[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

Slavery is ANTI-CAPITALISM, by every sense of the word. Slavery destroyed capitalism and the economy of the south, because it lowered wages. It did well for the wealthy upper-class, but left most in the dirt. If you have a lot of people you aren't paying, it means that those who are free are being paid very little for their work, because someone could get a slave to do that job for free.

This part of your post supports why slavery was an economic threshold and how the exploitation of cheap, slave labor served to advance capitalist exploits by minimizing input and maximizing output. Even if you don't want to articulate it as "capitalism," the central point is that slavery was about economics and the exploitation of slave labor. [[Of course, it's more "fun" to think about it as racism and use it as an example of racism in North America but what came out of slavery is a better example of racism than the the initial stages of slavery, itself.]]

For instance, isn't capitalism reinforced through the new immigration's exploitation of cheap labor? The wages are kept low so the capitalists can be well-off while those who are forced to sell their labor are paid very little for it. That's just a contemporary spin (and you can arguably add visible race and gender effects to the mix now more than you could 200-300 years ago) but the story is all the same.

But I appreciate your furthering my argument.

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

Furthermore, one realizes that the Africans put themselves in this spot because the tribes sold rival hostage tribes to slave traders. Earlier in this trade, the Arabs would take the slaves from Africa to Europe, but Europe abolished the trade.

All of this means what in reference to the pursuit and exploitation of cheap labor? What's embedded in all of this?

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

I believe you needed to understand the economical and historical aspects of the situation.

Don't be so quick to get snippy. Your rebuttal isn't sound.

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

This is difficult to prove. People don't all of a sudden say "oh, these aren't real people so we can enslave them." There must have been plenty of racial feelings waay before slavery began. It may have evolved further to accomodate the slave trade, but it didn't all of a sudden begin to reinforce slaves.

It isn't really difficult to prove but either way you are definitely missing the crux of the argument and misinterpreting what I posted. Start with where I said "The North American racist ideologies" (this distinction is key) and go from there.