ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: Classical political economy and slavery
Author: Coutinho Mauricio
As a branch of moral philosophy, eighteenth century political economy frequently considered slavery, an ancient theme that pervaded ethics and jurisprudence of the times. Smith’s texts and lectures (LJ, TMS, WN) contain many passages on slavery, ancient and modern, in general critical to this regime. It might be said that economists, such as Turgot, Steuart, Smith, as Say later, added an ‘economic’ gist to the debates on slavery, asking how ‘economical’ slave labor was, in the sense of defraying its costs, or of being more or less advantageous than free labor. Of course, this last comparison presupposes there is an alternative: a country, a colony, or a territory, can either employ slave labor or free labor. However, seventeenth and eighteenth century historical evidence shows that the most significant slave labor experiences of modern times — tropical colonial plantation — admitted no alternative: as a general rule, slave labor swept aside free labor. Sugar-cane plantation was a representative case of the non-admittance of combined (free and slave labor) regimes. The paper aims at examining the passages on slave labor in the texts of decisive eighteenth century economists (or philosopher-economists), such as Hutcheson, Steuart, Smith, Millar. Special attention will be paid to the differences between the arguments directed at slave labor in general, and to modern — which means, colonial — slave labor. As a preliminary hypothesis, it will be checked to what extent the general arguments on slave labor which pervade the economists’ texts (its inferiority vis-Ã -vis free labor, its incompatibility with industrious and intelligent labor) are applicable to the effectively massive slave labor of the times, slave labor in colonial plantation. As a secondary hypothesis, it will be verified whether economic or functional arguments, such as scarcity of labor, incompatibility between white men’s labor and tropical conditions, were utilized as a soothing expedient; that is, slave labor was explained by, or even admissible under, very special conditions. The question that may be taken as a backdrop to the proposed review on slave labor in eighteenth century political economy is the following: are (and under which conditions) the economists general and plentiful arguments on slave labor applicable to the dire reality of contemporary African-origin slave labor?
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