Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[HVC]

True. It is kind of similar. But then it backs my point up in that discussion that there's no one size fits all rule, that power imbalances matter deeply.

Sure Europeans weren't stomping around Africa with nets to capture people. But nobody believes that. Everybody knows they bought the slaves from African ports where there were people only too happy to meet the demand.
It doesn't make things any nicer for the slaves that the first chain in their new shitty life was African.
Considering the way societies were fundamentally rebuilt to meet the demand it makes things quite a bit worse for them even (hey, theres another oil parallel).

Also fairly common though even less worthy a point. It's like pointing out Hitler didn't actually kill any Jews.

Your analogy baffles me.

I would have thought a closer Hitler analogy would be something like pointing out Austrians were overrepresented in concentration camp staff and the SS.

I don't get how that makes sense.

Everyone blames the Germans but its the Austrians who were the real nasties?

[Josquius]

Thinking about the analogy of oil companies to slavery. Wouldn't the oil companies themselves not be the slave ships/slave trading companies?
The African slavers would be more like local well owners.
The oil companies aren't a pure supplier, they're the market makers (yes, total misuse of that term, but it makes sense for this kind of middle man)
The analogy also falls down with the end consumer being a limited powerful number of people rather than everyone. And slaves being self-replenishing in many situations.

True. It is kind of similar. But then it backs my point up in that discussion that there's no one size fits all rule, that power imbalances matter deeply.

Sure Europeans weren't stomping around Africa with nets to capture people. But nobody believes that. Everybody knows they bought the slaves from African ports where there were people only too happy to meet the demand.
It doesn't make things any nicer for the slaves that the first chain in their new shitty life was African.
Considering the way societies were fundamentally rebuilt to meet the demand it makes things quite a bit worse for them even (hey, theres another oil parallel).

Also fairly common though even less worthy a point. It's like pointing out Hitler didn't actually kill any Jews.

Your analogy baffles me.

I would have thought a closer Hitler analogy would be something like pointing out Austrians were overrepresented in concentration camp staff and the SS.

I don't get how that makes sense.

Everyone blames the Germans but its the Austrians who were the real nasties?

Wouldn't that only be relevant when trying to pull the innocent victim Austria thing? It doesn't change the fact that plenty of Germans did terrible things too.

[Sheilbh]

I'm not entirely sure I understand your point.

It may be easier if I flip it - what does history as moral analysis look like?

Also not sure it would really work in the context of the Atlantic slave trade because I feel the moral analysis would be pretty short.

[Razgovory]

True. It is kind of similar. But then it backs my point up in that discussion that there's no one size fits all rule, that power imbalances matter deeply.

Sure Europeans weren't stomping around Africa with nets to capture people. But nobody believes that. Everybody knows they bought the slaves from African ports where there were people only too happy to meet the demand.
It doesn't make things any nicer for the slaves that the first chain in their new shitty life was African.
Considering the way societies were fundamentally rebuilt to meet the demand it makes things quite a bit worse for them even (hey, theres another oil parallel).

Also fairly common though even less worthy a point. It's like pointing out Hitler didn't actually kill any Jews.

Your analogy baffles me.

I would have thought a closer Hitler analogy would be something like pointing out Austrians were overrepresented in concentration camp staff and the SS.

I don't get how that makes sense.

This is basically what I was taught in school.

[Tamas]

I'm not entirely sure I understand your point.

It may be easier if I flip it - what does history as moral analysis look like?

Also not sure it would really work in the context of the Atlantic slave trade because I feel the moral analysis would be pretty short.

I know it's morbid but actually it does kind of line up with the "blame demand or supply" debate you guys had regarding oil.

[Sheilbh]

I know it's morbid but actually it does kind of line up with the "blame demand or supply" debate you guys had regarding oil.

I don't think that's necessarily wrong and I think there are echoes - I wouldn't want to push it.

My argument on the oil companies is that they are the same as the tobacco companies or the Sacklers. There are numerous documents from Exxon, BP and other oil majors showing that the leading research in the 70s and 80s on the impact of fossil fuels on climate was being done by those companies. What they projected is actually broadly what's happened. In the case of BP they looked at other options that would "mitigate" (that is reduce) the damage to the climate and chose not to do it. In addition they then spent vast sums lobbying, setting up astroturf groups, funding alternative research to obfuscate what they already knew from the eyes of the public.

I think there are echoes - The Interest by Michael Taylor is really good on the organised and parallel efforts of slave-holding interests to foil abolitionist efforts. Similarly I've mentioned it before, but the morally burdensome, socially unpleasant nature of (especially early) abolitionism is something that gives me pause. There's a reason they were initially drawn from dissenting radical Protestant groups and it's less an echo than a niggling doubt at the back of my mind when I think about climate protests. But also I think the moral question is sort of weird and, I think, a little anachronistic. From what I've read an awful lot of what was swaying and shaping opinion was about facts. What the abolitionists were always pushing was testimony, evidence and facts and similarly that's the stuff the interest was obfuscating. I think at the time it seems like if the facts were true (and they were) then it was morally indefensible. I think the idea that the facts were true but it was morally acceptable within the context of early modern Europe strikes as an anachronism that's back projecting from now (and also, possibly, from the US because I think in the 19th century supporters of slavery in the US move far more to a "moral" defence of slavery).

[Admiral Yi]

It may be easier if I flip it - what does history as moral analysis look like?

The Nazis killed lots of Jews.  That was bad.  Both sides in the Spanish Civil War committed atrocities, the fascists more than the left.  That was bad.  Stalin starved millions of kulaks to death.  That was bad.  Etc.

[Sheilbh]

Surely it's similarly quite short for the slave trade, no?

[Admiral Yi]

Surely it's similarly quite short for the slave trade, no?

I don't know what you mean.

[Sheilbh]

I suppose I'm still struggling with the difference between a tort-y/liability shakedown and moral analysis.

[Admiral Yi]

I suppose I'm still struggling with the difference between a tort-y/liability shakedown and moral analysis.

The biggest difference is you direct a tort against deep pockets.  In a moral analysis you call it as you see it.

[Razgovory]

Nobody expects the Africans who profited from the slave trade to pay reparations so why bother making them feel guilty. 

[Admiral Yi]

I was thinking about the slight irony of old African slave depots now enjoying the benefits of slave tourism.

[Jacob]

The biggest difference is you direct a tort against deep pockets.  In a moral analysis you call it as you see it.

If the moral analysis is actually moral it leads to a part where you attempt to address the repercussions of what happened - to stop or reverse the climate change, to alleviate the racism and structural economic inequality that resulted from slavery.

... and that will have an economic dimension.

... and that will seem like a "tort against deep pockets" to some.

[Sheilbh]

Nobody expects the Africans who profited from the slave trade to pay reparations so why bother making them feel guilty.

This side is interesting.

Again, A Fistful of Shells is really interesting on this. Obviously there's no static group of "Africans" who were enslaving and selling people. The Atlantic slave trade absolutely blows up social arrangements in West Africa - as you can imagine if over the course of a century your primary export good and unit of value becomes human beings. Economies entirely re-orient around that.

So you see the emergence of secret societies but also aristocratic warrior states. That obviously reinforces the trade - a warrior elite is more able to seize humans for sale, but also needs more access to the metals and weapons sold by Europeans to keep their primacy as well as prestige goods. But also leads to revolutions against that warrior class at a later period.

I can't remember where but I've also read about - I think it was Benin - aspects of West African politics in certain states where there is a bit of a reckoning happening about because local elites are often descended from the groups who enslaved people and traded them.

There is evidence of a long-term economic impact on West and East African states based on the extent to people from that territory were sold. I believe there is research that around 40% of the enslaved were kidnapped or seized and roughly 20% each were capture in war, enslaved as part of some form of judicial process or tricked by a friend or relative. If you think of Yi's regular interest in social capital and social trust, it's hard to imagine anything more likely to absolutely nuke that than slave trade.

If the moral analysis is actually moral it leads to a part where you attempt to address the repercussions of what happened - to stop or reverse the climate change, to alleviate the racism and structural economic inequality that resulted from slavery.

... and that will have an economic dimension.

... and that will seem like a "tort against deep pockets" to some.

Yes. Also I think there is a difference, bluntly the profit from the enslaved labour was vastly higher than the price paid to enslavers (that's why it was a viable economic model). Jamaica was the richest territory held by Britain, Haiti was for France. It's more of a flow of profit for Europeans.

And economic models were different. In West Africa the profit was often either weapons or metals to use in capturing more people (or groups might go into debt with Europeans - people as collateral and what they'd repay), or it was in prestige goods such as rum, clothes, shells etc that display wealth. There is an element of this in Europe - stately homes, Baroque churches, maybe charitable foundations set up by slave traders/plantation owners. But a lot more is re-invested either in other trading companies which often form the basis of later empires, or in land improvement or industry at home. Ultimately even the West African enslavers were not able to either access the flow of money from enslaved labour nor were they really able to invest in alternatives. Not least because the existence of European demand undermined other models, I think, for example, palm oil. But you need the weapons and metal to protect your people from slaving raids, to get that you need to trade with Europeans and certainly by the 17th century they're mainly interested in buying people.

Obviously the trade was in humans which is profoundly different, but other ways it doesn't seem a million miles away from, say, an indigenous community selling land to settlers.

I was thinking about the slight irony of old African slave depots now enjoying the benefits of slave tourism.

Not sure about enjoying - I think it is similar to Holocaust sites. Krakow or Bergen get tourists because they're near concentration camps and there are tourists who are primarily visiting that. But I'm a little uncomfortable with framing that as enjoying or benefits.

There is certainly Elmina Castle in Ghana which I think is now a World Heritage site and started as a Portuguese trading post, was taken by the Dutch - but later became part of the British colony in Ghana.