Capitalism & Slavery: Exploring the Interconnections - Essay Sample

Introduction

Capitalism is dependent on slavery in America; slavery was crucial due to the exploding of the slave trade. Also, insurance firms and banks capitalized slave trade and underwrote it. Slavery exists in the twenty-First century in various parts of the world. In faceless practices in the market, slavery is carried out in different prevalent forms. However, its protagonists affirm that slavery brings constant returns. This paper sets out to highlights capitalism and slavery. Other sections of the essay will be; Why in the New World context Williams think Smith's argument is irrelevant, How this dominant challenge idea to progress, the Comparison and difference of Williams' analysis of the economic staple crop production realities in the New World with the colonial moral ideal of Conrad's work 'bringing light (civilization) into darkness (savagery).'

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Why Does Williams Think Smith's Argument is Irrelevant to the New World Context?

According to William, Smith's argument is irrelevant as it is against slavery on moral and economic grounds in the new world context. Smith argues that not based on the institution of slavery, the invisible hands usually depend on industrial societies. Smith elaborates this argument in that the unfortunate individuals and the slaves will tend to have similar misery as the wealth of the rich escalates. In the new world of capitalism explained by William, Smith's argument does not fit though it sounds sensible. William describes the slave trade wealth as well as offering reasonable correlation between wealth generation and slave trade by showing how capital came to the English ports. For example, William illustrates the slave trade capital and the available overseas market on how the industrial revolution defined the introduction of cost reductions on technologies. Also, William argues that the opening of the new technology resulted from the profits made from the slave trade. William states that the emerge of secondary production development ended the slave trade. The development of secondary production made individuals concentrate on essentials ways of wealth generation (Williams, 1994).

Furthermore, William did not appreciate the way Smith expressed his ideas through pessimisms on social and economic concepts. The prolonged period and the effect of the slave trade made Smith think that it was never going to end in society. William considers Smith's idea as old-fashioned as it characterized slaves to the significant wealth generation and other industries such as refining, coal mining, gun making, banking, and manufacturing. Unlike the Smith ideological superstructure, William outlines the slave trade as an essential tool of economic infrastructure. Also, William, claims that the declining slave trade introduced humanization when the slavery institutes had no economic sustainability from the slave trade. The decrease in slave trade rates made Britain recognize losses. In England, the issue of overproduction due to feeble economic grounds was unachievable, which resulted in a decline in the slave trade. Therefore, William highlights the aspect of financial slavery rather than the racial element.

How This Challenge the Dominant Idea to Progress

Williams' Capitalism and Slavery offers a thoughtful analysis of how the slavery system was unfavorable for Black Africans and gainful for Natives, and even years after the institution ended. The study gives educators with useful departure points for teaching about a systematical institution that relied on depriving a particular group for the benefit of another, and how it has molded today's society. The diversity advocated in Williams' works has effects not only for US history but for the past in the state.

Slavery standardized maritime in the sea and commercial jurisprudence, like insurance. Slavery encouraged specific areas to improve their comparative advantage, for example, the use of salt as a fish preservative in New England. Attempting, opposing, or defending slavery to enhance and regulate has resulted in the moral philosophy, Christianity transformation, and international law. Research into how to perfect the forced transport of beings, or to make the conveyance more lucrative, steered to advances in medicine that benefit us today all.

Slavery created the modern world, and today divisions, both concrete and abstract, are the product of servitude. Slavery is something that cannot be surpassed or remembered recalled. In the world today, slavery is the motor of the inconsistency of public dialogue, from great debates of American exceptionalism to the daily ridiculousness found on cable, in its coverage.

Moreover, Southern slavery was significant to American capitalism in various ways. Historians and scholar management discovered tabulations innovation in labor productivity and cost tabulations in recent years derived from plantations world. The works sites were unusual, and thus the owners liked to take complete control over their workers; hence they were able to account and reinvent the process of labor. In the mid-nineteenth century, no manufacturer enjoyed this kind of power.

According to William, Europe experienced a dramatic transformation towards slavery and modernity after giving trade infrastructure as well as a material basis. As a result of new global industrial capitalism, William discovered that the emotion of antislavery hastened more efficient support and less capital intensive commodity Production method. In this case, Slavery was no longer wanted. The ideological system followed the economic base. Labor oppression continued post-liberation in the form of wage peonage, and sharecropping as former slaves rapidly grew. In the end, modern agricultural methods, technological change, and industrial works succeeded old-fashioned agrarianism and abolished the older feudalistic slavery relationships.

Compare and Contrast Williams' Analysis of The Economic Realities of Staple Crop

Williams reflects how the freed individuals struggled after the end of slave trade encounter thus his focus is on analyzing the slave trade period and the economic realities in the New World of staple crop production .likewise, Conrad's colonial moral ideal of civilization into savagery mirrors slave trade and darkness in the humanity at the time (Sven, 2014).

Both works display punitive slave treatment. Under the native custody, Conrad describes how the slaves died and suffered due to malnourishment. In America, the slaves remained in the slave-owner custody and seen as useful commodities to its owner. The slaves received harsh treatment while others withdrew their help, thus facing a slow death. Also, in case of any sickness, the slave could starve to death. Natives received royalty treatment despite being primitives while the slaves remained in their custody, dying from starvation and distress. Hence, William illustrates the economic crop production realities in the South that exposed the liberated individuals into anguish and torture, making them live slavery life.

Similarly, the two works outline how the distortion of land benefited the citizens. According to Conrad, the mixture of greed and demoralization effect of the wealthy resulted in the worst in individuals. The frontiers were subjected to harsh treatments and recognized as slaves; thus, they stole ivory from the natives as well as raping the land. Additionally, William demonstrates how the liberated people's aspired to own a land with system contributing incentives for the outstanding share of the segmented area. The land provided spur recovery of the economy as well as the commercial goods. The economic reality forced the freed individuals to slavery subjecting them to sharecropping, which was believed to be leasing land mimicking of the single-family farms at a higher rate due to the transformation of the existing business farming systems. The sharecropping aspect was a kind of enslavement whereby a sharecropper could gather profit to enable him to buy land, thus improving land misconceptions. One would own property after some time by entering a sharecropping agreement to generate a working land illusion. The system became servitude, thus making it a reality that none of the sharecropping contracts steered to any land ownership.

At the end of the nineteenth century, over 80% of Black Africans lived around the cotton belt in the rural area. Through crop production; black made a living by working as laborers, tenants though they received a low payment that could not afford to pay for their rent or food. The need to have social and economic configurations as well as substituting the tools used in agricultural production arose at that time. The south was composed of staple foods and cotton farming; thus, the small farms given to specific blacks failed to meet the real needs. The farms dedicated to particular owners instilled fear in injuring the subsistence production economic growth and the decline of the slave trade from recovering in a nation.

Civilization shows the difference between Conrad and William's works. Through the savages theme, which was not captured by William's work, Conrad presented civilization hope. In Conrad's work, he created distinct divisions during the colonialism period between the dark and light as well as the White and black. Thus Conrad and William present two halves characters in a single soul. The tale indicates that the awful treatment influenced William's emotions during his employment period in the ivory company. The works of Conrad shows an imagined state of Romans motivated by promotion ideation to face the darkness. The fictions show the number of individuals who would have succumbed to the secret wilderness life in the hearts of harsh persons.

William proposes explanations of the historical events that led to the economic realities but does not provide recommendations on how to free from these facts. Concord gives suggestions to follow regarding humankind at times of civilization. He cautions on the risks and the difficulties to be encountered until the achievement of humanity. Concord mentions helplessness, surrender, longing to escape, and the hate in the battle. He suggests a consideration of the issue of progress, which brings light on the inherited darkness on human inclinations, middle jungle, and pretense where the natural tendencies offered fertile land.

According to William, the system was built in a way that oppressed the freed people despite them working hard to make their living. For example, the system ignored urgent needs for adjustment in cropping style frustrating the liberated individuals hence enslaving them further, thus moving into the deals of sharecropping.

Reference

Sven, Becker. Slavery and Capitalism. The chronicle of Higher Education. 2014

Williams, Eric Eustace. Capitalism & Slavery. University of North Carolina Press, 1994