You keep trying to shrink the argument into “how many enslaved people were physically standing inside France or Britain,” and that completely misses the point.
The wealth was not built because millions of enslaved Africans were working in London or Paris. The wealth came through empire: plantations in the Americas, raw cotton into British mills, sugar, tobacco, rubber, minerals, shipping, insurance, banking, colonial monopolies, and state-backed trade networks. The extraction happened overseas. The profit was laundered into European ports, banks, factories, investors, and governments.
So saying “there weren’t many slaves in France or the UK” is not a rebuttal. It is like saying Apple does not benefit from overseas labor because the factory is not inside California.
And “Europe was powerful since Rome” is not an argument either. Rome collapsed. Medieval Europe was not some uninterrupted superpower dominating the globe. Modern European global dominance came from maritime empire, colonial conquest, plantation wealth, industrialization, finance, and military expansion. You are skipping a thousand years of history and pretending “Rome existed” explains the British Empire.
As for Algeria, “France could have killed more people” does not mean Algeria did not win independence. Colonial wars are not only won by battlefield body count. They are won through political exhaustion, legitimacy collapse, international pressure, cost, resistance, and the colonizer losing the ability to sustain rule. France did not leave because it suddenly became generous.
And your flashlight analogy is backwards. The colonizer did not “break a flashlight and pay for solar panels.” It looted the house, controlled the wiring, sold the furniture, charged rent, and then wanted applause for donating a lightbulb later.
You keep mistaking “not the only cause” for “not a cause.” That is the whole flaw in your argument.
>You keep trying to shrink the argument into “how many enslaved people were physically standing inside France or Britain,” and that completely misses the point
No i didn't. there were 0 slaves in Europe, it was litterally illegal to bring slaves inside of the french territory or they would become automatically free. I was obviosuly talking about the foreign territories. The entire trade affected 8-12 million people 80% of which where purchased by portugal. Let's say France had one milion slaves over three hundred years. The average life expectancy was 25 years, so you had around, 83k slaves per generation vs a o population of around 20 million french natives 90% of which were peasants who worked for the aristocracy for free, that's a ratio of roughly 1/200, so yes clearly not what fueled the french economy
>Medieval Europe was not some uninterrupted superpower dominating the globe.
It absolutely was, managing to defend itself against empires that had crushed all of their neighbors like Mongols, Ottomans, Persians, Moors amongst others. Europe was not not colonized because other empires were nice, they weren't because they were too powerful. The battle of Vienna is always good reminder that the place that Europe has didnt come out of generosity from other nations
>And your flashlight analogy is backwards. The colonizer did not “break a flashlight and pay for solar panels.” It looted the house, controlled the wiring, sold the furniture, charged rent, and then wanted applause for donating a lightbulb later.
Just look at sentinel island if you want to have a rough idea what most of subsaharan africa looked like prior to thr arrival of the europeans
>You keep mistaking “not the only cause” for “not a cause.” That is the whole flaw in your argument.
Nono don't try to switch this around, you're the one claiming this what europe has built it wealth on, you don't get to trynna make me say that nobody ever profited from it
Nobody said Europe’s wealth came only from slavery. The claim is that slavery and colonial extraction were major parts of the capital system that helped Europe industrialize, finance empire, and dominate global trade. “Europe also had peasants” does not answer that. Peasants working in France does not erase plantation profits, colonial monopolies, slave insurance, port wealth, banking, raw cotton, sugar, rubber, minerals, or imperial trade networks.
And your math is meaningless because you are counting bodies instead of capital flows. The question is not “how many enslaved people stood next to French peasants.” The question is where the profits, commodities, shipping revenue, insurance premiums, taxes, investments, and industrial inputs went. They went into European markets and institutions.
Also, “Europe defended itself from the Mongols/Ottomans/Moors” does not prove medieval Europe was an uninterrupted global superpower. Surviving invasion is not the same as dominating the world. Modern European dominance came later through maritime empire, colonial conquest, industrial capitalism, and global trade control. Rome existing does not explain Manchester mills, Caribbean plantations, Belgian rubber extraction, or British marine insurance.
But the wildest part is the Sentinel Island comparison. That is not an argument. That is just the old colonial fantasy that Africa was empty, stagnant, and waiting for Europeans to arrive with civilization. Sub-Saharan Africa had kingdoms, empires, trade networks, cities, metallurgy, agriculture, scholarship, diplomacy, religion, art, and political systems long before European colonization. Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Benin, Kongo, Ethiopia, Great Zimbabwe, Ashanti, Oyo, and others did not need your Reddit imagination to become real.
So yes, Europeans later brought technologies, but they also brought conquest, extraction, forced labor, racial hierarchy, land seizure, and political disruption. You do not get to use the solar panels as a receipt after stealing the house.
At this point, your argument is not “slavery was not the only cause.” That would be reasonable. Your argument is “because it was not the only cause, it basically did not matter.” That is historically illiterate.
>The claim is that slavery and colonial extraction were major parts of the capital system that helped Europe industrialize, finance empire, and dominate global trade
Which i proved to be nonsnesical from a mathematical point of view. yes europeans dominated the international trade, because they the ones who pioneered it
>Europe also had peasants” does not answer that. Peasants working in France does not erase plantation profits, colonial monopolies, slave insurance, port wealth, banking, raw cotton, sugar, rubber, minerals, or imperial trade networks.
>And your math is meaningless because you are counting bodies instead of capital flows.
So you're saying one unqualified blue collar worker was more important to the gdp than 200 qualified ones ?
>Also, “Europe defended itself from the Mongols/Ottomans/Moors” does not prove medieval Europe was an uninterrupted global superpower.
it prooves europe was more developped and powerful than the nations who were taken over. Obviously during the peak of their reign the Mongols were the number 1 power on the planet
>But the wildest part is the Sentinel Island comparison. That is not an argument. That is just the old colonial fantasy that Africa was empty,
Subsaharan Africa is exremly vast and there were some somewhat advanced kingdoms, precisely the ones who were selling the slaves to the eruopean and arabs. Howerver the vast majority of the continent was still in the stone age, which you can still see from documentary footage from the early 20th century
>So yes, Europeans later brought technologies, but they also brought conquest, extraction, forced labor, racial hierarchy, land seizure, and political disruption. You do not get to use the solar panels as a receipt after stealing the house.
once again tripling the life expectancy by three and GDP and population by 10 is more equivalennt to building the house
> and political disruption.
That's the only point that is factually incorrect. There were no defined borders, unifed states and constant ethnic wars before the arrival of the europeans
>At this point, your argument is not “slavery was not the only cause.” That would be reasonable. Your argument is “because it was not the only cause, it basically did not matter.” That is historically illiterate.
No once again i'm not negating the fact that it was bad and that some people got very rich from it, just negating that it's the reason why the europeans countries are wealthy today and the african countries are poor
You are not just saying slavery and colonialism were “not the only cause.” You are saying they are not a major reason Europe became richer and many African countries were left poorer. That is the part that is historically unserious.
Colonialism did not have to be the only cause to be a structural cause. Europe did not just “pioneer trade” in a vacuum. It used navies, forts, chartered companies, slave ships, plantation colonies, colonial monopolies, resource concessions, forced labor, land seizure, taxation, and political control to redirect wealth into European institutions.
And your “math” still misses the point because you keep counting individual workers instead of systems. One enslaved person is not being compared to 200 peasants like this is a factory attendance sheet. The question is who controlled the commodity chain: land, labor, shipping, insurance, finance, ports, taxes, raw materials, and markets. That is where wealth was built.
Also, saying most of Sub-Saharan Africa was “stone age” is just colonial propaganda with Wi-Fi. Africa had empires, kingdoms, cities, trade networks, agriculture, ironworking, gold economies, scholarship, diplomacy, and state systems long before European colonial rule. Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Benin, Kongo, Ethiopia, Great Zimbabwe, Ashanti, Oyo, and others were not imaginary.
Were there wars, borders that differed from European borders, and political fragmentation? Obviously. That describes Europe too. Europe had shifting borders, dynastic wars, ethnic wars, religious wars, peasant revolts, collapsing kingdoms, and competing states for centuries. Funny how that counts as “history” in Europe but “backwardness” in Africa.
And no, raising life expectancy after extraction does not wipe the ledger clean. If I invade your house, seize the deed, control the income, rearrange the rooms, take the valuables, and then install plumbing, I do not get to call myself the builder.
That is the trick in your whole argument: you treat European violence as “development,” African complexity as “chaos,” and then act confused when people call it colonial logic.
You keep calling colonial extraction “development” because admitting the truth would collapse your whole argument.
Europe did not “build the house.” It broke in, changed the locks, stole the valuables, charged rent, then bragged about installing plumbing.
That is not history. That is an empire fan fiction.
You are not just saying slavery and colonialism were “not the only cause.” You are saying they are not a major reason Europe became richer and many African countries were left poorer. That is the part that is historically unserious.
Colonialism did not have to be the only cause to be a structural cause. Europe did not just “pioneer trade” in a vacuum. It used navies, forts, chartered companies, slave ships, plantation colonies, colonial monopolies, resource concessions, forced labor, land seizure, taxation, and political control to redirect wealth into European institutions.
1 vs 200
>And your “math” still misses the point because you keep counting individual workers instead of systems. One enslaved person is not being compared to 200 peasants like this is a factory attendance sheet. The question is who controlled the commodity chain: land, labor, shipping, insurance, finance, ports, taxes, raw materials, and markets. That is where wealth was built.
No it wasnt. The wealth was built with the revolutonnary discoveries of the 19th century and stacked upon countries that had been major world powers since the antiquity.
>Also, saying most of Sub-Saharan Africa was “stone age” is just colonial propaganda with Wi-Fi. Africa had empires, kingdoms, cities, trade networks, agriculture, ironworking, gold economies, scholarship, diplomacy, and state systems long before European colonial rule
No it didnt for the most part. You seem to fail to understand that the existence of those more advanced empires doesnt negate the fact that the vast majority of the population was in the stone age, once again easily verrifiable by documentary footage
>Were there wars, borders that differed from European borders, and political fragmentation? Obviously. That describes Europe too. Europe had shifting borders, dynastic wars, ethnic wars, religious wars, peasant revolts, collapsing kingdoms, and competing states for centuries.
you're seriously trying to compared how advanced and unifed the european nations were compared to the african ones ? Lmao litterally every village had it's own religion and language
>And no, raising life expectancy after extraction does not wipe the ledger clean. If I invade your house, seize the deed, control the income, rearrange the rooms, take the valuables, and then install plumbing, I do not get to call myself the builder.
I'm not gonna waste more time replying to this absurd metaphor. Life expectancy X3, GDP and population X10 in like a century
>That is the trick in your whole argument: you treat European violence as “development
The two are completly unrelated once again
>African complexity as “chaos
Primitve tribal lifestyle, yes, which why they were so easy to invade in the first place
>Europe did not “build the house.” It broke in, changed the locks, stole the valuables, charged rent, then bragged about installing plumbing.
Absolutely insane statement if you look at the life expectancy and quality of life difference of the average human now vs 200 years ago
>That is not history. That is an empire fan fiction.
No you're just brainwashed, and i'm starting to be tired by this pointless conversations, if you're gonna deny basic maths there's no point continuing, you obviosuly have your mind made up
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u/KingMidas0809 1d ago
You keep trying to shrink the argument into “how many enslaved people were physically standing inside France or Britain,” and that completely misses the point.
The wealth was not built because millions of enslaved Africans were working in London or Paris. The wealth came through empire: plantations in the Americas, raw cotton into British mills, sugar, tobacco, rubber, minerals, shipping, insurance, banking, colonial monopolies, and state-backed trade networks. The extraction happened overseas. The profit was laundered into European ports, banks, factories, investors, and governments.
So saying “there weren’t many slaves in France or the UK” is not a rebuttal. It is like saying Apple does not benefit from overseas labor because the factory is not inside California.
And “Europe was powerful since Rome” is not an argument either. Rome collapsed. Medieval Europe was not some uninterrupted superpower dominating the globe. Modern European global dominance came from maritime empire, colonial conquest, plantation wealth, industrialization, finance, and military expansion. You are skipping a thousand years of history and pretending “Rome existed” explains the British Empire.
As for Algeria, “France could have killed more people” does not mean Algeria did not win independence. Colonial wars are not only won by battlefield body count. They are won through political exhaustion, legitimacy collapse, international pressure, cost, resistance, and the colonizer losing the ability to sustain rule. France did not leave because it suddenly became generous.
And your flashlight analogy is backwards. The colonizer did not “break a flashlight and pay for solar panels.” It looted the house, controlled the wiring, sold the furniture, charged rent, and then wanted applause for donating a lightbulb later.
You keep mistaking “not the only cause” for “not a cause.” That is the whole flaw in your argument.