Jacobin's criticisms reek of ignorance, slaves were clearly the engine of the country if you understand how they were also financialized.
US slaves were securitized and used as collateral for loans/leverage/etc (slaves were the first assets to be securitized in America). People around Europe, in countries where slavery was illegal/unpopular, and the rest of the US could invest and profit from the trade without getting blood on their hands directly.
Each slave was approximately the value of a single family home (~1kg of gold) which means the British/Americans were able to "create" the value of 10,000,000 or so single family homes worth of wealth (~$1,171,852,800,000) out of thin air using African men, women, and children's backs before cotton production (which was more valuable than all other exports combined), other labor, and other investment activity is even accounted for. (Note: I'm not even counting the slaves that were domestically produced in this calculation, this is just the number brought across the Atlantic.)
Cotton misdirection is what Jacobin is attempting, they (or their quoted 'experts') lack awareness of the financial ecosystem that operated with slavery at its foundation. The volume of money/gold involved built the first stages of a large % of early US/UK/etc cities and accounted for a much larger % of GDP and US/UK wealth than Jacobin is attempting to claim.
That fact that I need to explain this very recent history to educated US adults is yet another signal that this history is inadequately covered and should be compulsory. There is nothing more American than understanding the foundations of American Capitalism, and its evolution from the slave economy.
Final note: Speaking of India, destroying Indian and Chinese cotton production allowed the US/UK to dominate 2/3rds+ of the global cotton trade, not technical know-how or advanced intelligence... it was mostly torture,murder, and destruction (historical record has many accounts of invaders breaking/cutting off hands of poor Indian/Chinese textile laborers en masse, at the time these workers produced the finest muslin and other textiles in human history).
Ghandi's promotion of textile (yarn/khaadi) production during his protests/boycotts wasn't a fluke/random...
US slaves were securitized and used as collateral for loans/leverage/etc (slaves were the first assets to be securitized in America). People around Europe, in countries where slavery was illegal/unpopular, and the rest of the US could invest and profit from the trade without getting blood on their hands directly.
Each slave was approximately the value of a single family home (~1kg of gold) which means the British/Americans were able to "create" the value of 10,000,000 or so single family homes worth of wealth (~$1,171,852,800,000) out of thin air using African men, women, and children's backs before cotton production (which was more valuable than all other exports combined), other labor, and other investment activity is even accounted for. (Note: I'm not even counting the slaves that were domestically produced in this calculation, this is just the number brought across the Atlantic.)
Cotton misdirection is what Jacobin is attempting, they (or their quoted 'experts') lack awareness of the financial ecosystem that operated with slavery at its foundation. The volume of money/gold involved built the first stages of a large % of early US/UK/etc cities and accounted for a much larger % of GDP and US/UK wealth than Jacobin is attempting to claim.
That fact that I need to explain this very recent history to educated US adults is yet another signal that this history is inadequately covered and should be compulsory. There is nothing more American than understanding the foundations of American Capitalism, and its evolution from the slave economy.
Final note: Speaking of India, destroying Indian and Chinese cotton production allowed the US/UK to dominate 2/3rds+ of the global cotton trade, not technical know-how or advanced intelligence... it was mostly torture,murder, and destruction (historical record has many accounts of invaders breaking/cutting off hands of poor Indian/Chinese textile laborers en masse, at the time these workers produced the finest muslin and other textiles in human history).
Ghandi's promotion of textile (yarn/khaadi) production during his protests/boycotts wasn't a fluke/random...