TEHRAN(Bazaar) – “Not Made by Slaves: Ethical Capitalism in the Age of Abolition” is a book written by Bronwen Everill and published by Harvard University Press.
Professor Bronwen Everill examines how abolitionists from Europe to the United States to West Africa used new ideas of supply and demand, consumer credit, and branding to shape an argument for ethical capitalism.
Everill focuses on the everyday economy of the Atlantic world. Antislavery affected business operations, as companies in West Africa, including the British firm Macaulay & Babington and the American partnership of Brown & Ives, developed new tactics in order to make “legitimate” commerce pay.
Everill explores how the dilemmas of conducting ethical commerce reshaped the larger moral discourse surrounding production and consumption, influencing how slavery and freedom came to be defined in the market economy. But ethical commerce was not without its ironies; the search for supplies of goods “not made by slaves”—including East India sugar—expanded the reach of colonial empires in the relentless pursuit of cheap but “free” labor.
“Not Made by Slaves” illuminates the early years of global consumer society, while placing the politics of antislavery firmly in the history of capitalism. It is also a stark reminder that the struggle to ensure fair trade and labor conditions continues.
Following is the Bazaar interview with Professor Bronwen Everill about this book:
*What has been your main question in this book?
My main interest in writing “Not Made By Slaves: Ethical Capitalism in the Age of Abolition” was to explore the ways that international commerce, especially with West Africa, helped to shape ideas about the norms and ethical values that would govern - or justify - nineteenth century capitalism.
To do this, I looked at several US, British, and French companies engaged with West African businesses and merchants after the end of the legal Atlantic slave trade. These firms had ideas about new types of trade that could replace the slave trade, and the business interactions between West African merchants and consumers and European and American traders formed the heart of my research.
*What Hypothesis did you use to answer this question? What is your central argument?
The book's central argument is that the desire of anti-slavery activists to use the market to correct the morality of international commerce ultimately relied on convincing consumers that 'ethical' purchasing of goods produced by free, rather than enslaved, would be in their interest. They hoped to enlighten people about the role of slavery in the global supply chain, and change their purchasing behaviour, which would have the effect of shifting consumer demand away from goods produced with enslaved labour to goods produced by free labour. But by looking at how these abolitionists - and the ethical businesses they created - engaged with commerce in West Africa, as well as in other parts of their growing empires, it becomes clear that relying on home consumer markets to change labour and production practices led to other ethical problems in the conduct of their businesses, and increasingly in their understanding of what constituted ethical labour relations.
*What was the necessity of writing this book?
I think the book's argument is important and timely because many of the same approaches are used in modern ethical capitalism, whether in the Fair Trade Movement or amongst those fighting climate change. Activists hope that consumer awareness about unfair labour conditions or about the impact of their purchases on other people in the global supply chain will encourage people to demand alternatives that reflect their moral position on these issues. But the example of the nineteenth century shows that simply relying on more ethical consumer demand cannot fully create an ethical capitalism that benefits everyone.
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