(^120) THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS
torians have tried to calculate the gains from slaving and find it far
from a bonanza. Some voyages did prove extremely profitable; others
were a dead loss, including the ship. One estimate gives the rate of
return as comparable to that in other trades, averaging less than 10 per
cent. Variance (risk) was greater, but this was presumably encourage
ment as well as discouragement.^17 Not everyone would agree. One
critic finds this 10 percent figure low because it counts too few slaves
transported and prices them down by more than a quarter.^18 Even so,
these gains were simply not big enough in total, let alone that part that
went back into trade and industry, to alter the path of British devel
opment. As the same critic recognizes.
But the slave trade was only part of a larger complex—what used to
be known as the triangular trade(s) and is now called the Atiantic sys
tem. Slave labor made high-intensity sugar cultivation and refining
possible. The sugar (and such derivatives as rum and molasses) gener
ated in turn its own profits, nourishing both planters and the mer
chants who sold the sugar and financed the plantations, while
providing tea and coffee drinkers and other caffeine addicts with the il
lusion of nourishment.^19 The planters in turn bought food for them
selves and their slaves (because they were unwilling to sacrifice to food
cropland that could be used for cane). Some of this food came from
Europe; an increasing proportion from the settler colonies of North
America. They also bought manufactures: cheap cotton textiles and
high-fashion silks; copper vessels for boiling shed and still; iron, nails,
guns; and machines and parts for the mill. Meanwhile British produc
ers were turning out trade goods to exchange for slaves in Africa. All
of this was a whole, and slavery a crucial part. The effect was to stim
ulate both agriculture and industry, increase wages and incomes in
Britain, promote the division of labor, and encourage the invention of
labor-saving devices.^20
From this holistic perspective one does not have to rest the argument
(for the importance of slavery to industrialization) on the profits (not
nearly so great as popularly believed) and spending of those who
bought, sold, and used slaves. To be sure, much of this money did ac
crue to Britain, and some of it found its way indirectly into manufac
turing. Yet it constituted a minor addition to industrial capital.
Absentee planters tended to put their fortunes into land, status, and
country living. (Their incomes also suffered badly by their absence
from production and management.) Merchants were another matter,
and some of them did invest in industry; but they were the exception
among merchants and more so among industrialists.
nora
(Nora)
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