You make the case that the division of labor enables a civilization to advance. But not that American civilization could only have been thought of by layabout slackers. Adams and Franklin also contributed much to our America and they were neither slave holders nor slackers.
Well I don't really argue this in the first place. I argue that slavery DID allow our wealth and that without it, that wealth could not have come so rapidly.
The system is much bigger than you present here. We cannot legitimately isolate Franklin from his economic context. The large scale slavery monstrosity of the west enabled even Adams and Franklin to survive in America. It was, for example, a white society many members of which did not have to work alone in the fields and who therefore had time to acquire literacy, that enabled Franklin to profit from his almanac, thereby allowing him time and freedom to engage in other activities. Had these members been forced to work directly for their goods, they would not have had sufficient literacy to read or resources to enjoy such things as almanacs. While certainly some sectors of the white public lived by subsistence farming (such as those who moved to the far western parts of Virginia during the mid 1700s), slavery was the means by which people in the power-wielding city centers ate and were clothed.
I don't mean to say they directly ate the crops grown by slaves. But that the slave produced cash crops created industries that supported a multitude of subsidiary industries. For example, cotton growers needed horses which meant a market needed to exist in which horses could be bought and sold. This horse market itself produced supporting industries and so on, all ultimately resting upon the institution of slavery. Had slavery not existed, other forms of labor would have been needed, and that necessarily means progress would have been wondrously slow. In the days of the earliest colonization, progress at such a slow rate meant death of the colony. Slavery is responsible for the economic jump start of America.
Moreover, up to about 1828 Americans received very many of their goods from such countries as England and France (and even after 1828 many goods were made in the north using slave produced raw materials). These goods were not grown and shipped to American merchants out of thin air. They were developed by cheap slave labor. Colonists bought these goods with the proceeds of goods (rum, sugar, tobacco, cotton, etc...) produced in the Americas also by cheap slave labor.
I don't really argue "that American civilization could only have been thought of by layabout slackers." I argue that America developed as rapidly as it did due to its unique brand of slavery. Had America employed other forms of slavery, such as that practiced by early Greeks, it's advancement would not have been so swift. Slavery is responsible, but obviously not solely responsible, for the benefits we Americans now enjoy today. |
