[thinkpad20]

> If slavery makes a country rich, why isn't Africa rich?

I never made the claim that any country can become rich simply by having slavery. The question of why the West is so much richer than e.g. Africa or Brazil is obviously vastly complex and does not boil down to "because of slavery." But whether or not the American South was richer than the North at the time of the civil war, it certainly very very wealthy, and slavery was instrumental in this.[0] I don't think this is really controversial.

> Native Americans had slaves:

The existence of slavery in these or other societies does not in any way absolve the US from its past in this regard. Pointing an accusatory finger at some Native Americans who enslaved prisoners of war and the like, in contrast to a vast and extremely profitable business empire built on systematic enslavement, which has had ripple effects of racism on individuals and communities since, seems incredibly tone-deaf. Even more so when you consider that we killed the Native Americans by the literal millions.

[0]: https://www.history.com/news/slavery-profitable-southern-eco...

[simonsarris]

I'm not trying to point accusatory fingers anywhere, you're missing the claim. You made the claim that USA success was the direct result of slave labor. If this were true, you would expect other societies with boatloads of slave labor to be more successful. They weren't.

Since lots of places had lots of unpaid labor and did nothing particularly successful, there must be more to it. If there is more to it, it is (usually) evidence that the USA would have been successful without slave labor.

[thinkpad20]

Perhaps my choice of the term "direct" is overly specific, but I feel like this is a very nit-picky quibble. The underlying point I was trying to make doesn't change, which is that the United States benefited hugely (in purely economic terms) from slavery. Whether or not we would have been as, less, or more successful without it, or whether it has been helpful to others, is an orthogonal discussion. As I said, I am not making the claim, and never intended to, that slavery was the only cause of American prosperity. If this is the primary dispute you have with what I said, I readily accept the correction and we can move on.

However, if your intention is to dispute the claim that slavery was immensely beneficial to the development of the American economy, or to suggest that the morality of American slavery was somehow mitigated by other historical examples of slavery, I strongly disagree. I think in general this mentality is incredibly disrespectful. Acknowledging the role played in our success by the (unwilling) sacrifice made by millions of slaves and Native Americans is the very least that we can do.