On Slavery

So I watched this short documentary on Vice about British aristocratic residences being built on the backs of slave labour. It is a typical left wing agitprop that shits on the traditional order and European history in my opinion.

In my opinion, every phenomenon needs to be seen in its historical context, including slavery and bondage. You know what else was built using slave labour? The pyramids and just about any other ancient monument. Slavery existed since the time of the Bronze Age, when the world was divided into those that had bronze and those that served those that had bronze.

Matter of fact, the vast majority of people in the pre-modern times lived in some kind of bondage, and there was very little social mobility. Everyone knew his place in the society. In the Middle Ages, the vast majority of people were enserfed peasants. In the cities, the guilds were hereditary affairs, where sons would inherit the father’s trade. The nobles were the warrior and priestly class, and they did not always live the high life of hunting and banquets. This high life came with the obligation of military service to the suzerain. The suzerain had to be strong because he could easily be deposed by ambitious rivals.

The transatlantic slave trade could be viewed as an injustice done against the Africans but the European choice of African slaves was motivated by their availability. Wars between the African kingdoms generated a large number of captives that the economies of the African states could not accommodate. It was wiser to sell them to the Europeans for exotic products such as guns. Without this African assistance, the transatlantic slave trade would not have been possible.

It was however the Anglo-Saxons and other West Europeans, who were the first abolitionists in the World, and were responsible for eliminating the practice in their colonies. This is an unprecedented historical development because the practice of slavery was common since the pre-historic times. And it all happened in the Western countries. From the eighteenth century onwards, various forms of bondage in the West began to be abolished. Serfdom, the guilds, noble titles and privileges…

The rest of the World was gradually assimilated to this development.