wonder what percentage of the dead were prayed over or even given a proper burial?

[Runnin]

I wonder what percent of the blacks in America were actually slaves during the time of slavery. I think most think it is higher than it really was

There was that one guy from 12 Years a Slave.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States

"In the US as a whole, by 1810 the number of free blacks reached 186,446, or 13.5 percent of all blacks.[35] After that period, few were freed, as the development of cotton plantations featuring short-staple cotton in the Deep South drove up the internal demand for slaves in the domestic slave trade.[41]"

[goldfly]

cute thread that is trying to rewrite our ugly history instead of actually facing it

[acesfull86]

And Aces, that rant is laughable.
We are human just like you. Do not post crap like this, it is like a bitch slap to my face.

Suggesting that slavery wasn't a necessary condition to the development of American capitalism is a slap in the face? How so?

[Gary82]

Suggesting that slavery wasn't a necessary condition to the development of American capitalism is a slap in the face? How so?

Slave labor brought us the White House and the Capitol; to say that slavery didn't contribute to the socio economic development of America is pretty silly.

The Industrial Revolution, the South's Agrarian society and the mistreatment of workers (be it slaves or **** wages) are the foundation of American capitalism.

Things are better these days, but it took an injection of socialism in the 20th century for that to happen.

[Julio3000]

Suggesting that slavery wasn't a necessary condition to the development of American capitalism is a slap in the face? How so?

Changed the formulation a bit?

[acesfull86]

No?

[Hawk]

The way you phrased it the second time makes it sound like capitalism would've continued to grow independently (and robustly) had slavery never existed, which I would agree with. However, your original statement was that American capitalism did not grossly benefit from slavery, which is inaccurate.

[goldfly]

Slave labor brought us the White House and the Capitol; to say that slavery didn't contribute to the socio economic development of America is pretty silly.

The Industrial Revolution, the South's Agrarian society and the mistreatment of workers (be it slaves or **** wages) are the foundation of American capitalism.

Things are better these days, but it took an injection of socialism in the 20th century for that to happen.

[acesfull86]

The way you phrased it the second time makes it sound like capitalism would've continued to grow independently (and robustly) had slavery never existed, which I would agree with. However, your original statement was that American capitalism did not grossly benefit from slavery, which is inaccurate.

Some benefitted, there were also costs (many of them hidden and still felt generations after), but my main point is that it wasn't a necessary condition to get us where we ended up...apologies if they wasn't clearer. At any rate, not sure how that would be taken as a "slap in the face." Or that I'm suggesting that black people aren't human too? Where's that coming from? (AA's post, not yours)

[BedellBrave]

Slavery surely is a hindrance to any fair form of capitalism, as are pyramid schemes, price gouging, monopolies, etc., but the greedy bastards who come up with these ideas aren't concerned with creating a capitalist utopia. They want more than they need and are clever enough to find a way to do it. It takes A LOT of government oversight to keep the Dr. Evils of the business world down.

A little off topic -

Speaking of slavery, it's beyond understanding how God-fearing men from "Christian" cultures, who some so diligently remind us are morally above torture and abortion, could have placed so little value on the lives of Africans, while at the same time seeing how profitable they could be. It's estimated that around 50% of captured slaves died during the capture, march and detention phases and of those who made it to the boat, another third or more would die either on the middle passage or awaiting sale. Forgetting completely the daily injustices in the life of a working slave, that's a big, big, ugly trail of dead bodies to ignore. How could one do it? Answer -- money.

I wonder what percentage of the dead were prayed over or even given a proper burial?

Despite the conflating of the abortion/torture issue somewhat anachronistically with the slavery issue of the Christians within countries where slavery was legal, and despite not mentioning how it was so often "God-fearing men from 'Christian' cultures" who led to the downfall of legal slavery (e.g. Wilberforce, the Covenanters, and others), you have a point. Christians should have loved their neighbors better and should have honored the Imago Dei reflected in all. Indeed. Blood on the hands of those who defended and promoted and engaged in the industry.

There are others who have bloody hands as well. Not merely Southern, orthodox Christian, slave holders, but also NE shippers whose blood-money helped build an industrial North. And then let's not forget the English shippers or the Portuguese who got this thing started in high gear, and the Arab trader-middle-men, and other African tribes. There's plenty of blood to go around.

It's a blight on the Modern era.

Stories of those who acted against the societal sin are great stories indeed.

Hopefully, future generations will tell good stories of how we acted against our societal sins like abortion...

[BedellBrave]

Slave labor brought us the White House and the Capitol; to say that slavery didn't contribute to the socio economic development of America is pretty silly.

The Industrial Revolution, the South's Agrarian society and the mistreatment of workers (be it slaves or **** wages) are the foundation of American capitalism.

Things are better these days, but it took an injection of socialism in the 20th century for that to happen.

And one of the ironies of our history is that the North became the industrial powerhouse that it was in the Civil War in great part because of wealth acquired through its slave shipping industry. Many of those slave ship captains unloading slaves to be sold in Southern markets had Yankee accents...

[Julio3000]

Some benefitted, there were also costs (many of them hidden and still felt generations after), but my main point is that it wasn't a necessary condition to get us where we ended up...apologies if they wasn't clearer. At any rate, not sure how that would be taken as a "slap in the face." Or that I'm suggesting that black people aren't human too? Where's that coming from? (AA's post, not yours)

Hawk succinctly says it above.

The bolded section is likely true, and a bit of a question of angels dancing on the head of a pin.

[57Brave]

Capitalism still thrives on if not slave labor the notion of free labor. The shirt you are wearing was made in Asia at - what? - 20 cents an hour. At most. Our industrial centers are called the Rust Belt . Why ? Because the owners didn't want to a) pay union scale b) revitalize the areas

What do you think the idea of ridding us of unions is about. The unions are legal collections of workers demanding the capitalists share their piece of the pie. Not only in esgrd but in time and working conditions

When I moved on a Memorial Day we wee working and my new found co workers were bitching about the Northern Unions. I didnt even tell them those unions would have gotten their dumb cracker asses the holiday off with pay.

The main tenet of capitalism is buy low sell high.

[njc108]

Capitalism still thrives on if not slave labor the notion of free labor. The shirt you are wearing was made in Asia at - what? - 20 cents an hour. At most. Our industrial centers are called the Rust Belt . Why ? Because the owners didn't want to a) pay union scale b) revitalize the areas

What do you think the idea of ridding us of unions is about. The unions are legal collections of workers demanding the capitalists share their piece of the pie. Not only in esgrd but in time and working conditions

When I moved on a Memorial Day we wee working and my new found co workers were bitching about the Northern Unions. I didnt even tell them those unions would have gotten their dumb cracker asses the holiday off with pay.
The main tenet of capitalism is buy low sell high.

YESSSSSSSS!!!!!! Preach......Experienced the same thing since moving down south. Poor aunt in law is a retired registered nurse and school teacher. She worked those two full time jobs all her life. Yet whenever she has to go to the docs for any medical reason she has to pay out her ass while my mom a retired NJ cop does not pay anything at all for the same stuff. I love and miss my NJ unions. They fight for workers to have much better time off and benefits!!!! I hate the south and do not understand these people who are against unions. Unions work for YOU!!!!

[Hawk]

I like unions, but they are far from perfect (see UAW).

There's greed everywhere in this country.