Angela Davis on Capitalism and Slavery
It was exactly 20 years ago that Dr. Angela Davis addressed a rapt audience at the 5th Annual Eric Williams Memorial Lecture held at Florida International University in Miami where the series began. Her talk then? An indictment on ‘Slavery and the Prison Industrial Complex’.
Dr. Davis, the renowned political activist, scholar, writer, and former Black Panther member during the turbulent 1960s fighting for Black Liberation, once again stood at the dais for this year’s Memorial Lecture at its new home, the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies at the University of Texas, Austin. This time taking on capitalists’ greed built on the back of Slavery.
The lecture series honors the legendary Dr. Eric Williams who became the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago and led the twin-island republic to independence. His groundbreaking 1944 study, ‘Capitalism and Slavery’, underscored the link between capitalism and the trans-Atlantic slave trade that developed the fortunes of Britain and the United States. It is this seminal work that Davis used as the foundation for her arguments that laid out the principles of greed and dominance these so-called first world countries utilized for power and position.
“There have been changes in the way we think about and engage and study about and organize around the numerous issues related to slavery and its afterlives. Those of us who were collective pioneers, who were scholar activists, who sought new ways of thinking about an issue that appeared to be so massive and at the same time so little recognized, were absolutely inspired by the brilliant book published in 1944 by Eric E. Williams entitled Capitalism and Slavery”, Davis acknowledged.
The Distinguished Professor Emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz educated her audience on the importance of Williams’ structural analysis of slavery.
She noted that the overall project of Williams ’work was to disprove the widespread assumption that the system of slavery was abolished by the British because of their humanitarian proclivities. In other words, Davis remarked, they suddenly became aware of the fact that slavery was morally wrong, and they quite rapidly moved to correct this infamy. Thus, the primary reason slavery no longer exists, at least in the part of the world affected by the British slave trade, is because people like William Wilberforce moved to write a moral wrong, said Davis with a knowing look of incredulity.
THE REAL REASON
“Eric Williams argued that the real reason slavery was abolished was that it was no longer of service to capitalism as it had been during earlier periods where it played a crucial role in what Marx called primitive accumulation… Capitalism does not allow you to come to the market empty-handed. You have to start with something, and that something was provided in large part by the violence and the rampages and the pillaging that was related to slavery,” the professor said damningly.
What is interesting, said Davis, is major British publishers refusal to publish ‘Capitalism and Slavery’ in 1944 when it was printed in the United States. It did, however, have a limited print run by an independent publisher in the 1960s. But, it wasn’t until 2022, almost a century later, that the work was made available as a
major mass market edition by Penguin Random House in England, and it became an immediate bestseller. The world was not ready for the truth back in the mid 20th century, but in today’s environment of structural racism, Eric Williams’ truths resonates. Davis’ question evoked the images and emotions around that ugly reality.
“How it is that both in this country and in many other parts of the world we have come to collectively acknowledge the presence of racism especially after a period in which there were attempts to persuade us that racism either no longer existed or that it was on its way to being deposited in the dustbin of history,” the professor asked.
Davis warned of becoming separated from history, from the truth that has created a capitalist system that oppresses. She stressed that those who live in this country (US) are the targets of an ideologically enforced historical amnesia. We are not encouraged to believe that history matters. And we certainly usually fail to perceive the degree to which we and our actions and our ideas are products of history.
She added: We are not encouraged to think about what came before capitalism and we certainly don't like to think about the processes that are responsible for the massive amounts of wealth that remains in hands that are disproportionately white and those who are relegated to poverty are disproportionately black and brown.
Williams makes us understand, through ‘Capitalism and Slavery’, exactly why history matters, Davis emphasized. it teaches us the humility of recognizing the power of socio economic forces. It implies that if we want to produce meaningful change, we have to understand those forces and we have to collectively figure out how to make them work in our favor, as opposed to simply capitulating to them, or acting as if they did not exist.
Indeed, the rising popularity of ‘Capitalism and Slavery ’in Europe is an indication of the degree to which people are recognising that we cannot escape the forces of history. And some of us are recognizing that what should have happened in this part of the world over a century ago, must begin to happen now If we ever want to extricate ourselves from the throes of racial capitalism, said Davis.
She urged the audience to read the works of other revolutionary intellectuals such as CLR James and Walter Rodney to fully understand the impact of power and capitalism and ways to protect ourselves.
“All of these works shape your powers of understanding the contemporary world we inhabit and more importantly, how to imagine and move along a trajectory of planetary freedom not only for humans, but for all who inhabit this very tiny speck of the universe,” said the lifetime activist.
