On Thu, 6 Jun 2002, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> A usual smorgasbord of liberal blood-letting. Slavery has been one of
> the key pre-modern institutions, widely spread in the Middle East and
> Africa well before American took advantage of it. It was curbed by the
> European powers
Ahem.
> and later the influence of Soviet communism - but in the post-cold war
> era marked by the return to localism and tribalism, even this
> traditional institution crawled from under its rock.
Wojtek, if you want to look at this von Urschlim bis Gegenwarts, you are leaving out a pretty important part of the story, namely how slavery, a diminishing institution, suddenly increased in extent and intensity by many powers of ten under the influence of said European powers, when thoroughly modern markets gave it new uses on vast new scales, utilizing new relations of production and transport.
The idea that markets might metastasize slavery to a whole new level is thus not a new one. It has indisputably happened before. Political developments undoubtedly play a role as well. But nothing in Diane's analysis contradicts that. She is simply analyzing the dynamics of demand and distribution rather than supply.
Michael