Were there economic incentives for this to happen? Was it a change in general perception, philosophy or thought? It seems like the best thing for the white males to do was to continue the enslavement of women and black people. Why all of the sudden white men acted against their own self interest?
Eugene:Were there economic incentives for this to happen? Was it a change in general perception, philosophy or thought? It seems like the best thing for the white males to do was to continue the enslavement of women and black people. Why all of the sudden white men acted against their own self interest?
Are you sure it was in their self interest to maintain slavery?
If you think not, then please explain why you think it was not.
Eugene: Were there economic incentives for this to happen? Was it a change in general perception, philosophy or thought? It seems like the best thing for the white males to do was to continue the enslavement of women and black people. Why all of the sudden white men acted against their own self interest?
I think the cheap supply of physical force that the invention of the steam engine brought about would have been a contributing factor. Similar to the way one would need less horses after the invention of the automobile.
Also as labour becomes more divided more specialized skills would be needed. Free people are more likely to develop highly specialized skills, in comparison to slaves. It might be more adventageous to buy the highly skilled labour of a free man, then to steal the free labour of a slave.
EDIT: Of course there is no such thing as a free lunch! The 'free labour' of a slave is not actually free since it would require some costly inputs. If slaves started to become more rebelious due to a change in mind state, costs of keeping them enslaved would increase. Also a change in mind state could bring increased emotional/psychological costs.
Suprisingly, slaves are also a lot less productive than free people.
White women were never slaves. Like others said, however, it's costly to maintain slavery. People would have to be superhumanly careful if they wanted to successfully start enslaving other people without a government to protect the slaveowners.
A lot of the tariff revenues were collected so U.S. agents could supress insurrections by slaves.
If you mean women as a separate group from black people, when were they ever shackled? Assuming that women are in a different category from blacks and that you think both were slaves, in a country built on freedom, ideas like slavery won't last long.
Slavery was an institution that'd been in all throughout history, and I consider freedom an intellectual evolution of sorts. Basically, hypocrisy showed itself, for how can God create free men while one free man enslaves another? You can't have that reality and consider it freedom.
The bad part about the Civil Rights movement is its influence by communism and, specifically, Marxism. The blacks, feminists, muslims and fags all jumped on the bandwagon with their inferiority complexes and attempted to liberate themselves by stealing others' property.
It was a change in perception. When people get economic freedom, they don't feel like putting up with social oppression any more. The activists follow the liberation, not the other way around.
Since women rights movement was closely tied to abolitionism I grouped them together. In both cases there were oppressed populations who received their freedom.
To sum up your answers, there are several possible reasons for the ending of these oppressions.
1. Christian religion - "All men are created equal"
2. Slaves were expensive
3. Perception changed because of economic freedom
But I'm still wondering why this happened, it still seems to me that slaves were economically beneficial to the slave owner. Perhaps people became wealthy enough to start thinking about the welfare of others? This will also explain the recent campaigns for animal rights, global warming, African poverty and diseases and so on. Perhaps this has little to do with economic reality but it was just simple empathy?
Eugene:But I'm still wondering why this happened, it still seems to me that slaves were economically beneficial to the slave owner. Perhaps people became wealthy enough to start thinking about the welfare of others? This will also explain the recent campaigns for animal rights, global warming, African poverty and diseases and so on. Perhaps this has little to do with economic reality but it was just simple empathy?
Kind of. It's really just about marginal utility. Markets made us so rich that the economic gains from being a slaveholder no longer outweighed the emotional costs. Same with treating women like cattle. Imagine it was legally and socially acceptable to hold a slave. Would you want to? It would be kind of fun to have someone to do your dishes, but I imagine you would decline because you don't want to be the kind of person who locks another person up in his basement.
Eugene:But I'm still wondering why this happened, it still seems to me that slaves were economically beneficial to the slave owner.
I can't figure out if this is an answer to my question or not.
Why is it so difficult to just offer an answer? Freedom4Me73986 just asks another question. You on the other hand seem to basically do the same thing, just in the form of a statement.
John James: Eugene:But I'm still wondering why this happened, it still seems to me that slaves were economically beneficial to the slave owner. I can't figure out if this is an answer to my question or not. Why is it so difficult to just offer an answer? Freedom4Me73986 just asks another question. You on the other hand seem to basically do the same thing, just in the form of a statement.
Lots of people on here do that, John James. They're afraid to commit to answering anything for fear of either being wrong or receiving criticism. I've had arguments with relativists who claim that 2+2=5. If they can argue a deductive, indubitable fact such as 2+2=4, then they can argue against anything. I don't mind the minions every now and then, but I just can't take the discourse seriously; otherwise you're asking for non-stop anger LOLz.
John James: Eugene:Were there economic incentives for this to happen? Was it a change in general perception, philosophy or thought? It seems like the best thing for the white males to do was to continue the enslavement of women and black people. Why all of the sudden white men acted against their own self interest? Are you sure it was in their self interest to maintain slavery?
I would argue it was in the interest of those keeping slaves to have them at least in earlier times. Consider two tribes in warfare, one defeats the other, there may have been a time when they would have just slaughtered every person in the other tribe(Playing one of the games made me think of this because they made slavery a discoverable technology, made me think well what did they do with the defeated before they invented slavery). Compared to the practise of mass slaughter the keeping of slaves would have been both merciful, thus beneficial to the side having lives spared and also the tribe gaining slaves.
However as I said previously I think the use of the engine would have rendered slaves less valuable, in the same way they make using horses obsolete.
There is an awesome podcast on the history of slavery that I also think would help you in your journey to understand the economics behind it.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addicted to Bondage
It us't to be available for free on iTunes but he seems to have made it pay to listen now. If I can find it some where for free on the net I will re-post it.