Over the last few weeks, I have been reading Simon Schama's book, Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves, and the American Revolution, in bits and pieces. It chronicles the rise of the anti-slavery movement in England, the response of slaves in the colonies to the Revolutionary War, the promises made by the British Army to many slaves, and the attempts to establish a colony of freed slaves in Sierra Leone.
While I have read only about 75% of the book, it is a tragic story. Slavery itself was a horrific thing, but the people involved made the situation much worse. The story is one of promises made and broken to the freed slaves, of unscrupulous white men lying and cheating them, of those same white men being protected by the laws, all of which served to deepen the tragedy.
Through it all, so far, it has been interesting to read, and be reminded of, the rationales used by the people in power - the whites - for keeping a people enslaved. Most of the reasons had economic factors. "We cannot free the slaves because to do so would ruin the sugar cane industry, the tobacco industry, the cotton industry, etc." "We cannot give this particular land to them, even though we promised it and signed a contract to do so, because it is too valuable. They can have this other land, which is not as good." In many ways, I feel like I am reading the story of how the European settlers have always sought to gain the absolute advantage for themselves in their dealings with indigenous peoples or with slaves.
There was indeed a strong free market, capitalistic, pressure for the white landowners to keep things as they were. That is why people of conscience and morality have to look beyond the free market reasons for taking, or not taking, a particular action to try to discern what the right thing would be. I wonder if we have gotten any better at doing the right thing. I wonder if we are any better than the slave owners in the 18th century? Or, is it just the same old stuff?
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Same old stuff
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2 comments:
Both the health care debate and the cap and trade issue seem to lend themselves to the same type of argument - there is the right thing to do and there are potential economic effects - for some, the economic self interest arguments outweigh the right thing to do. It is fascinating that the most vocal opposition we see to making health care more universal are older people on Medicare - the poor and the growing middle class population who can't afford healthcare are frighteningly silent. And on the environmental issues, there is an argument that we just can't afford to save the planet - a little short sighted at best. In retrospect, the controversies of the past, like slavery and civil rights, seem to have clearcut right sides to them. It probably didn't feel like that at the time.
Amen brother! Lets put an end to capitalism and free markets and self interest and freedom! No one really appreciates those things anyway. Didn't Churchhill say that democracies of free men were the worst possible forms of government?
Maybe we need to look to Africa, that seems to be the populated continent that has been least touched by capitalism, free markets, property rights, the rule of law, and other corrupt modern concepts.
It is probably just a coincidence that the despots and dictators that have ruled most African countries have largely acted in their own self interest, but where they have emerged, at least they have freed their peoples form what otherwise might have been perpetual civil war. The most enterprising ones probably even sold some of their trouble makers and opponents into slavery!
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