What if the Slave Trade Didn't Happen?

[innonimatu]

I recently read an interesting econometrics paper - don't remember who did it other than "it wasn't AJR" - on correlating effects of slavery on local population in terms of numbers enslaved with modern GDP. In addition to the issue of losing people straight-up, the warfare that slavery generated and was generated by caused dislocation and migratory behavior that further disrupted any semblance of economic growth. I wasn't entirely convinced by some of the methodology - it's more complex than I'm making it out to be - but the idea was at least intriguing. Maybe I'll look for the reference later, when I have access to JSTOR again.

I have to agree that the warfare associated with slavery was destructive - warfare by its very nature destroys. Thus my curiosity regarding what might have been the evolution of an Europe which had an America available for colonization but no Africa to get slaves from. It's often passed over, but Europe during the Middle Ages had participated in a continued Mediterranean slave trade, though one which usually involved muslims enslaving christians and christians enslaving muslims. The activities of the Barbary Pirates were just the last manifestation of a centuries old practice going back to at least roman times, and which continued throughout the whole of southern Europe. I don't know about the baltic region, but expect that some from of slave trade also existed there during the Middle Ages.

But this form of enslavement, across the Mediterranean and Europe, seems to have been more a case of supply driving demand for slaves, than demand driving warfare and enslavement of defeated enemies. It happened at borders between different societies at war: the slaves were procured among a "foreign" enemy, not a "similar" enemy. Feudal wars in Europe didn't produce slaves, though europeans were quite capable of betraying and selling other europenas to foreigners when they had an opportunity - I have little doubt that the venetians earned their reputation... Likewise, in the arab/turkish Middle East and North Africa the traded slaves were mostly foreigners from Africa, Europe, or Central Asia, even though the conquered populations of the provinces of their empires were often technically considered all "slaves" to the ruler; and even that "mas slavery" also happened only when the conqueror group came from an outside society, as was the case of the Arabs and Turks initially.

What this means is that within a stable and (somewhat) homogeneous society the powerful tended to develop and use institutions other than slavery to control the lower classes. The main used for slaves have always been household servants and labor-intensive industries (mining, large-scale agriculture, foundries, etc). Household slaves can easily be replaced by serfs, in fact that transition seems to have happened seamlessly many times. And industrial and agricultural laborers can also be easily replaced: again, through serfdom or by renting out lands in agriculture, and just by paid laborers in industrial activities, with convicts (slaves by another name!) for those so deadly that no free men would take them: processing mercury from mines, for example...
This type of evolution happened as the Roman Empire evolved from a recently conquered collection of territories to an empire with unified institutions. Slavery is a crude "technology of power" (borrowing the expression from Foucault) used when no more developed institutions are available: in frontier lands. That's what america was, and slavery fulfilled its usual role... though I'm not saying it couldn't have been avoided. It could, it would just require closer control by some power. The spanish crown did avoid extending slavery to conquered natives in the areas of the old american empires, it instead took over some of the old native institutions (notably in the Andes) or put in place its own. And the US in its last phase of expansion simply extended its government and institutions westwards along with the settlers and chose to forgo slavery.

Slavery within Africa was a consequence of a lower state of societal cohesion among the many groups which populated the continent: there were many social border regions in Africa, because political borders also tended to be social borders, so there were many wars in which the defeated were turned into movable property, slaves, instead of getting exploited through other, more developed institutions already in place! The supply was there, caused by the stage of social development of most of the the continent, it wasn't created because Europeans and Asians showed up along the coast. What the new demand might have caused was a greater instability. But the real only way to end slavery within Africa would be by creating instruments of power within its societies which made slavery a no longer desirable tool - political unification along a few large empires, social homogenization, development of new institutions of power beyond simple military force: religion, bureaucracies, economic interests, etc. So, European meddling on the one hand encouraged the existing warfare and slavery by providing a market for slaves; on the other hand reduced it where this contact brought new technologies of power which made slavery obsolete: writing, hierarchical religion, codified jurisprudence, etc. It would be, for example, a king of Kongo (the name escapes me now) already using some of these new technologies which would protest, in several letters to the king of Portugal, against the enslavement of its citizens, even while carrying out still a trade on those captured through war against societies foreign to its own kingdom.

 

[SeekTruthFromFacts]

Let's have an a priori assumption that Atlantic slavery doesn't happen because of religious and humanitarian concerns - Wilberforce is born 300 years earlier, Luther gets a bee in his bonnet and Ximenes agrees, whatever.

I'm also introducing the concept of slave-tilled areas: Brazil, the Caribbean, and the American South as societies economically powered by the Atlantic slave trade, with profound social consequences.

What about the northern half of North America and the Southern Cone of South America as parallel cases? They're like the slave-tilled areas in that they were European-controlled and had aboriginal populations dying from introduced diseases. They're unlike them in that the climate wasn't suitable for sugar and cotton tobacco, the two crops that slavery thrived on.

17th century:
The slave-tilled areas should then look more like their neighbours at higher latitudes. They would be predominantly populated by settlers of European descent, with a mestizo population in more racially-tolerant Brazil. The cotton and sugar work is still hard and unpleasant and plantation-based, so would probably be done by the poorest and more desperate immigrants - maybe Irish labourers, as suggested. I guess there would have been a lot of casual labour, perhaps leading to famines and violence. Everybody needs their Two Minutes' Hate, so people pick on the Irish, and Roman Catholicism becomes utterly taboo.

18th century:
Sugar profits would be lower because wages would be higher, so perhaps Britain and France would have been less interested in fighting over Caribbean islands. And of course the 'Asiento' wouldn't be a factor in European politics. So perhaps no Seven Years/French & Indian War, therefore no taxes to protect the Americans, therefore the American rebellion is delayed. However, the local elites would still an interest in grabbing power from far-off London, so perhaps the presenting issue would have been different.

Fewer wars also means less National Debt, which perhaps reduces confidence in financial instruments, slowing the growth of corporate finance.

The English merchant navy would have brought back lower profits. This might have affected Abraham Darby, whose experiments in industrial metallurgical production were funded by Bristol merchants. I don't have the names of specific slavers, but 18th century Bristol was pretty dependent on slave trade profits.

Incidentally, I don't think the absence of American cotton would have been a major problem. There would still have been cotton, albeit at a higher price. The Indian cotton industry was also controlled by the British, so they'd still have had access to supplies. John Lombe was moving towards industrialization using silk, and there were plenty of other products that would have benefited from mass production.

Brazil might have developed much, much slowly. Immigrants to British North America might dream of New York and end up on a plantation. Brazil just has unpleasant plantation work and not much else. Like Argentina, it would have taken off when refrigeration made shipping meat a possibility. Oh, and the southern Europeans still migrate there, because Roman Catholics are insanely persecuted in the US.

19th century:
Sugar is more expensive, and there's slightly higher demand for silk (cheaper relative to cotton). Maybe even more reason for Europeans to open up trade with East Asia at gunpoint.

No American Civil War. Although the US would have missed out on the temporary economic boom that the war brought in the North, it would have been able to open up the West even more quickly. Some military technologies might have been developed later, making World War I even more of a shock when it happened.

The US federal government never intervenes in national life in the way it did in the Civil War. So laissez-faire and localism (=states' rights without the slavery baggage) become even more strongly entrenched.

20th century:
No jazz, rock, or rap, as previously noted!

The 1950s saw many African-Africans move north in a Lewis model migration. That happens along similar lines. but on a much smaller scale.... Civil rights are granted to Irish and Roman Catholics. In 2008, the world is shocked when the US elects its first Roman Catholic president....

(Ooops, slightly got carried away, this was supposed to be a strict comparison between the slave-tilled areas and their neighbours)

 

[SeekTruthFromFacts]

BTW Brad DeLong has a handout looking at the effects of slavery on the US, including this counterfactual question on pp.3-7.

http://delong.typepad.com/113_F07/20070910_cuibono.pdf

 

[say1988]

It's the other way round bud; cheap labour actually discourages technical innovation, by increasing the cost of capital relative to labour.

It's more complicated than that.
Without cheap labour, the plantation system likely wouldn't develop, at least not near the scale it did historically.
Then there would then be no incentive to innovate and replace labour as the costs of labour (both financial and non-financial) rose.

 

[Masada]

It's more complicated than that.

This problem is more economically complex than anyone here is ready, willing or able to admit.

Without cheap labour, the plantation system likely wouldn't develop, at least not near the scale it did historically.

Simply put, it wouldn't develop. But you would see development, albeit skewed towards small-holders, operating initially mixed production of food and cash crops, shifting towards greater regional differentiation on those same lines in time. It would, probably, mirror the North fairly closely, in terms of it being a patchwork of small farmers, moving outwards towards a distant frontier, with ever increasing specialisation and crucially intensification of land-use.

Additionally, we don't really need to pretend that cotton must be grown in plantation conditions - we know that it wasn't in Egypt, it was grown by small-farmers, with the production advanced to central cotton mills for final preparation for export. There's no reason to suppose that the same system couldn't predominate in the South, it would stand to reason that in the absence of cheap labour, it would. Perhaps the process would have been slower, there are economies of scale to be gained in plantation work, but I'm not wholly convinced that the additional labour couldn't be substituted for capital. (It's telling that the South never really attempted this, until after the Civil War).

Then there would then be no incentive to innovate and replace labour as the costs of labour (both financial and non-financial) rose.

A different model? Even sugar cane doesn't require plantations, the Netherlands Indies was a major world producer in the pre-war and inter-war years and achieved that with Javanese peasant plots that you can walk across in ten strides. I've done it in five!

 

[say1988]

All of which would decrease the value of innovation as the system is designed to work without hte cheap labour. Further, without the scale, the cost to implement technology could have prevented innovation.

Yes, a continued supply of cheap labour would have removed incentive to innovate. But it wasn't the labour needed that provided the incentive, it was the increasing costs (both financial, as supply was drying up, and not, such as ethical and political challenges as well as the potential for revolt).

Assuming the economy develops such that it isn't dependent on a large supply of cheap labour (say a familiy providing all the needed labout) there would be no increased costs spurring invention. Of course, there are other factors that could influence it (say a huge demand increase necessitating increased production).

 

[Masada]

All of which would decrease the value of innovation as the system is designed to work without hte cheap labour.

Nope, it would encourage technological innovation by raising the cost of labour viz. a viz. capital. If labour is cheap relative to capital, it becomes economically infeasible to substitute it for capital. Think of licking a stamp. You could buy a complex machine that does it for you, or, alternatively, you could lick it yourself. Obviously, for the average letter user, taking five seconds out of your day is the cheaper (overall) option. But consider car production, you could make a normal (everyday) car. But it takes hundreds of man hours, requires sophisticated machinery and the materials are not exactly cheap. For the average person it's cheaper (much much cheaper for me) to substitute all that labour for a capital intensive Toyota car plant. (I could make a car, it wouldn't be all that great, it would take rather a long time, but I could do it. However, the loss of wages to me, would be significantly more than what it would cost for me to order a car from Toyota.) Thus, in the absence of cheap labour, you would expect to see capital substitution on a far greater scale than you would otherwise see under slavery.

Yes, a continued supply of cheap labour would have removed incentive to innovate. But it wasn't the labour needed that provided the incentive, it was the increasing costs (both financial, as supply was drying up, and not, such as ethical and political challenges as well as the potential for revolt).

Well of course it wasn't. The South had slaves, the impulse shouldn't have come from labour; short of emancipation the South was going to have a captive workforce. That the impulse came from somewhere else, really from contingent events, shouldn't be in itself all that shocking. And in this case, I think history vindicates me. When the Civil War began and the South lost it's markets, who came to the rescue? Egypt, which didn't have slaves, the incumbent plantations and which, as a consequence, began to move heavily into capital intensive applications to make up for that surfeit. The South with its slaves had pioneered some inventions, but they weren't systematically employed to the extent that other parts of the world had to because labour costs mitigated against that being the case.

Assuming the economy develops such that it isn't dependent on a large supply of cheap labour (say a familiy providing all the needed labout) there would be no increased costs spurring invention. Of course, there are other factors that could influence it (say a huge demand increase necessitating increased production).

Okay. Think about it. Black Slaves. Free White Settlers. Do you really think the average black slave lived in material conditions that a white man of the day would have been content to live in? Remember, slaves tooled around in rags, got fed rubbish and worked like slaves... That's alone raises labour costs, even allowing for the important distinction that slaves didn't get paid. Besides, to argue that political and moral impulses drove innovation kind of ignores the fact that it was only with the Civil War that the plantation system, slavery and so forth actually fell apart. And when the war hit and the slaves got free, it was to a rush of technological innovation by owners, left without a workforce. That to me is a well established economic fact. Innovation followed the war. It had to.

 

[say1988]

Well of course it wasn't. The South had slaves, the impulse shouldn't have come from labour; short of emancipation the South was going to have a captive workforce.

Costs were rising. With supply died up (no African suppliers and much of the world abolishing slavery, while demand is increasing with the expansion of slavery) along with ethical issues in some area and increasing likelyhood of revolt or simple escape (as the underground railroad developed) the cost of using slave labour was rising considerably in the 19th century.
And then the sudden increase following the civil war.

The thing is, that you need a catalyst.
Assuming a system is designed to work without slavery, then the factors affecting slavery will have no impact on it. Egypt was designed without slavery in mind and took advantage of much innovation from the previous years when it built up a cotton industry.

 

[Masada]

Costs were rising. With supply died up (no African suppliers and much of the world abolishing slavery, while demand is increasing with the expansion of slavery) along with ethical issues in some area and increasing likelyhood of revolt or simple escape (as the underground railroad developed) the cost of using slave labour was rising considerably in the 19th century.

As a result of contingent events in the winter years of the institution. I'm arguing that if the practice had never developed and the resulting economic system hadn't arisen we would reasonably expect to see that substitution of labour for capital at the get-go. I'm also ignoring the simple fact that slavery was distorting the Southern economy even with those factors acting to mitigate against it. Most slaves couldn't realistically flee, didn't rebel, and ethical issues hardly hurt the pocket book. Even then, the banning of the slave trade didn't stop the slave population doubling every twenty-six years. Even more damningly, the Southern economy still flourished despite those non-issues. But to take my argument a step further, when slavery was abolished newly freed slaves demanded, and often got, superior real wages to those that had predominated while they were slaves. This seems to suggest, that labour costs were still substantially below the equilibrium rate for even free black labour. Thus, discouraging innovation. Which is borne out by the evidence, that strongly supports the notion that the Southern economy underwent an agricultural revolution after the Civil War, which saw massively increased mechanisation in response to a shortage of black labour, increased wage costs and the general collapse of the old slave economy. There's no reason to suppose that without slavery that this would not have happened earlier.

Assuming a system is designed to work without slavery, then the factors affecting slavery will have no impact on it. Egypt was designed without slavery in mind and took advantage of much innovation from the previous years when it built up a cotton industry.

"Designed"?

 

[say1988]

Which is borne out by the evidence, that strongly supports the notion that the Southern economy underwent an agricultural revolution after the Civil War, which saw massively increased mechanisation in response to a shortage of black labour, increased wage costs and the general collapse of the old slave economy. There's no reason to suppose that without slavery that this would not have happened earlier.

Fine, lets give that to you. All it does is shift my argument ahead a couple decades. I don't care what increased the labour costs or when, but there needed to be cheap labour to develop an economy based on cheap labour. Then the removal of this cheap labour forces innovation to use labour more efficiently, thereby reducing its cost once again.

Without a ready supply of cheap labour,
The economy devlops (better word than "designed") with higher labour costs in mind, then you either another cause for a significant rise in labour costs. There is no reason to innovate if there is benefit from the innovation.
Or the price of cotton remains higher, but demand lower (people make do with less and wool is comparitively cheaper) and you develop the plantations on a smaller scale which can sustain the higher labour costs (and find it more difficult to implement any innovations).

Once again:
Sustained (or worse, decreasing) costs remove the incentive to innovate, no matter how low or high they are.
Rising costs provide for innovation as people seek to maintain their cost level.

 

[Traitorfish]

Nope, it would encourage technological innovation by raising the cost of labour viz. a viz. capital. If labour is cheap relative to capital, it becomes economically infeasible to substitute it for capital. Think of licking a stamp. You could buy a complex machine that does it for you, or, alternatively, you could lick it yourself. Obviously, for the average letter user, taking five seconds out of your day is the cheaper (overall) option. But consider car production, you could make a normal (everyday) car. But it takes hundreds of man hours, requires sophisticated machinery and the materials are not exactly cheap. For the average person it's cheaper (much much cheaper for me) to substitute all that labour for a capital intensive Toyota car plant. (I could make a car, it wouldn't be all that great, it would take rather a long time, but I could do it. However, the loss of wages to me, would be significantly more than what it would cost for me to order a car from Toyota.) Thus, in the absence of cheap labour, you would expect to see capital substitution on a far greater scale than you would otherwise see under slavery.

So, essentially, what you're saying is that if the slave trade had not emerged, we would've had Steampunk?

...Bugger.

 

[innonimatu]

I don't think so. Technology didn't necessarily develop just because there is a shortage of labour. Arguably most of America "suffered" a shortage of labour under the native americans, but that didn't led to many technical innovations. People may very well be content with making the better of what they have, especially as shortages of labour tend to mean high living standards all around. Why should contented people strive for change? Material scarcity creates need for change. Labour scarcity? It should, according to general capitalist theory. But capitalism is not hardwired into humanity.

 

[Masada]

Fine, lets give that to you. All it does is shift my argument ahead a couple decades.

It does way more than that.

I don't care what increased the labour costs or when, but there needed to be cheap labour to develop an economy based on cheap labour.

You might as well be concluding that late Roman North African olive production suggests that olives can't be grown in anything except plantations, or that rice has to be grown in small plots by peasant farmers. There's simply nothing inherent to cotton that requires it to be produced on plantations by slaves - or for that matter with 'cheap' labour, whatever the hell that means. Like all things it benefits from economies of scale, but it's rare that things have to be produced in that fashion. Usually, conditions on the ground lead to a given economic condition prevailing, slaves made the plantation economy, without them you would expect to see a system like what predominated in the North which had higher labour costs (real wages), smaller plots, but which crucially still managed to remain competitive during the reference period. Furthermore, American labour was not, and has not ever been cheap. The principle advantage that America had over Europe in the production of agricultural goods was precisely that it had so much land. The land to labour ratio in America was skewed strongly towards land, while in Europe the reverse predominated. European workers thus commanded lower wages, while American workers commanded higher wages. For a simple explanation of what happened: supply of labour shifted to the left for Americans and to the right for Europeans. In short, the central premise being advanced here is wrong.

Then the removal of this cheap labour forces innovation to use labour more efficiently, thereby reducing its cost once again.

Precisely my point. In the absence of slave labour, the planters were forced to substitute labour for capital. But there's reason to suppose that without slave labour, planters would never had developed and that the small farmers who replaced them, starved of labour would have done what they had done in the North innovated. By which, I don't just mean invented, that's a small part of it, but brought those innovations into intensive use. The best explanation I can think of this: Ferrari's are powerful cars, very few cars are Ferraris, therefore while we have invented the technology necessary to make a Ferrari we are hardly using it intensively. In much the same way, Niger has some computers, but Niger cannot be said to be an information technology hub. That's the distinction. And it's an important one to consider. There might have been technology that would have improved cotton production, but the South was slow to implement them and when it did, it was seldom intensively. The North was the opposite, it was quick to innovate and did so intensively. Slavery was the chief reason for why this was the case, cheap labour raised the relative cost of capital and thus disinclined planters to implement it.

Without a ready supply of cheap labour,

???

The economy devlops (better word than "designed") with higher labour costs in mind, then you either another cause for a significant rise in labour costs. There is no reason to innovate if there is benefit from the innovation.

What is this? I don't know.

Or the price of cotton remains higher, but demand lower (people make do with less and wool is comparitively cheaper) and you develop the plantations on a smaller scale which can sustain the higher labour costs (and find it more difficult to implement any innovations).

You've lost me completely. This is either way beyond my poor economics knowledge, or your memory of that one undergrad course you took is shaky. Considering my job and degree, I'm inclined to believe the latter. I think you need to go back, finish your missing paragraph and look back at your undergraduate textbook. Or just rewrite, whatever. I just can't respond to these paragraphs, if I (a) can't understand what is being said, (b) can't follow the economic logic being advanced and (c) can't trace it on even a basic supply and demand curve.

So, essentially, what you're saying is that if the slave trade had not emerged, we would've had Steampunk?

I'm just saying that the South wouldn't have lagged so far behind in applications of capital to agricultural problems. Slaves provided a nifty stopgap that ******** technological development and application, by depressing labour costs, which raised the relative cost of capital to solve problems. Most of the stuff that the plantations adopted was basically flogged from other industries, adapted to cotton and then re-branded as new. Usually, this occurred long after the former had been invented and been actively employed elsewhere, often in the North. Consider digging a ditch: if it costs me 5 cents to hire a man to dig ditches per year and 50 cents to hire a ditch digging robot that does the same amount of work, I'm going to go with the cheaper option. It isn't as clear cut as this of course, capital and labour costs are typically mixed into a job. But consider a grass cutting job. If labour was really really cheap I might hire five men and equip them with manual push mowers. If labour was just cheap I might hire two men and give them rotary mowers, which cost more than the push mowers but improve productivity to a level comparable that which I can achieve with five men. The mix might be 80% labour and 20% capital in the first instance, and because of the higher relative cost of labour it might be 50% labour and 50% capital in the second mix. The basic point to take out of this is that all problems can be solved with an application of a combination of labour or capital. The South went strong into labour because it was dirt cheap, while the North didn't have that luxury and adopted a mix skewed more towards capital to solve problems.

I don't think so. Technology didn't necessarily develop just because there is a shortage of labour. Arguably most of America "suffered" a shortage of labour under the native americans, but that didn't led to many technical innovations. People may very well be content with making the better of what they have, especially as shortages of labour tend to mean high living standards all around. Why should contented people strive for change? Material scarcity creates need for change. Labour scarcity? It should, according to general capitalist theory. But capitalism is not hardwired into humanity.

I'm not arguing that. My point is much more narrow and far more intuitive. Refer above. I'm just using contemporary explanations because I honestly don't think any of you would be amenable to me using more technically precise terms, or definitions than I already am. And even those limited excursions have caused definitional problems. Again, refer above.

 

[Happyman!!]

without slave trade Africa would have been a lot better =P