[danharaj]

I'm currently reading The Black Jacobins which is about Toussaint L'Ouverture and the revolution in Haiti. Even after having read accounts of the brutality of slavery multiple times before, it always seems to recede into an abstraction after a long time and the descriptions are as gruesome and horrifying as they ever were. And this is a book that spares the details, relatively speaking.

The wealth of the world is covered in blood.

[CryptoPunk]

>>The wealth of the world is covered in blood.

Slavery was not very productive. It existed globally from the beginning of organized human society to the 19th century.

In some regions it persisted into the 20th century, and these were all very undeveloped.

Productivity rose in accordance with the decline of slavery. The regions that eradicated slavery first, like Europe, saw the greatest productivity gains.

Labor from paid free individuals and industrialization produced much of wealth of the world.

[orwin]

>> Slavery was not very productive

Once we created mechanical slaves, it was not. But until then, it was.

Slavery was abandoned because productivity rose, not the opposite. Productivity is tied with energy consumption. That's why we won't ever be able to limit our greenhouse gaz production.

[CryptoPunk]

Europe itself didn't have slavery, and was by global standards, quite productive before it ever acquired colonies and slaves.

But I agree that it could have been rising productivity that led to the abolition of slavery, and not the other way around.