Slavery in the British Empire and Its Legacy in the Modern World
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Slavery in the British Empire and Its Legacy in the Modern World
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.
Praise for Slavery in the British Empire
Adopting a much-needed class analysis, Cushion lays bare the human costs of ‘the business of slavery’. The book skilfully links the histories of capitalists and workers in Britain and the Caribbean, tracing the dynamics of profit-seeking and exploitation, resistance and solidarity, on both sides of the Atlantic. A lively and well-researched confrontation with Britain’s colonial past and its ongoing legacies.
A must-read for anyone wishing not only to understand empire but to change it! This fresh new look at slavery in the British Empire is coming at a very relevant and necessary time as it clearly showed how the business of slavery is deeply connected to the business of capital, providing an important contribution to the current debate on reparations for slavery and even the issue of climate change. Cushion has courageously placed a Marxist analysis as central to understanding the construction of the British Empire by particularly looking at the political economy of slavery. He takes the reader on a systematic historical journey through the form and content of the dialectic relationship between the systems of empire and slavery which gave rise to the emergence of industrial capitalism.
Highly topical and an important contribution to the study of slavery in the British Empire as well as addressing its long-term effects.
Possibly the closest we have to Eric Williams’s classic work Capitalism and Slavery, re-loaded for anti-racists and anti-imperialists in the twenty-first century…it deserves the widest possible readership.
Steve Cushion does not mince his words in this short, selective, and highly readable Marxist account. Documenting the history of some of slavery’s promoters, defenders, benefactors, and critics, he leaves little room for doubt as to the centrality of slavery in forging and financing British capitalism and empire.
Slavery in the British Empire will help to educate our international working-class movement… Progressive trade unions, political parties, movements and civil society organisations can use this book for political education programmes for working class people of the world—and a very good book for our struggles for Reparations.
