2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
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This article explains why capitalism cannot be equated with slavery and in fact ended slavery...
It also points out the concept of lefty dyslexia...the inability of people on the left to understand basic truths about economics, politics, the law, social systems...
For example...to a regular person...Capitalism is the freedom to engage another person in a business without government interference...the exact opposite of slavery...
To the lefty/democrat/progressive, Capitalism = Slavery
Capitalism slavery TribLIVE
The rest of the column is really good as well...
It also points out the concept of lefty dyslexia...the inability of people on the left to understand basic truths about economics, politics, the law, social systems...
For example...to a regular person...Capitalism is the freedom to engage another person in a business without government interference...the exact opposite of slavery...
To the lefty/democrat/progressive, Capitalism = Slavery
Capitalism slavery TribLIVE
But the most far-fetched myth that I've encountered recently is that the wealth of the modern Western world, especially that of the United States, is the product of slavery.
She anticipated my response. "Not directly. But the capital that made these innovations possible was extracted from slave labor. The wealth accumulated by slaveholders is what financed the industrialization that makes today's wealth possible."
I looked at her in raw disbelief. (Not a good strategy, by the way, for a public speaker.)
Collecting my thoughts, I pointed out that slavery had been an ever-present institution throughout human history until just about 200 years ago. Why didn't slaveholders of 2,000 years ago in Europe or 500 years ago in Asia accumulate wealth that triggered economic growth comparable to ours• Why is Latin America so much poorer today than the United States, given that the Spaniards and Portuguese who settled that part of the world were enthusiastic slavers• Indeed, the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery was Brazil -- in 1888, a quarter-century after U.S. abolition. By American and western European standards, Brazil remains impoverished.
And why, having abolished slavery decades before their Southern neighbors, were Northern U.S. states wealthier than Southern states before the Civil War?
I don't recall my young challenger's response. I recall only that I was as little convinced by it as she was by my answers.
The fact is that slavery disappeared only as industrial capitalism emerged. And it disappeared first where industrial capitalism appeared first: Great Britain. This was no coincidence. Slavery was destroyed by capitalism.
To begin with, the ethical and political principles that support capitalism are inconsistent with slavery. As we Americans discovered, a belief in the universal dignity of human beings, their equality before the law, and their right to govern their own lives cannot long coexist with an institution that condemns some people to bondage merely because of their identity.
The rest of the column is really good as well...