Slavery in the British Empire and Its Legacy in the Modern World (el. knyga) (skaityta knyga) | knygos.lt

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Slavery in the British Empire and its Legacy in the Modern World, by Stephen Cushion, situates the crime of enslavement within the business practices that place profit before people. Not only did slavery pollute British politics for over two hundred years, but it still contaminates its contemporary capitalist system. The exploitation of enslaved labor stimulated capitalist expansion during and after the bloody reign of the British Empire—at the cost of war, inter-imperialist rivalry, Indigenous genocide, and the murderous suppression of the rights of the enslaved. To this day many of the direst problems still facing the world—from horrific economic inequality to rampant environmental decline—have their origins in the institution of slavery.

Correcting these wrongs will cost money. Perversely, the resources needed for reparations are abundant. The institution of slavery was intertwined with the textile, food, agriculture, construction, transportation, infrastructure and insurance industries, all of which continue to benefit from the unique combination of exploitation and expropriation perpetrated by the slave system. Supported by patterns of conspicuous consumption by the wealthy, the institution of slavery was anchored in the same banking and commodity trading systems that exist today. There is no shortage of funds in the coffers of the institutions which perpetuated these harms, since, as Cushion explains, Britain’s wealthiest institutions never ceased to profit from industries derived from the slave-based production of cotton, coffee, sugar, and copper. Still, neither European and North American governments nor businesses have properly addressed their role.

Cushion focuses his attention on the current-day legacies of slavery, not only in terms of the devastating material, economic, social, and cultural damage which haunts the Western landscape and psyche, but in terms of resistance to the present-day consequences of slavery–such as the campaign of the people of the Caribbean and the African Caribbean diaspora for reparations. Ultimately, Slavery in the British Empire and its Legacy in the Modern World goes beyond cataloguing past wrongs, to engaging with the legacies of slavery—featuring above all the defiant response of those it wronged.