@James84Tony @wehrkatzer @EHBEA1 Nothing wrong with "whatabout". The world is a big complex thing. Whatabouts are a way of expanding perspective. And on a per annum basis, sure. But those people would have been slaves anyway, and wouldn't have the legal protections slaves in the americas had.
@James84Tony @wehrkatzer @EHBEA1 The inelasticity of supply shows that quite well; the supply of slaves did not grow to meet demand. More were simply exported. This probably helped non-slaves in Africa who now had more land due to depopulation, and the slaves got to go to the US or Brazil instead of the mideast
@James84Tony @wehrkatzer @EHBEA1 ... or most likely staying in Africa which is where most black slaves ended up even during the atlantic slave trade.
@James84Tony @wehrkatzer @EHBEA1 Also, what does that have to do with colonialism making countries richer? Whites in the CSA were poorer than whites in Union states, Brazil whites even poorer. The north's AGRICULTURE was more valuable than southern AGRICULTURE. King cotton is a myth.
@James84Tony @wehrkatzer @EHBEA1 Did Russia become wealthy through Serfdom? Did Russia become wealthy by taking over central asia or the caucasus? No, these were money pits, just as India was for the UK. And when the UK and France were cash-strapped after WW2, they cut their losses.
@James84Tony @wehrkatzer @EHBEA1 You're missing the point of these territories: they were military-strategic assets. Critical materials for war. That's why Japan invaded SE Asia, to be self-sufficient. But in peacetime they don't benefit b/c you're still paying for anything that's produced in "your colony".
@James84Tony @wehrkatzer @EHBEA1 The only regions that the Anglosphere did benefit from was control of areas so sparsely populated that white people could become a supermajority in without having to genocide the natives. Africa, all of Asia, S. America were too densely populated.
