Capitalism as a Transformation of Slavery

* Article: Graeber, David. Turning modes of production inside out: or, why capitalism is a transformation of slavery. Critique of Anthropology. 2006 Mar; 26(1):61–85.

Available from: http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/dcrawford/graeber_2006a.pdf. (Accessed 2012 Feb 20. Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/65c1fy6dx)

Summary

"Graeber makes a case that chattel slavery and capitalist wage slavery both extract surplus value in essentially the same way: by using violent coercion to separate the abstract labor capacity of human beings from the social context in which those human beings were themselves socially “produced” (born, socialized, and educated), so that their productive capacity can generate revenue for masters (slaveholders or capitalists) who did not contribute resources to their social production. Likewise, the social “production” of a human being continues throughout life, so that the detrimental effects of the degrading experiences of slave labor or wage labor can be viewed as a negative externality imposed by the masters. Graeber adduces evidence that in the ancient world the distinction between employment and slavery was viewed as tenuous, and long-term employment was seen as a degrading form of subordination to the will of another. In fact, most apparent long-term employment contracts in the ancient world were actually rental contracts for the services of slaves."

(http://dedicto.com/wordpress1/bib/)

Discussion

The opposite point is made here:

Lipton Matthews:

"his culture of empiricism and quantification that shaped how Britain later organized the slave trade. The trade was not a product of British institutions so much as a byproduct of their sophistication. Colonial merchants extended domestic financial instruments to the slave trade, applying the same principles of accountability and risk management that they would have applied to any commercial venture.

Initially, slave voyages were financially precarious. Ships’ captains were often paid with planters’ promissory notes, merchants’ IOUs, or shipments of sugar and rum. Payments depended on unpredictable harvests, leaving traders financially vulnerable. To stabilize the system, British bankers introduced “bills in the bottom,” bills guaranteed by the ship and its cargo that could later be exchanged for cash in London’s financial markets. This innovation helped to integrate slavery into England’s broader financial system. The formalisation of a morally abhorrent trade into a contractual, insurable and liquid enterprise underscores how advanced English business institutions had become.

The insurance sector illustrates this clearly. During the 1790s, slave voyages accounted for about seven percent of British marine insurance contracts, while the slave and West Indies trades together accounted for approximately 41 percent. Insurers treated slavery as a simple matter of business: premiums were determined by route, cargo and risk — as in other maritime ventures. And the trade did not enrich the insurance industry to a greater extent than any other part of maritime commerce. All this demonstrates the scope of rational thinking within England at the time. Business was governed by law and actuarial mathematics, not moral sentiment.

The rational thinking that made the slave trade insurable also powered industrialization. The same institutions that managed risk in trans-Atlantic commerce financed canals, factories and steam engines back at home. The country’s wealth arose from the disciplined use of reason and evidence in every sphere of activity — from science to business to governance.

While Britain roared ahead, Africa lagged behind. The trans-Saharan slave trade, which predated the Atlantic system by over a millennium, persisted for centuries without generating much institutional development. This was surely because it wasn’t organized along scientific lines. (European traders even read documents discussing the health of slaves and the logistics of transportation.)

Yet within Africa, regions with stronger institutions achieved a measure of economic success. Nowhere is this more evident than Bonny’s replacement of Old Calabar as the principal slave port on the Bight of Biafra in the 18th century. Though Bonny was known to be worse for the health of Europeans, it rose to prominence because the state there proved remarkably effective at enforcing credit arrangements. Today, Africa remains the poorest continent, and is falling further behind the West. The absence of strong institutions has only compounded problems like low test scores and superstitious beliefs."

(https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/britains-wealth-was-not-built-on)