If a European country created wealth in its factories, but those factories used slave-grown inputs (cotton, sugar, whatever) imported from colonies, would that count as wealth produced internally?
Even with cotton being produced via slave labour in the Americas, textiles produced from it were still in stiff competition with textiles produced in India at the time. That competition led to the investment in labour saving machinery that continued to fuel the industrial revolution. Slave labour is not a magic ingredient that makes economies flourish, if anything it's probably a drag on those economies.
> Indian cotton textiles, mainly those from Bengal, continued to maintain a competitive advantage up until the 19th century. In order to compete with Indian goods, British merchants invested in labour-saving technical advancements, while the government implemented protectionist policies such as bans and tariffs to restrict Indian imports.
> Indian cotton textiles, mainly those from Bengal, continued to maintain a competitive advantage up until the 19th century. In order to compete with Indian goods, British merchants invested in labour-saving technical advancements, while the government implemented protectionist policies such as bans and tariffs to restrict Indian imports.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textile_manufacture_during_the...