So a belated comment. Colonial capitalism spawned the evil of chattel slavery. I'm sure I encountered this idea earlier, but it was particularly made plain in a book I happened upon on a discount table a while back, Gerald Horne's "The Counter-Revolution of 1776". He argues that Britain was moving away from slavery and the so-called American Revolution was fought so that the colonies could preserve the institution. And they wanted to preserve it because they could not resist its profits. He describes how time after time some colonists would become fearful of a potential slave rebellion, the authorities would attempt to craft a plan to make "adjustments" - rules about how many slaves per overseers, suggestions to use indentured workers from Ireland and Scotland... but whatever the plan, it would always fail because the slave-owners simply could not resist the profits. So as you titled a later post, it really is all about the benjamins. This is what we were never taught about capitalism, which seems to be embedded in US culture as part of our national religion (right up there with individualism, I suppose). We're told by the laissez-faire folk that capitalism can do no wrong, but the thing is, it was causing evil here from the very beginning.
So a belated comment. Colonial capitalism spawned the evil of chattel slavery. I'm sure I encountered this idea earlier, but it was particularly made plain in a book I happened upon on a discount table a while back, Gerald Horne's "The Counter-Revolution of 1776". He argues that Britain was moving away from slavery and the so-called American Revolution was fought so that the colonies could preserve the institution. And they wanted to preserve it because they could not resist its profits. He describes how time after time some colonists would become fearful of a potential slave rebellion, the authorities would attempt to craft a plan to make "adjustments" - rules about how many slaves per overseers, suggestions to use indentured workers from Ireland and Scotland... but whatever the plan, it would always fail because the slave-owners simply could not resist the profits. So as you titled a later post, it really is all about the benjamins. This is what we were never taught about capitalism, which seems to be embedded in US culture as part of our national religion (right up there with individualism, I suppose). We're told by the laissez-faire folk that capitalism can do no wrong, but the thing is, it was causing evil here from the very beginning.