freediver wrote on Apr 30
th, 2016 at 10:21am:
Do you think European opposition to slavery began in the 19th century?
What influence do you think the identification with slaves through the story of exodus has had on the enlightenment?.
None. European powers did not identify as slaves. Britains, remember, "never never never shall be slaves".
Never ever, eh?
Britain didn’t have to give up slavery. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it had a labour surplus. Women did the domestic work, men did the manual labour and both worked in the factories that kicked off the industrial revolution.
Simply, Britain had no need for slave labour. In the colonies, it used indentured labour - Tamils, Cantonese, Kanacks. Australia was an aberration in the use of convict labour. Australia as a penal settlement was a short experiment, quickly abandoned.
The Americas relied on slave labour, and at the time of abolition, only a few British companies invested there.
Even in America at the time of the civil war, slavery had declined as a major source of labour. While Christianity and Enlightenment ideals were certainly refered to - by both sides - slavery was killed off because of economic reasons.
It was interesting to watch Tarrantino’s move, Django Unchained. It showed the vast state-wide infrastructure necessary to keep (and discipline) slaves in the deep south. Think today how much it costs to keep prisoners. Alternatives to detention are far cheaper, and far more effective in preventing recidivism.
These ideas go back to the atheist Jeremy Bentham who, along with penal reform, was a strident campaigner against slavery. The utilitarians showed the economic importance of supporting and training the lower classes, and it was this movement more than any other that influenced the abolition of slavery.
Utilitarianism was also the forerunner to modern.economics, with its creed, the greatest good to the greatest number, still the defining purpose of economics.