[Marxism] Muslim Vs Atlantic slave trade - comparative apocalyptics101

[S. Artesian]

Thanks very much to our bloke Cloke for the information on Muslim slavery. 
Couple of points-- while our bloke Cloke refers to the total numbers 
involved in the Islamic slave trade-- 17,000,000 stretching over 1300 years, 
when discussing the Atlantic slave trade he refers only to estimates of the 
numbers killed, which is then estimated at twice the 8 million lost in 
capture, transport, and landing, or 16 million, or the total numbers 
enslaved.  So 16 million killed, 16 million enslaved, sounds like more than 
17,000, 000 to me.  And despite his claims, he never discusses the impact of 
the trade on the sources of supply.  Would appreciate a reference to that, 
as the impact of the Atlantic slave trade on community and kinship in Africa 
has been analyzed.

And after that, Cloke glosses over with his usual scholastic imprecision 
that actual distinctions in the slavery practiced.  He tips his hat to the 
kinder gentler slavery of the domestic slaves in Maryland vs. the plantation 
slavery of ... anywhere.  Our bloke Cloke even intimates that slaves in 
Brazil had it better than slaves in the West Indies.  Shows how little Cloke 
knows about slavery in Brazil, which was, like that in the West Indies 
driven initially by sugar cane production-- and where mortality rates upon 
slaves were to put it simply, staggering.

But what our bloke Cloke never grasps, in any of his rumblings, is that the 
driver of the Atlantic slave trade was the commercial, plantation slavery, 
and that the domestic slavery was derivative, minor and inconsequential. 
What was of consequence was another thing our bloke Cloke cannot 
comprehend-- production.

[Parenthetical note: It's the same problem Cloke has in his argument about 
domestic laborers as workers.  Yes they are workers.  No, they are not 
reproducing capital.  Production, the organization of social labor, and the 
products of social labor, not to mention products of social labor 
encapsulated in specific property forms are simply beyond his 
understanding.]

And the drivers of the Islamic slave trade were-- well they were not 
centered on plantation production.  According to our bloke Cloke, the trade 
was "feminized," with slaves taken for concubinage, domestic service, 
military service, court officials, agricultural labors-- [and in certain 
limited circumstances, plantation type production did exist]-- but overall 
the organization of the trade, and the USE or consumption of slave labor in 
the Islamic world was fundamentally different than that practiced at then 
ends of the Atlantic trade.

I have not claimed that Islamic slavery was benevolent.  What was claimed 
was that the defeat of the Moors in Spain, Spain's consolidation under the 
houses of Castile and Aragon and Catholicism was a blow to human 
emancipation.  Certainly the history of Spain and the Church prove that. 
What was claimed that the defeat of the Ottomans in Austria and Hungary was 
also a setback.

I think both of those things precisely because the Atlantic slave trade, 
organized and conducted for commercial purposes, originating in the 
feudal/mercantile capital alliance that then fed the furnace of developing 
capitalism,-- that commercial plantation slavery would not have developed. 
Might have even hindered Britain's ability to penetrate the Americas and 
seize the Malvinas.



From: <J.M.P.Cloke at lboro.ac.uk>
To: <sartesian at earthlink.net>
Sent: Friday, May 01, 2009 11:39 AM
Subject: [Marxism] Muslim Vs Atlantic slave trade - comparative 
apocalyptics101