Development without slavery

[rotting bones]

Apparently, China would have specifically needed New World colonies to develop when Britain did. Slavery, capitalism and the industrial revolution by Berg and Hudson says that British industrialization wouldn't have been feasible without American plantation slavery. It was very important to have empty acres where the natives have dropped dead of disease. Book summary:

"The role of slavery in driving Britain's economic development is often debated, but seldom given a central place. In their remarkable new book, Maxine Berg and Pat Hudson 'follow the money' to document in revealing detail the role of slavery in the making of Britain’s industrial revolution. Slavery was not just a source of wealth for a narrow circle of slave owners who built grand country houses and filled them with luxuries. The forces set in motion by the slave and plantation trades seeped into almost every aspect of the economy and society. In textile mills, iron and copper smelting, steam power, and financial institutions, slavery played a crucial part. Things we might think far removed from the taint of slavery, such as eighteenth-century fashions for indigo-patterned cloth, sweet tea, snuff boxes, mahogany furniture, ceramics and silverware, were intimately connected. Even London’s role as a centre for global finance was partly determined by the slave trade as insurance, financial trading and mortgage markets were developed in the City to promote distant and risky investments in enslaved people. The result is a bold and unflinching account of how Britain became a global superpower, and how the legacy of slavery persists. Acknowledging Britain's role in slavery is not just about toppling statues and renaming streets. We urgently need to come to terms with slavery's inextricable links with Western capitalism, and the ways in which many of us continue to benefit from slavery to this day."

Are there non-slavery alternatives to development that don't involve socialist planning?

[rotting bones]

Wikipedia says:

"New World exports of wood, cotton, and wool are estimated to have saved England the need for 23 to 25 million acres (100,000 km2) of cultivated land (by comparison, the total amount of cultivated land in England was just 17 million acres), freeing up immense amounts of resources."

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence

[Dune]

This isn't meant to gotcha! you, but ... do the authors of that book claim that British industrialization wouldn't have been feasible without slavery? I haven't read the book and don't think I'm qualified to talk about the subject, but this made me curious, so I did some googling and found a quote from them:

We do not argue that slavery caused the industrial revolution. Neither do we suggest that slavery was necessary for the development of industrial capitalism in Britain.

And another:

Some readers of the book clearly wish that we could be less equivocal about this, but to be so would enter the realm of counterfactual history. How would the British economy have developed without its involvement with transatlantic slavery? Certainly, it would have developed in a different way, with a different trajectory and probably at a different speed. But would there never have been an industrial revolution without transatlantic chattel slavery and would industrial capitalism, including its racial elements, have been absent without it? This is not something we were willing to pronounce upon.

Like a lot of academic historians, they seem pretty wary of alternate history scenarios—after all, it's one thing to argue that in our timeline, slavery was a crucial factor in industrialization, and another to say that without slavery, nothing else would have filled that role. That's an interesting question (and probably an inevitable one, if you buy the book's thesis), but like most open-ended historical counterfactuals, also a very, very tough nut to crack.

[rotting bones]

I haven't read the book either, and I didn't see this quote before. I'm asking because I don't know.

Given the details I have found online, British industrialization happened when it did because of the resources obtained from the New World colonies. This is reinforced by the quote from the Great Divergence.

If they are not arguing that development couldn't have happened without slavery, I can only think of possibilities like:

1. Development over much longer time frames.

2. Development using free acres from elsewhere, perhaps after Britain conquers France.

...

I'm open to educated guesses.

[Raphael]

I wonder if this might be some kind of academic version of the "If your only tool is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail"-thing. Talking about racism in all its forms as not just one important thing that needs to be talked about, but as the lens through which everything should be seen, has been all the rage in some academic and activist circles for a while now. And transatlantic slavery was, of course, perhaps the single most important manifestation of institutionalized racism in modern history. So it's not surprising if some people end up thinking that everything has to be about slavery. Doesn't mean it's true.

If these authors are right, why did industrial capitalism start in Britain and not, say, Portugal?

[rotting bones]

These authors are not reducing industrialization to one factor. They are saying that the resources for industrialization wouldn't have been available without the New World colonies. The resources are necessary, but not sufficient for industrialization to occur.

I'm seeing these authors also have opponents in academia who point out that the profits of these enterprises were not great in monetary terms. This is of course met with the rejoinder that monetary values are an accounting trick. What really matters is what the physical resources were needed for.

[rotting bones]

Could it be that socialist planning IS the alternative that the authors had in mind? That could be why they didn't say what it is.

[Nortaneous]

Even London’s role as a centre for global finance was partly determined by the slave trade as insurance, financial trading and mortgage markets were developed in the City to promote distant and risky investments in enslaved people.

This is where the sleight of hand happens in the parlor trick. Because slaves were a traded commodity, anything that dealt with commodities or trade is inextricably linked to slavery!!!! But it's just a parlor trick.

[rotting bones]

Even London’s role as a centre for global finance was partly determined by the slave trade as insurance, financial trading and mortgage markets were developed in the City to promote distant and risky investments in enslaved people.

This is where the sleight of hand happens in the parlor trick. Because slaves were a traded commodity, anything that dealt with commodities or trade is inextricably linked to slavery!!!! But it's just a parlor trick.

All financial markets need large amounts of leverage to operate. Read When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management by Roger Lowenstein for what happens when you don't have it.