A popular response to anticapitalist discourse is that capitalism is intrinsically good but it was corrupted at some point in the recent past and whatever anticapitalists are complaining about is really due to that fall from grace rather than capitalism itself. The election of Ronald Reagan is popular for this.
People who sincerely believe this are so historically illiterate that it's impossible to have a serious discussion with them so I don't (usually) engage, and when I do it's disappointing. But if they could talk sense about it what I'd really want to hear from them is when do they think capitalism got good? A fall from grace implies a prior state of grace and when was that for capitalism?
For hundreds of years, since its beginning, capitalism was fueled by slavery, murder, torture, armed robbery. Marx's famous characterization of its birth as "dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt" is an understatement. When did this end, do they think?
I mean, explicit slavery is mostly illegal, although that only happened generally within my great-grandparents' generation, so not that long ago, but slavery was pretty seamlessly replaced with systems of exploitation that were and are only visibly less violent. This has to be the case because the profits never shrank. When did capitalism get good in order to be able to get bad in the 1980s?
Anyway, yes, this is a subtoot. Since they're incapable of responding sensibly I'm shouting it into the void instead.
British Caribbean slavery, cornerstone of the British empire, was characterized by extreme & brutal exploitation. It yielded substantial wealth for a privileged few and the British government, but inflicted immense suffering on the majority of enslaved individuals, making them the most overworked & harshly treated people in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. This history had enduring consequences.
Interesting fact of the day: Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation only freed the southern slaves and kept the north slaves legal and enslaved. It was a sort "screw you to the south" more so than to abolish slavery.
Lincoln only supported and pushed through the 13th amendment once slavery was voluntarily abolished at the state level first.
It would appear that “former Tory MP Antoinette Sandbach has threatened the University of Cambridge with legal action after a historian named her as a descendant of merchants who enslaved his ancestors.”
In 1640, John Punch, a Black-American indentured servant, received a sentence of lifelong slavery for running away to Maryland with two white indentured servants. Unlike Punch, the two white servants were given only an additional four years of servitude as punishment. Punch’s case served as the starting point for the establishment of race-based slavery through legal means in British North America.
Normal People: What was the civil war fought over?
White Supremacists: It was about states' rights.
Normal People: States' rights to do what exactly?
White Supremacists: To make and enforce their own laws.
Normal People: Laws regarding what?
White Supremacists: Property and theft.
Normal People: What kind of property? Theft of what?
White Supremacists: Well, people were stealing slaves and taking them to free states.
Normal People: Who was stealing slaves?
White Supremacists: The slaves were stealing themselves by running to the North and those damn Yankees didn't want to send them back.
Normal People: So what did the South do about it?
White Supremacists: They got a federal law passed in 1851, that forced the Northern states to ignore their own laws against slavery and recognize the South's right to have escaped slaves sent back. It was called the Fugitive Slave Act.
Normal People: So you pushed for a new federal law to force states to ignore their own state laws and constitutions in the name of "states' rights", is that correct?
White Supremacists: Yep,
Normal People: Then what happened?
White Supremacists: Those damn Yankees got control of the house and the senate and the presidency and tried to ban slavery nationwide.
Normal People: So they wanted to use a federal law to force Southern states to change their laws, kind of like with the Fugitive Slave Act you pushed for a decade earlier, right?
White Supremacists: No, this was different because this time it effected the South.
Normal People: So what happened as a result?
White Supremacists: We decided to commit treason against the USA and start our own country to keep slaves.
Normal People: So you admit the Civil War was about slavery.
White Supremacists: No it was about states' rights. States have rights to own slaves but no rights to refuse to recognize slavery.
I know I don't shut up about this but frankly not enough #people are angry about the 5-day/40 hour workweek (and I am AWARE a lot of people #work even more than that). I feel like a lot more people should be absolutely furious that we only really have two days a week and some occasional hours in the evening to socialise, run errands, do chores, or relax.
It's no wonder so many people are profoundly lonely and disconnected from their #communities when maintaining a social life in what little free time we have is incredibly difficult. If you have kids, a second #job, a very long commute, or other responsibilities, it's nearly impossible.
We literally aren't meant to live like this and I'll never stop being shocked how many people just take it as the natural state of things and don't want to throw a brick through a #billionaire's window every time they think of it.
A 10-year-old girl working as a domestic help at a couple's house in southwest Delhi's Dwarka was allegedly beaten up by the two on Wednesday, following which a mob manhandled the duo.
A group of Democratic lawmakers has reintroduced a joint resolution to negate a clause in the 13th Amendment of the Constitution that permits slavery or involuntary servitude “as a punishment for crime.”
How a Grad Student Uncovered the Largest Known Slave Auction in the U.S.
Lauren Davila made a stunning discovery as a graduate student at the College of Charleston: an ad for a slave auction larger than any historian had yet identified. The find yields a new understanding of the enormous harm of such a transaction.
Ok #AtoZChallenge people, I did it again - here is a bonus "L" coin! This time featuring beautiful African scenes from an altruistically-founded country, which answers the question: "Did the USA have any African colonies?"
I hope you enjoy this piece, the information and the coin:
Governor DeSantis said slavery was a good thing and slaves received "personal benefits" from slavery, in the form of learned skills, and put that into school curriculum.
The owners of NBA basketball team Orlando Magic, who trace their fortunes back to the MLM Amway, then go on to donate $50,000 to DeSantis's Presidential bid, on behalf of their predominantly Black sports team, from the profit of their team's work and effort.
A church of Scotland was receiving donation money from slavery and even refused to apologise for such sinful offence. Ironic isn't it?
The Free Church of Scotland has been accused of “shameful” behaviour after it refused to apologise for receiving money from slavery worth millions of pounds today.
A Racist #Harvard Scientist Commissioned Photos of Enslaved People. One Possible Descendant Wants to Reclaim Their Story.
The images are among the oldest known #photographs of enslaved people in America.
Tamara Lanier’s fight to gain control of them shows there is no clear system in place to repatriate remains of captive Africans or objects associated with them.
Does anyone understand why Wrong #DeSantis thinks doubling down on advocacy of #slavery and whitewashed historical revisionism is a winning strategy? Does he not comprehend how bad the optics are of a #whiteNationalist stubbornly insisting that slavery was a benefit to the #slaves? I'm starting to think he doesn't actually want to be #president.
"What we choose to remember of Britain’s legacy of slavery does not seem to require adherence to historical fact, but refers instead to some axiomatic, felt understanding about who we are as a nation. And so the pursuit of historical truth becomes an “anti-British” blasphemy, seen as an attempt to vandalise the myth that Britain’s only relationship to slavery was to abolish it"
Ella Sinclair
'The rediscovery of a long-forgotten slave narrative would be notable enough. But this one, scholars who have seen it say, is unique for its global perspective and its uncensored fury, from a man living far outside the trans-Atlantic network of white abolitionists who often limited what the formerly enslaved could write about their experiences.'
Pilot, husband thrashed for 'torturing' 10-year-old domestic help in Delhi's Dwarka (www.tribuneindia.com)
A 10-year-old girl working as a domestic help at a couple's house in southwest Delhi's Dwarka was allegedly beaten up by the two on Wednesday, following which a mob manhandled the duo.
Ahead of Juneteenth, congressional lawmakers again seek to remove exception for slavery from US Constitution | CNN Politics (www.cnn.com)
A group of Democratic lawmakers has reintroduced a joint resolution to negate a clause in the 13th Amendment of the Constitution that permits slavery or involuntary servitude “as a punishment for crime.”