Not all forms of capitalism were built on the slavery of African Americans. But American capitalism which is the capitalism referred to in the article, most definitely was.
I always ask myself. Self, why do people leave comments about things they haven't studied? It's as if they are waiting for someone to come along and leave actual statistics for them. Data they could have easily looked up themselves with a quick 5 minute Google search?
Why does this annoy me?
Because BillyBob is reading your words and claps for them. You are writing them as if you have studied it. You write them as if you are the authoritative voice on the subject. You seem like a very reasonable individual but Billy Bob may or may not have a gun in his log cabin with spotty Wifi.
Do I have any doubt that you have studied capitalism, no not at all. I'm referring to the idea that you have never studied capitalism's relationship to slavery. Lucky for you other people did.
Anyway, now that we've gone through how your spreading of ignorance can directly or indirectly lead to more ill informed BillyBobs with guns. I'm going to share with you the facts.
"Let’s start with the value of the slave population. Steven Deyle shows that in 1860, the value of the slaves was “roughly three times greater than the total amount invested in banks,” and it was “equal to about seven times the total value of all currency in circulation in the country,"
“Cotton was the leading American export from 1803 to 1937.”
1937, That's 7 years after my grandpa was born. I was adopted by a white family and his father (my great granpda) grew up on a plantation. My Aunt just sold the plantation to other owners in 2013. So the capital received from the sale was still in circulation in 2013. Let that sink in.
That was a personal anecdote, back to the figures.
What did cotton production and slavery have to do with Great Britain? The figures are astonishing. As Dattel explains: “Britain, the most powerful nation in the world, relied on slave-produced American cotton for over 80 per cent of its essential industrial raw material. English textile mills accounted for 40 percent of Britain’s exports. One-fifth of Britain’s twenty-two million people were directly or indirectly involved with cotton textiles.And, finally, New England? As Ronald Bailey shows, cotton fed the textile revolution in the United States. “In 1860, for example, New England had 52 percent of the manufacturing establishments and 75 percent of the 5.14 million spindles in operation,” he explains. The same goes for looms. In fact, Massachusetts “alone had 30 percent of all spindles, and Rhode Island another 18 percent.” Most impressively of all, “New England mills consumed 283.7 million pounds of cotton, or 67 percent of the 422.6 million pounds of cotton used by U.S. mills in 1860.” In other words, on the eve of the Civil War, New England’s economy, so fundamentally dependent upon the textile industry, was inextricably intertwined, as Bailey puts it, “to the labor of black people working as slaves in the U.S. South.”
Here is another figure received from the presentation done by Attorney Jeff Robinson.
King Cotton was 60% of America's GDP
So let's recap. American capitalism was inextriciably linked to slavery. Why? Because America is only 300 years old!
Capitalism in America was dependednt on slavery to grow its economy for 137 years of it's foundational years. Esentially America became a major player on the world stage by using black people's labor to grow their economy. Now, they are trying to execute them through the police force because frankly the money is owed and they know it.
Just so we are clear reparations have already been paid for slavery.
To white slave owners.
I just want to make it clear I wouldn't even be writing this had America not racially traumatized me as a biracial kid growing up in the 90s. If white people had let go of their racism say back when it was government mandated. Say back in 1960. America probably wouldn't even be talking about this issue. They could have really left all these hard economic statistics in the past, right. Black people would be fully integrated and none of us would be digging up America's sins because we experienced racism growing up. It's the little everyday sociological remnants of racism perpetrated on many of us as children. We then grow up and we get curious. Why did that teacher throw that object at me in 6th grade? Why did that little white girl punch me in the stomach and call me a nigger? Why did my computer teacher question how I could have won the spelling bee beating out all the white kids at a private school? Why? Why? Why? These questions from our trauma follow us into adulthood. Then finally we start to find out why. We study the history of how imperialism travelled from Rome to the US.
Like Jeff Robinson who experienced housing discrimination in his youth. He started to ask the why questions. He found the statistics and data. He drudged up the numbers on America's past. If only white people had let racism die in the 60s there would be none of us in 2021 looking into the history. But they just couldn't do that could they? They had to re-traumatize little black children all over the United States with their nasty mythological conception of race.
