Capitalism & Slavery

Rating:
Summary: Caribbean History
Review: Although there may be complainants about Dr. Williams not addressing certain forms of slavery throughout history it has to be kept in mind that his thesis was about the hows and whys of African enslavement in the Caribbean. Williams firmly argues and details how today's culture of racism and capitalism was born.
This book is extremely well done and a great beginner for anyone interested in the topic of Caribbean history.

Rating:
Summary: Islamic slavery older and more extensive
Review: Given Koranic blessing, 11 million Black Africans were kidnapped from their home for service as soldiers and concubines in the Islamic and later Ottoman empire beginning in 700 and continuing to this day. From time to time the soldier slaves revolted and such revolts were put down brutally. Male slaves were routinely castrated and the children of female slaves were taken from them. The slavery system covered most of North Africa, the Middle East, Iran and parts of India under Islamic control. Due to the Koranic blessing, SAudi Arabis did not outlaw slavery until 1964, nor did Kuwait until 1968. No discussion of the world view phenomena is complete without an examination of this "eastern" slave trade. Note also that the Inca and the Aztec practiced human slavery in a non-capitalist setting. The author would also allow you to forget that it wsa the hated colonial powers of England and France that pushed for the end of slavery in North Africa, not the Islamic east.

Rating:
Summary: Omits precapitalistic slave societies
Review: Slavery was widespread through the Inca and Aztec cultures. Islam embraces slavery without reservation, it is expressly approved in the Koran. Segal documents the fact that 11 million Black Africans were kidnapped from their home by Islamic traders from 700 A.D. to 1900 B.C. Mohammed left many pages of directions to SLAVEHOLDERS on how to handle their slaves. The Ummyad dynasty of Islamic rulers castrated male Black African slaves and used them in battle between 700 A.D. and 1200 A.D.
By the way, where does one find a successful, stable, democratic non-capitalistic society? Planned economies don't work.

Rating:
Summary: Ground breaking economic history--and support for reparation
Review: The transformation from subsistance society where everyone more or less consumed what they produced, to international capitalism required as a precondition the accumulation of capital. That is, some people had to be able to produce more than they consumed before they could have anything to invest.

Williams contribution to the literature of this transformation is to focus on the role of the slave trade. On the one hand, it provided a source of raw materials (human beings) which could be sold at a profit by traders, and then used to produce even more wealth by the buyers (slaveholders). This double accumulation of wealth went a long way toward allowing a few very wealthy people to accumulate capital, which coul;d then be invested in things like machinery.

At the same time, the slave trade provided an economic foundation for a large scale international trading network (the famous molasses, slave, rum triangle, later includeing cotton). Without this international network of shippers and merchants, the English (and later New England) cotton mills would not have had anywhere to sell their manufactured product (cotton cloth), nor a cheap source of cotton to use as raw materials.

Williams' ground breaking contirbution was to link all of this together, and argue that without the immoral slave trade, the industrial revolution, and thus capitalism as we know it, would not have happened. The inescapable conclusion is that since much of modern wealth was founded on slavery, some form of reparations is warranted.

Rating:
Summary: Ground breaking economic history--and support for reparation
Review: The transformation from subsistance society where everyone more or less consumed what they produced, to international capitalism required as a precondition the accumulation of capital. That is, some people had to be able to produce more than they consumed before they could have anything to invest.

Williams contribution to the literature of this transformation is to focus on the role of the slave trade. On the one hand, it provided a source of raw materials (human beings) which could be sold at a profit by traders, and then used to produce even more wealth by the buyers (slaveholders). This double accumulation of wealth went a long way toward allowing a few very wealthy people to accumulate capital, which coul;d then be invested in things like machinery.

At the same time, the slave trade provided an economic foundation for a large scale international trading network (the famous molasses, slave, rum triangle, later includeing cotton). Without this international network of shippers and merchants, the English (and later New England) cotton mills would not have had anywhere to sell their manufactured product (cotton cloth), nor a cheap source of cotton to use as raw materials.

Williams' ground breaking contirbution was to link all of this together, and argue that without the immoral slave trade, the industrial revolution, and thus capitalism as we know it, would not have happened. The inescapable conclusion is that since much of modern wealth was founded on slavery, some form of reparations is warranted.