Capitalism and Slavery
30 November 2007
Editor, The New York Post
To the Editor:
Skip Evans claims that "the most important factor in the growth of wealth and its spread since 1800" was slavery (Letters, November 30). Preposterous.
If slavery is a chief source of prosperity, why did the non-slave, industrialized, and prosperous American north defeat the slave-owning, agricultural, and poorer American south in the Civil War? Why is the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery - Brazil (which had slavery until 1888) - much poorer than the U.S. and Canada which abolished slavery much earlier?
Slavery has scarred most of human history until the rise of industrial capitalism. Far from slavery promoting capitalism, capitalism abolished slavery.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Editor, The New York Post
To the Editor:
Skip Evans claims that "the most important factor in the growth of wealth and its spread since 1800" was slavery (Letters, November 30). Preposterous.
If slavery is a chief source of prosperity, why did the non-slave, industrialized, and prosperous American north defeat the slave-owning, agricultural, and poorer American south in the Civil War? Why is the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery - Brazil (which had slavery until 1888) - much poorer than the U.S. and Canada which abolished slavery much earlier?
Slavery has scarred most of human history until the rise of industrial capitalism. Far from slavery promoting capitalism, capitalism abolished slavery.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Posted by Don Boudreaux on
Tuesday May 13, 2008 at 9:08pm