· 2022· Book chapter
Capitalism and Slavery
- 449citations
- 2022year
Short summary
Roger Anstey's 2022 analysis reinterprets Eric Williams' "Capitalism and Slavery," arguing that the book's core thesis is that the slave trade and Negro slavery provided crucial capital for England's Industrial Revolution, and that mature industrial capitalism later drove the abolition of the slave system.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Reinterprets Eric Williams' "Capitalism and Slavery" as an economic study.
- Argues slavery provided capital for England's Industrial Revolution.
- Posits mature industrial capitalism led to the destruction of the slave system.
- Notes the economic argument for checking slavery's expansion from the American War of Independence onwards.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
In Williams’s own words, Capitalism and Slavery was “strictly an economic study of the role of Negro slavery and the slave trade in providing the capital which financed the Industrial Revolution in England and of mature industrial capitalism in destroying the slave system”. Williams argues that from the time of the American War of Independence onwards the traditional role and privileged position of the British West Indies in the supply of tropical produce, and especially sugar, was being increasingly questioned in Britain. Equalization of the Sugar Duties was imperiously demanded by the new economic orthodoxy, and consequences at the level of an increase in slavery and the slave trade must be checked by methods appropriate to that sphere. The economic argument for taking a measure which might well be thought likely to restrict British West Indian production even more would therefore seem a strong one.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source., 2022 · DOI ↗
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Field: Cultural Studies
Cultural StudiesSocial Sciences