MODERNITY AND GLOBALISATIONGurminder K. Bhambra

SLAVERY AND THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION Week 11

OVERVIEW Sociological theories of industrial capitalism

were based on an account of society in which the logic of industrialism was internal to the societies changing

Commercial society, however, was based on interchange and interconnection with others

We reassess the accounts of industrialization by taking these interconnections into account trades of dispossession slavery de-industrialization and colonialism

SLAVERY IN COMMERCIAL SOCIETY By the middle of the 18th century a

substantial proportion of the European bourgeoisie (e.g. about 20% in France) generated and accumulated their wealth on the basis of activities connected to the slave trade and other trades of ‘dispossession’

Despite the economic significance of these trades, few thinkers regarded slavery as generative of commercial society or integral to its functioning and thus in need of integration into the explanations of commercial society

SLAVERY AND COMMERCIAL SOCIETY Not only did contemporary thinkers not

condemn slavery, but some also regarded it as positive

Adam Smith (1863 [1776]: 610), for example, writes: ‘as there are no grounds for thinking that really

free blacks will ever, of their own accord, undertake the drudgery of sugar planting, it would seem that compulsory or slave labour is not merely the cheapest that can be so employed, but that it is all but indispensable to the prosecution of the business’

GENERATION OF WEALTH As well as the internal dynamics

of wealth creation, commercial societies benefited from: the exploitation of resources in

other countries the institution of slave labour the trades of ‘dispossession’

The latter was the process by which Europeans gradually took over the trades of the peoples with which they came into contact e.g. the dispossession of the fur

trade from the Algonkins

SLAVE COLONIES Slave colonies contributed to

substantial increases in national wealth in 3 ways: the profits internal to the trade the expansion of external markets the supply of cheaper foodstuffs,

primarily, sugar and coffee

Saint Domingue, a French colony til the end of the 18th century, produced about 40% of the world’s sugar and over half its coffee

It was also the largest foreign market for the export of French goods

THE TRIANGULAR TRADE

Slave ships sailed from the home country

with a cargo of manufactured goods

these were exchanged at a profit on the coast of Africa for Africans

who were traded on the plantations in exchange for a cargo of colonial produce to be taken to the home country

(Eric Williams 1944: 51-2)

SLAVERY DEBATE In many accounts of the emergence of capitalism

the fundamental factor is the transformation of social relations internal to societies

The ‘triangular trade’, however, provided an important stream of capital accumulation which contributed significantly to the financing of the Industrial Revolution

This is not to suggest that slavery ‘caused’ the Industrial Revolution or was the only factor in its emergence or that without slavery the Industrial Revolution would not have occurred

It is to point to the importance of understanding colonial slavery as integral to the ensuing development of industrializing processes

INDIAN INDUSTRY Before World War I India had ‘one of the

world’s five largest cotton textile industries, one of the two largest jute industries, the third largest railway network, and a substantial coal mining industry’, however, Morris still argues that India ‘was a society which had none of the basic preconditions of an industrial revolution’ (1963: 614-6)

He suggests that the advances in India were all a consequence of the interventions and efforts of the British Raj, but the failure to industrialize fully had nothing to do with colonial policies

This, instead, was attributed to the general international economic context, population increase, and the unpredictability of the weather

DE-INDUSTRIALIZATION While there is an on-going debate about

the extent to which Europe contributed to the ‘de-industrialization’ of other areas, the debate rarely addresses its impact on the success of industrialization in Europe

These successes are endogenously created, achieved, and maintained

The British production of cotton textiles is often cited as a successful example of the factory mode of production

Yet, what is missing from this narrative is the simultaneous destruction of the cotton textile industry in other parts of the world which opened up those areas as markets for the export of British goods

COTTON Cotton is not indigenous to the UK It first came to Britain from India, as

did the knowledge of how to design, weave, and dye it

It was grown in the slave plantations of the southern states of the US and transported to Britain as part of the triangular trade in human beings (slave), raw materials (cotton), and consumer products

To understand its mechanization simply in terms of an evolution of a pre-existing British domestic system of production without recognizing its relationships with other parts of the world is seriously to distort its history

David Washbrook, 1997

IN SUM … The attempt to find evidence of a

special European significance, with Britain perhaps in a lead role, does not stand up to scrutiny

Pomeranz suggests that there was little to indicate that there was any Western European industrialization prior to the 1800s that would mark any difference to that of non-European economies with similar processes of commercialization and ‘proto-industrialization’ occurring in other core centres outside Europe

COLONIZER’S MODEL OF THE WORLD It is this belief in Eurocentric diffusionism –

the belief that Europe eternally advances, progresses, and modernizes while the rest of the world struggles to catch up – that James Blaut, among others, seeks to undermine

He argues that while it is commonly believed ‘that the economic and social modernization of Europe is fundamentally a result of Europe’s internal qualities’ what this does not take into consideration is the immense impact, and inter-relation, of these areas on the developments occurring within the geographical territories of Europe (1993: 2)

EUROCENTRIC DIFFUSIONISM

This interpretation downplays the influx of wealth from the colonies that

contributed to the initial ‘take-off’ period of the industrial revolution;

the involuntary contribution of slave- and bonded-labour to this process;

and the manner in which areas, such as Africa, Latin America, and India, were de-industrialized and deliberately under-developed in order to ensure market supremacy for British and European commodities

The one aspect that is missing from most explanations of the emergence of the Industrial Revolution is that of the relationship between any industrializing impulse and the ability to use ‘force’ both in terms of establishing forms of ‘unfree’ labour as well as expanding the reach of the market for one’s goods

Colonialism was integral to both