The term "residual" doesn't fit very well with slavery in North America, in that prior to its emergence, indigenous tribes knew nothing of the kind, nor did colonists succeed in imposing it on them though they tried; modern slavery wasn't an import from colonists' or slaves' homelands either. It seems more accurate to say that it was a _novel_ social formation in North America.
The emphasis of Brenner's argument falls upon the idea that modern slavery & its ideological offshoot racism were _contingent outcomes of multi-faceted class struggles_, fought in Africa as well as North America:
***** Having got rid of the small farmers, how was it possible for the merchants and planters to establish the plantation system for the production of sugar? The obvious answer: by buying slaves. Yet this only pushes the question back a step. Why were slaves available to be used? Before they could be bought, the slaves had to be 'produced'; more precisely, they had to appear on the market 'as commodities'. But this poses large questions, namely of the formation of class systems of 'production' and appropriation of slaves in Africa (or elsewhere). The point here is _not_ to enter into the debate concerning the degree to which the formation of such a structure marked the emergence of a new mode of production, or merely the adaptation and intensification of an already existing one. It is to argue that _its existence should in no way be assumed_; that _the needs of capitalism, or capitalists, are not in themselves enough to explain it_ [Yoshie: Note the importance of _opposition to functionalism_ that Brenner highlights here]. This is especially because class formation, or the intensification of exploitation, is generally an _outcome_ of class conflict, and this outcome itself needs to be accounted for.[100]
The Case of Colonial Virginia
The relevance of this question is clarified by the very great difficulty, if not impossibility, of enslaving the European settlers themselves in the colonial context. In Virginia, for example, the demand for tobacco from England and Europe set in train a demand by planters and merchants for increased output for export, and a consequently increasing pressure on the direct producers to increase their output. In this case, the direct producers for the planters and merchants were for the most part indentured servants, subject to work for their masters for a specified number of years before gaining their freedom. In this situation, the way to ensure and increase output was for the planters to intensify their servants' labour, extend their terms of service, and close off their access to land by engrossing it themselves. These processes were indeed set in motion. Yet actually to accomplish them required increasing class exploitation and oppression and, in return, class conflict. From the 1660s, the Virginia colony was wracked by class conflict, by a succession of conspiracies and revolts, set off by the resistance of servants and ex-servants to the oppression of the planters, and culminating in 1676 in Bacon's rebellion -- the greatest social conflict in the pre-revolutionary history of North America.[101] In fact, the planters were in the long run unsuccessful in either seriously depressing the condition of European servants or preventing them from getting land. The existence of a massive class of small tobacco farmers is a characteristic feature of Virginia's eighteenth-century social and political structure.[102] _Had the planters, therefore, depended upon the labour of the European colonists, it might have been impossible to construct plantations -- due to the results of class struggles in the South_. Of course, as it turned out, plantations did, in the long run, come to dominate Southern society -- but this was on the basis of slavery. _Had it not been for the outcome of processes of class formation and class conflict in Africa_, the development of Southern society, indeed society throughout the Western hemisphere, might have been very different. Capitalism, _in itself_, cannot account for it.
[100] See Walter Rodney, 'African Slavery and Other Forms of Social Oppression on the Upper Guinea Coast in the Context of the Atlantic Slave Trade', _Journal of African History_, VIII (1966), p. 434; A. G. Hopkins, _An Economic History of West Africa_, New York 1973, pp. 104, 106. Both of these authors naturally see the development and/or intensification of slavery as responsive to the world market, but they do not adequately explain the specific character of the processes of class formation and class conflict which made this response possible.
[101] Edmund S. Morgan, _American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia_. New York 1975, pp. 215-70 and passim; T. H. Breen, "A Changing Labor Force and Race Relations in Virginia 1660-1710', _Journal of Social History_, Fall 1973, pp. 3-25; Theodore Allen, '"They Would Have Destroyed Me": Slavery and the Origins of Racism,' _Radical America_, May-June 1975, pp. 41-64.
[102] See, e.g., Aubrey Land, "Economic Behavior in a Planting Society', _Journal of Southern History_, November 1967, pp. 473-5 and passim; Aubrey Land, "The Tobacco Staple and the Planter's Problems: Technology, Labor, and Crops', _Agricultural History_, January 1969, pp. 69-81.
(emphasis mine, Robert Brenner, "The Origins of Capitalist Development: a Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism," _New Left Review_ 104 (July-August 1977), pp. 88-89) *****
Yoshie
P.S. I've written a good deal on the subjects of Brenner's work, capitalism & slavery, etc. for the PEN-L & Marxmail lists; if anyone is curious as to what I posted on them, look into their archives: <http://csf.colorado.edu/pen-l/>; and <http://www.marxmail.org/>.